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The 768GB Flash Storage $1300 club

M

Mike Valmike

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2012
551
0
Chandler, Arizona
So, assuming I'm going to have someone competent/credentialed do all the installing... is it possible to buy, say from OWC, the MBP 512GB or 768GB blade SSD, and an off-the-shelf 4TB SATA HDD, then just order up the 1TB Fusion iMac and swap both drives to get a 4.5/4.7TB Fusion? (I know I'll have to reformat and reinstall etc).

I have a 6TB RAID currently used for ~3.5TB of media archiving so that could become my Time Machine backup. Curious as to whether this will work.
 
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bill phillips

macrumors regular
Dec 8, 2012
221
0
hfg said:
For those who have received their 768GB SSD iMacs ...

What does "Get Info" report as the size of the drive?

I understand the issues of drive size reporting regarding formatted/unformatted and the 1000/1024 calculation marketing. Just curious how the Apple "Get Info" is calculating the reported size ... 768GB or 750.42GB? :)


Thanks
Click to expand...

i got 750.42 on mine
 
itsamacthing

itsamacthing

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2011
895
514
Bangkok
Changed my Order from 3TB Fusion

I just couldn't stop wrestling with myself over this ... so I just changed my order to 768 Flash. lol

----------

So now, the question I have is when are we going to open it up and throw in a 3TB HDD :D
 
philipma1957

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,367
251
Howell, New Jersey
Mike Valmike said:
So, assuming I'm going to have someone competent/credentialed do all the installing... is it possible to buy, say from OWC, the MBP 512GB or 768GB blade SSD, and an off-the-shelf 4TB SATA HDD, then just order up the 1TB Fusion iMac and swap both drives to get a 4.5/4.7TB Fusion? (I know I'll have to reformat and reinstall etc).

I have a 6TB RAID currently used for ~3.5TB of media archiving so that could become my Time Machine backup. Curious as to whether this will work.
Click to expand...

YES this could work. would be nice gear. i have a 1.5tb diy fusion quad 2.3 2012 mac mini.

500gb ssd and stock 1tb hdd works nice.
 
W

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,924
3,800
Seattle
jupzup said:
I've got the 768GB SSD cause i hate spinning drives on the desk so i can hear it. Second reason is the better support by bootcamp. Yes the price is crazy but for me the right choice.
Click to expand...

For those wondering, I have the Seagate 1TB 7200rpm in my 2012iMac, and am booting off an external Thunderbolt SSD for the same reason. THAT said, the hard drive in the iMac is absolutely silent. I hear a tiny, tiny boot-up sound, and even then I have to be specifically listening out for it. It's kind of unbelievable, and once it's running I can't hear it at any point.

So, if noise is an issue, there's no issue!
 
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beeinformed

macrumors 6502
Jun 30, 2010
369
6
WilliamG said:
For those wondering, I have the Seagate 1TB 7200rpm in my 2012iMac, and am booting off an external Thunderbolt SSD for the same reason. THAT said, the hard drive in the iMac is absolutely silent. I hear a tiny, tiny boot-up sound, and even then I have to be specifically listening out for it. It's kind of unbelievable, and once it's running I can't hear it at any point.

So, if noise is an issue, there's no issue!
Click to expand...

What external Thunderbolt SSD are you using?
 
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WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,924
3,800
Seattle
beeinformed said:
What external Thunderbolt SSD are you using?
Click to expand...

I'm using a Samsung 830 256GB in a Seagate Backup Plus. No issues at all. Sleep, awake, stability = good. Been using it about 5 weeks now. Speeds are 365Mb/s read, 325MB/s write. Not as fast as internal, but I can't even tell the difference in normal use compared to my old OCZ Vertex 120GB (~225MB/s read, 195MB/s write). :D

Benchmarks are silly for SSDs, really...
 
RPhoto

RPhoto

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2010
1,113
2,260
Surrey, UK
My iMac arrived a few days ago. Absolutely no regrets with getting the 768. The machine is lightening fast, couldn't be more happy with it!
 
itsamacthing

itsamacthing

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2011
895
514
Bangkok
My 768GB of Flash just shipped, and OOO, and can you believe they threw in a 27inch LCD and a CPU along with it! Can't beat that Apple service!!! :p
 
iMcLovin

iMcLovin

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2009
1,963
898
itsamacthing said:
My 768GB of Flash just shipped, and OOO, and can you believe they threw in a 27inch LCD and a CPU along with it! Can't beat that Apple service!!! :p
Click to expand...

??? You can only buy 768 flash with the 27" . So you actually got what you paid for??? That's service :D

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Richard Peters said:
My iMac arrived a few days ago. Absolutely no regrets with getting the 768. The machine is lightening fast, couldn't be more happy with it!
Click to expand...

I agree it's the best decision I made in a long time. It costs but its so worth it.
 
itsamacthing

itsamacthing

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2011
895
514
Bangkok
Have 2 2TB WD Red drives on the way to my office now, will put them into my OWC Guardian Maximus and run RAID 0, (150-200 r/w) and there you go. Nothing but speed! No compromises - life is too short. DHL iMac coming, will arrive on the 6th. Coming from Shanghai

Update: The Guardian Maximus that I bought 6 months ago had older firmware that was not USB3 compatible. So my entire Saturday was spent working on this. Updater only runs from Windows XP 32bit with .net frame work and C++ 2005 and 2008 runtime and SP3 and lots of updates. Basically all day... After getting windows xp installed, I got the firmware updated.

So if any of you who got the 768 Flash drive and are looking for a storage solution... with the Guardian Maximus, if you have one already..make sure you have the latest drivers... call OWC, or it will not work with USB3. I think the new ones ship with the current firmware.

Results:

With WD Red drives in raid 0, i'm getting 180 write and 185 read. In Raid 1, 134 write and 140 read.

Very affordable solution, the drives were 125$ each and the GM is 115$ empty. 375$ for some speedy 2TB of storage!

I might go ahead and leave it in Raid 1, don't think the performance gain is worth not having a mirror. iTunes and whatever little stuff will run just fine... certainly better than the 25 read and write I was getting over USB2 with old 1TB Green drives.

Hope that helps someone looking to add some storage
 
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A

animatedude

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 27, 2010
1,143
88
wow i just found out that Apple slashed the price of the 768 GB option from $1300 to $900!

wow! how come no Apple related website reported this yet?!
 
A

AidenL

macrumors 6502
Jan 19, 2013
445
222
Ireland
I'm torn on this now too.

I had to cancel my January order for various reasons, and I just reordered before the price drop , but went with the 3 Tb Fusion.

I really wonder is it a good long term, 3-5 year investment to go for the SSD.
 
xgman

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
WilliamG said:
I'm using a Samsung 830 256GB in a Seagate Backup Plus. No issues at all. Sleep, awake, stability = good. Been using it about 5 weeks now. Speeds are 365Mb/s read, 325MB/s write. Not as fast as internal, but I can't even tell the difference in normal use compared to my old OCZ Vertex 120GB (~225MB/s read, 195MB/s write). :D

Benchmarks are silly for SSDs, really...
Click to expand...


Oddly enough, my first 27" fusion drive benched a bit faster than the identically equipped 768ssd. I'm assuming the chips on the smaller SSD are probably of a faster batch and the bench probably just stayed on the ssd part of the fusion volume. I also have a Samsung 840 pro 512 in a TB enclosure and that benches a bit behind the 768.
 
W

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,924
3,800
Seattle
xgman said:
Oddly enough, my first 27" fusion drive benched a bit faster than the identically equipped 768ssd. I'm assuming the chips on the smaller SSD are probably of a faster batch and the bench probably just stayed on the ssd part of the fusion volume. I also have a Samsung 840 pro 512 in a TB enclosure and that benches a bit behind the 768.
Click to expand...

They're probably all pretty close, really, since the fusion and 768GB SSD are Samsung 830-based parts from what I gather.
 
A

AidenL

macrumors 6502
Jan 19, 2013
445
222
Ireland
Ok, after a lot of reading,and reading and filtering all through the many threads on SSD versus Fusion, I just jumped in to this Club today.:D

27-inch iMac

Configuration

3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)
Apple Battery Charger
768GB Flash Storage

Accessory Kit
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5
Apple Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad

I had to cancel my original February order, and then re-ordered again a week ago on a 3Tb Fusion, but I had a nagging feeling I should have went all SSD, so third time lucky for me !

Ordered Applecare from an ebay seller with 100% feedback, next on my list will be the LaCie SSD 1 Tb Little Big Disk for backup.:eek:

Its a big cost, but I hope I'll get three good years out of it before I upgrade again :D:apple::cool:
 
Steve121178

Steve121178

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,402
6,955
Bedfordshire, UK
AidenL said:
I'm torn on this now too.

I had to cancel my January order for various reasons, and I just reordered before the price drop , but went with the 3 Tb Fusion.

I really wonder is it a good long term, 3-5 year investment to go for the SSD.
Click to expand...

You could buy a NAS for a fraction of the cost of the 768GB SDD. Plus a decent NAS will allow you to do far, far more than just store data.
 
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