Did anyone upgrade from a 2010 (or 2011) iMac WITH SDD? And if that upgrade contains the fusion drive, I'd love to know your thoughts on how it compares??
Thanks so much. I've been a touch hesitant bc I have 2010 with 256ssd, but it seems that fusion 128 with 3tb is faster, ESP with processor upgrade.
Thanks so much. I've been a touch hesitant bc I have 2010 with 256ssd, but it seems that fusion 128 with 3tb is faster, ESP with processor upgrade.
http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.se/2012/10/blacx-5g-usb-30-update-fastest-usb-30.html
I doubt the Fusion comes up to those speeds.
Well, I wouldn't want to run an OS through a USB interface. And those benchmarks are sequential write/read. What do the benchmarks look like with random write/read, where SSD's really shine?
And why wouldn't you want to do that?
Because I believe that random write/read with USB3 is pretty slow compared to SATA interface. Thunderbolt is most likely a much better option although according to other threads even Thunderbolt seems to be a bottleneck sometime.
An internal SATA connection is always going to give you the best random read and write speeds, wish is the most important thing when it comes to speeding up the OS.
It's possible to hit 500MB/s sequential read/write with a couple of HDDs in a raid-array too but your OS would still run slow on it.
Comparing speed with Black Magic Disk Speed Test is somewhat like the Mega-pixel race in digital cameras.
I upgraded from a 2011 i7 3.4 iMac with 256GB SSD (apple BTO), 2TB HD, 2GB GPU and 12GB ram to the iMac in my sig. My impression is that the fusion drive seems much faster, I think this may be a combination of faster SATA speeds (III vs II) as I noticed the fusion drives negotiate at the full sata speed compared to half that for the 2011 iMac and faster hard drives used in the 2012 iMac (the seagate drive is one of the fastest). Add to that a better Gfx card and it was a no brainier for me to upgrade.
People going for refurbs might want to consider the above sata speeds before buying
http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.se/2012/10/blacx-5g-usb-30-update-fastest-usb-30.html
I doubt the Fusion comes up to those speeds. On top of that, this external solution will be cheaper, easier to upgrade if you so wish, and if you need to send your iMac on repairs, the OS X and all your applications will be on the external SSD which you, of course, leave at home - thus making it possible to return to where you left off immediately when you get the iMac back, regardless if they have rebooted your iMac or not.
The 2011 imac is SATA III not II. I have just installed a 512 Vertex 4 in my 2011 imac and I'm getting 400MB/s write and 460MB/s read speeds using the Blackmagic disk speed test.
Would you be able to run the BM speed test on your 2012 imac for comparison.
Thanks
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while the 2011 iMac may have a sata III interface, a BTO/refurb 2011 iMac is supplied with a SATAII SSD drive from apple and therefore negotiates and runs at SATAII speeds. Sure you can add a third party SATA III SSD like yours but unless you get an apple authorised dealer to do it (additional cost) you blow your warranty/applecare.....
Wow, that is astounding and to think the 512 bto SSD would have cost $1300, now I'm even more chuffed than I was earlier. The raw speeds don't really tell a lot because some drives are better in tougher conditions, but might be slower moving smaller blocks.
But while I was mesmerised by the possibility of creating a fusion drive simply because I could, I nevertheless began to be bothered by the complete lack of control. For example I want my 60GB of global scenery on the SSD, I don't want to have to keep loading the same piece enough times so that the SSD will deem it worthy of moving to the more salubrious accommodation of The SSD Hilton. Then do it all over again because the world is wide.
Bollox to that I say. I think having a paltry 128SSD fused, is a bit of a backward step. As it is now, I still have a spare 300GB of SSD ready to accept anything that takes my fancy in the future. Having a 4GB 'landing strip', just seems annoying, then there's all this chugging going on behind the scenes.
It seems like you might access a file a few times then once it's migrated over to the SSD you might not use it again. The more I thought about it the worse the whole concept seemed.
Considering the 2011 imac lower bto was a 256 SSD nearly two years ago, 128 seems a little bit sad. Unless you go for the expensive 768 and eschew a big HDD.
What you could do is you could make a bootable clone of your fusion drive then you could, if you wanted to unfuse it and reload the OS on the SSD then use the cool OWC method to point to your home folder. Then you could check it out and easily simply re-fuse the drives and clone the copy back over.
EDiT:
I think the iMacs should have 512 or minimum of 256GB SSD fusion drives and the 'landing strip' on the SSD should be 32GB not 4GB, then I could understand it.
That looks great but unfortunately only the 2012 iMac has USB 3.0
I am sort of in the same boat as the OP: which is to either get a refurbished 2011, and get an external SSD or new 2012 with Fusion. Seems like new with Fusion is the best option right now, but we'll see...