Apple's New Fusion Drive Works on Older Macs

[omgwut]

Does anyone know if dualbooting Windows OS would reap the benefits of a Fusion Drive like OSX does? I mean would it be able to recognize the dual volumes as one and use them in a similar fashion, or is this just something that is managed by OSX on a software level?

If not, I assume Windows OS would just see the SSD and HDD as two seperate mounted volumes then, right?

[Rocketman]

It appears the newest low end iMac and Mac-Mini don't have internal SSD support. Please correct me if wrong. So while you can add things to the sata bus there is not a seamless internal solution on even two of the newest low end macs.

[milbournosphere]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

Completely wrong.

My apologies. The name seems to be causing some confusion. The software being called Fusion Drive...it sounds snazzy but it implies that the drive is doing the work, which we both agree it is not. It does not, however, make the article title misleading, as that's what Apple chose to call the tech. It's just a bad name; the title states that Fusion Drive works on old mac, and the article appears to confirm that. Silly semantics...moving on.

[Cory Bauer]

If I could order a stock $799 Mac mini, purchase a 128GB Samsung 830 SSD for $89 (Newegg pricing), and then assemble my own fusion drive - that would be fantastic. Sounds like that may be doable?

[G4DP]

Wow, so a fancy version of MS ReadyBoost.

[randomnut]

Those seeking to compare this fusion drive to hybrid drives on the market are mostly wasting their time. The current drives will copy heavily accessed data into flash where as these 'fusion' drives are completely different beasts, which work at block level -moving- accessed blocks into flash thereby not duplicating data and providing extra space.

We've been using this technology in high end SANs for some time now (fluid data/flash cache and a variety of other names) but I'm glad Apple went with this method rather than standard hybrid drives, it is so much better.

[treichert]

Originally Posted by G4DP

Wow, so a fancy version of MS ReadyBoost.

Do you have any idea how ReadyBoost is supposed to work and what it can actually achieve?

[milbournosphere]

Originally Posted by omgwut

Does anyone know if dualbooting Windows OS would reap the benefits of a Fusion Drive like OSX does?

It would appear that you can throw an extra partition on the drive, but it will not benefit from the file-tiered system:

Can I add a partition to the hard disk with Fusion Drive?
Using Disk Utility, you can add one partition to the hard disk on Fusion Drive. Once you add the partition, the "plus" symbol in Disk Utility to add additional partitions will be grayed out. You cannot partition the Flash storage.

If I create a hard disk partition is it part of Fusion Drive?
The additional partition is not part of Fusion Drive. The new partition is a separate volume that is physically located on the hard disk drive.

Can I add a Windows partition?
You can create one additional partition on the hard disk with Fusion Drive. You can create either a Mac OS X partition or a Windows partition.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446?v...S&locale=en_US

[tipp]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

That's what I was going to say. Misleading article title is misleading. It's the software that works on other Macs, not the drive itself.

Originally Posted by milbournosphere

Perhaps I misunderstood your comment, you seemed to be implying that it was the drive doing the work. Sorry if I read your comment wrong.

Originally Posted by Intarweb

Completely wrong.

Actually, I read and still read your comment the same way as milbournosphere. You said the article title is misleading, but I think you're misunderstanding what the article and milbournosphere are saying. The results of this test make it seem likely that Apple's Fusion Drive isn't a physical drive at all, but is OS level software. If correct, there is no physical Fusion "drive itself" that would need to work on older Macs, because Fusion Drive is software, not hardware, thus the article title isn't misleading.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by rkahl

Mac Developer - aka - he paid the $99 for Mac Developer Program.

The "Terminal" utility and the diskutil program ships with every single copy of Mac OS X. There is not "Mac Developer Program" aspect here at all. Only knowing how to use the tools have access to. OS X is not the Finder. Being aware of that is the only major prerequisite required here.

[Intarweb]

Originally Posted by tipp

Actually, I read and still read your comment the same way as milbournosphere. You said the article title is misleading, but I think you're misunderstanding what the article and milbournosphere are saying. The results of this test make it seem likely that Apple's Fusion Drive isn't a physical drive at all, but is OS level software. If correct, there is no physical Fusion "drive itself" that would need to work on older Macs, because Fusion Drive is software, not hardware, thus the article title isn't misleading.

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

[mdelvecchio]

Originally Posted by q64ceo

Correct me if I am wrong, but isnt the Fusion drive just some RAID'ed drive?

ok. you're wrong. it isn't just some RAID. we've been all over that on the other articles on this site.

[oYx]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

From what I have read, Apple's Fusion Drive is really two different drives that work together.

[topgunn]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

There is no 'THE Fusion Drive'. It's not an entity; its a technology. What this article points out is that it is already available as a part of 10.8.2 which Apple all but stated at the media event. The article and the title are accurately worded.

[Intarweb]

Originally Posted by milbournosphere

My apologies. The name seems to be causing some confusion. The software being called Fusion Drive...it sounds snazzy but it implies that the drive is doing the work, which we both agree it is not. It does not, however, make the article title misleading, as that's what Apple chose to call the tech. It's just a bad name; the title states that Fusion Drive works on old mac, and the article appears to confirm that. Silly semantics...moving on.

Ahh, now I see where the confusion is. I've never seen Apple refer to the software as "Fusion Drive." When I configure a MacMini I can select a "Fusion Drive."

The article itself reads,

...managed to build his own Fusion Drive

He didn't build the software. He build a physical Fusion HDD.

The title reads,

Apple's New Fusion Drive

[SvenSvenson]

Originally Posted by ALR26

So he has an internal SSD and an external HDD with a single drive letter, what makes that a "fusion" drive? Nothing! There's no proof this is what Apple calls Fusion Drive technology. The article is a fail.


P.S. There's Windows software out there that will combine various drives into a single "hybrid" volume. Does that mean that's "fusion" drive software? I think not.

This is the Fusion drive part - the system automatically moving data between the 2 drives :

By preferentially accessing data that had initially been written to the traditional hard drive, Stein was able to watch as the data was automatically transferred to the SSD for faster access. Upon stopping the process, the system automatically pushed the data back to the By preferentially accessing data that had initially been written to the traditional hard drive, Stein was able to watch as the data was automatically transferred to the SSD for faster access. Upon stopping the process, the system automatically pushed the data back to the traditional hard drive, and in one final step Stein began accessing the data once more and after about an hour was able to see it pulled back onto the SSD.

[tipp]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

Yeah, not sure what to say here. You're indignant, but pretty clearly don't understand what's going on. There is no "THE Fusion Drive". It's not one physical hard drive in the new Macs; it's two separate drives.

[Rocketman]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

Apple's implementation of Fusion Drive with a SSD and a HDD is only one way such software could be used. One could literally reverse the drives and intentionally put the slow one on the wrong end and the software would still function, albiet with crippled results.

It has not yet been determined how the software "discovers" the SSD (or crippleware drive if reversed), but one suspects it is using SMART.

The limitation of course is it is an OS thing so only runs on Macs and only those modern enough to run the latest version of OSX. The exciting thing to me is it works fine on ZFS so ought to work with pretty much any file system. I bet it works with Ramdrives too, for more than 2x the speed of a Flashdrive.

Hackintosh?

Rocketman

[Maltz]

Originally Posted by Intarweb

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

There is no such thing as a "Fusion Drive" per se. Apple's Fusion Drive is a software-only technology that uses two physical devices - an SSD and a traditional spinning drive. This article is describing exactly what Apple's "Fusion Drive" is, except it was configured manually in a Mac Pro.

[adildacoolset]

Originally Posted by macnerd93

Now another reason I'm glad I didn't get the substantially worse new iMac and opted for the 2011 gen last Wednesday

The process will most likely get simplier, perhaps even an app made what automates the process of making the fusion drive. Then i'd just get a Thunderbolt SSD and stick with my 500GB Internally. I know it says only SATA for now, but you never know whats possible in time.

I would gladly open my iMac and fit an SSD, but I bought Apple care with it since I got it at a 60% discount, I don't really don't wanna void it if it can be helped xD. Still, at least I can upgrade the ram to 32GB unlike the new 21.5''. Only gonna cost me 110 quid for that amount of ram.

I actually think the new iMacs are cool

[Transeau]

nevermind...

[rkahl]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

The "Terminal" utility and the diskutil program ships with every single copy of Mac OS X. There is not "Mac Developer Program" aspect here at all. Only knowing how to use the tools have access to. OS X is not the Finder. Being aware of that is the only major prerequisite required here.

I was joking.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by omgwut

If not, I assume Windows OS would just see the SSD and HDD as two separate mounted volumes then, right?

Windows OS won't ( or shouldn't ) see the two "halves" of the single HFS+ volume at all.

The downside of this set-up is that even Windows software that might mount a normal HFS+ volume won't work

These two drives that form one HFS+ volume can't be read reliability or coherently without looking at both. It is very similar if you set up two same sized HDDs with disktutil's implementation of software RAID-0 . The aren't "normal" drives by themselves.

P.S. Windows probably can consume both a SSD and HDD and compose its own software driven hybrid setup. However you are not going to be able to split the SSD so that there is both a windows hybrid partition and a OS X CoreStorage (Fusion) partition. Normally CoreStorage consumes whole drives. Apple has added an exception were CoreStorage can carve out a subset of space for windows to live on with the lastest updates. However Windows is restricted to operating only in that 'out of the way corner' subset provided.

that said something like a Mac Pro with 4 drive sleds could have two dedicated to a two drive fusion set up and another two dedicated to some Windows two drive set up. The machine as a whole could "dual boot" into either OS instance.

[Erukian]

I have a 128gb ssd and a 1tb in my macbook pro. I can't wait to see if I can get this working. Also, I wonder if there are any issues with bootcamp when two drives are working in 'fusion'.

[Intarweb]

Originally Posted by tipp

Yeah, not sure what to say here. You're indignant, but pretty clearly don't understand what's going on. There is no "THE Fusion Drive". It's not one physical hard drive in the new Macs; it's two separate drives.

Originally Posted by Maltz

There is no such thing as a "Fusion Drive" per se. Apple's Fusion Drive is a software-only technology that uses two physical devices - an SSD and a traditional spinning drive. This article is describing exactly what Apple's "Fusion Drive" is, except it was configured manually in a Mac Pro.

So it's Apple's poorly worded tech name, and the fact that I can select Fusion Drive instead of HDD, when it's already in every computer running 10.8.2, that has caused my misunderstanding.

Fusion Drive is the software tech. When I select "Fusion Drive" when configuring a MacMini what I am really selecting is a SDD and a HDD combo, not a physical item called a "Fusion Drive."

I'll rephrase my original statement, Apple misleading is misleading.