3TB Fusion or 1TB Fusion - surely 3TB?

jackofharts said:

Hi guys,

I'm looking to upgrade from my 2009 21.5 iMac to the new 27 inch. The one thing stopping me from hitting the buy now button is my dam indecisiveness.

So definitely getting a fusion drive, but which one. For an additional £120 surely it is worth getting the 3TB?

It means not having to buy multiple externals in the future and just having one big one, as a back up?

What are your guys thoughts on this? I'm failing to see a downside. I currently use 300GB, but am getting much more into photography, cinema 4d etc...

Click to expand...

Bootcamp - Their is a current limitation meaning you can't install to a 3TB disk. Apple will fix this issue in future but keep it in mind. I'd personally go for the 3TB.

For me the price of 2TB extra HD space isnt worth £120. I use way more HD space than that already and thus have an HP microserver that cost me £100 and can hold up to 5 drives. This is in a totally separate room and just gets on with serving files on its own independant of any other machines being turned on (therefore accessible remotely). it also serves to do some backing up, and I cheaply added 4gb of ram to it and a £25 graphics card and it runs XBMC, serving 1080p content to my TV. One of the best things I ever bought!

I do wish I'd taken the 1TB fusion however.

If you are getting into photography and watching films consider that 3TB is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, and you can get 3TB HD's now for about £90, so in a years time it will be even smaller as file sizes go up

Before the new models were introduced it cost £120 to go from 1TB to 2TB, so to go from 1TB Fusion to 3TB Fusion for the same price sounds good to me.

If in the distant, or not so distant future, you decide that's not enough you can always get external storage.

I also have a 3TB Time Capsule for backup of my critical files.

If you don't plan on using bootcamp the 3TB is a no brainer. I got the 3TB fusion option aswell. If Apple don't release a fix for bootcamp i will replace the 3TB drive with a 512GB SSD and shut fusion down.

All Taken said:

Bootcamp - Their is a current limitation meaning you can't install to a 3TB disk. Apple will fix this issue in future but keep it in mind. I'd personally go for the 3TB.

Click to expand...

I completely agree. However, I disagree that Apple will issue a fix. Boot Camp will NEVER support >2.2TB drives.

External storage is the no-brainer for me. If you're getting into photography, you might want to be able to bring your drives out with you into the field with a potential future laptop. It makes getting files from one machine to the next easier. It's also pretty much the standard thing to do for video editing, photography, etc. It's also much cheaper. You need one for backups anyway, so why not just buy a large external disk or two?

Ideally, actually, get both, but if that's not possible, go for the external(s).

External solutions are always better for video and audio editing, and sometimes on things like After Effects and Cinema 4D, though the processor and RAM is usually the bottleneck with those.

Having the machine reading program and media files off the same drive is generally bad.

I was actually going to get a 1TB and have now changed my mind to the 3. I just want to keep everything on the HD and not have to worry about externals apart from Time Machine.

But also because I'm close to the limit on my 750 2008 imac and I've got about 1TB in flies offline. And I'm still in the process of putting all my 500 odd CDs into itunes.

I don't want to keep itunes on an external. I'm simply not up to doing that.

But If I were still doing heavy FCP editing I'd definitely want all my scratches as externals.

12dylan34 said:

External storage is the no-brainer for me. If you're getting into photography, you might want to be able to bring your drives out with you into the field with a potential future laptop. It makes getting files from one machine to the next easier. It's also pretty much the standard thing to do for video editing, photography, etc. It's also much cheaper. You need one for backups anyway, so why not just buy a large external disk or two?

Ideally, actually, get both, but if that's not possible, go for the external(s).

External solutions are always better for video and audio editing, and sometimes on things like After Effects and Cinema 4D, though the processor and RAM is usually the bottleneck with those.

Having the machine reading program and media files off the same drive is generally bad.

Click to expand...

^ this.

Externals are better for sharing files off your network AND on your network (hard drive sharing via wifi).

The only reason to get a 3TB internal would be if you ONLY need your files to stay inside your house. Even then, a USB3 external would be about the same speed as your inbuilt Hard Drive.

Go for the externals

jackofharts said:

Hi guys,

I'm looking to upgrade from my 2009 21.5 iMac to the new 27 inch. The one thing stopping me from hitting the buy now button is my dam indecisiveness.

So definitely getting a fusion drive, but which one. For an additional £120 surely it is worth getting the 3TB?

It means not having to buy multiple externals in the future and just having one big one, as a back up?

What are your guys thoughts on this? I'm failing to see a downside. I currently use 300GB, but am getting much more into photography, cinema 4d etc...

Click to expand...

This is exactly my approach. I always go as big as possible (within reason) for the internal HD, and then do a similar size external (and use the external for Time Machine back ups). No need to worry about fancy back up solutions. May not be for everyone but has served me well for awhile.

MatthewAMEL said:

I completely agree. However, I disagree that Apple will issue a fix. Boot Camp will NEVER support >2.2TB drives.

Click to expand...

Why?

Meh seems way too overpriced personally. If you really care about investing your money into these technologies in your new machine then definitely get the 3TB fusion drive.

All Taken said:

Why?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say "never"; I would say "not with current hardware". The solution as best as I can understand is for Macs to move from EFI to UEFI. Windows will support booting off the large drive if it's partitioned a certain way (I think Macs already do this) AND if it uses UEFI. (This is the replacement for the old BIOS - not something really able to be done with a software patch.)

I'm not in the market for a new Mac, but I'd definitely go for 3TB. £120 isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, if you keep the computer for just three years, it's only £3.33 a month more.

What's that? One less coffee at Starbucks every month?

forty2j said:

I wouldn't say "never"; I would say "not with current hardware". The solution as best as I can understand is for Macs to move from EFI to UEFI. Windows will support booting off the large drive if it's partitioned a certain way (I think Macs already do this) AND if it uses UEFI. (This is the replacement for the old BIOS - not something really able to be done with a software patch.)

Click to expand...

you think they're not fixing on hardware they are selling with 3tb hard drive?

what I don't understand is if Apple knows of the Bootcamp over 2.2TB drive issue, then why not offer a 1TB Fusion along with 2TB Fusion options (and still keep the 3TB for those that want even more storage). I was all set to get the 3TB Fusion but only noticed a post about the issue with Bootcamp - so I went with 1TB fusion. I sure would have liked at least a 2TB option that would have worked with Bootcamp.

cambookpro said:

What's that? One less coffee at Starbucks every month?

Click to expand...

Well if you have a Starbucks card you get the extra shot of coffee, flavours and whipped cream for free.

I think Apple have to come up with a fix for the Bootcamp issue. Storage needs are getting greater especially with HD video and Apple want to be able to sell you big internal drives rather than rely on external drives which they can't control pricing of as easily.

Money talks and Apple have lost a lot of sales of 3TB Fusion drives because of Bootcamp.

81Steven said:

you think they're not fixing on hardware they are selling with 3tb hard drive?

Click to expand...

To "fix" the hardware they are "selling with 3tb hard drive", they'd need to chisel a chip off the motherboard and solder on a new one. So.. no.

They're probably working on something, but it's a pretty substantial architectural change affecting how Macs boot up and recognize hardware. It's not going to come quickly, and there's not really anything they could do for computers already sold.

forty2j said:

To "fix" the hardware they are "selling with 3tb hard drive", they'd need to chisel a chip off the motherboard and solder on a new one. So.. no.

They're probably working on something, but it's a pretty substantial architectural change affecting how Macs boot up and recognize hardware. It's not going to come quickly, and there's not really anything they could do for computers already sold.

Click to expand...

Are you sure? Many systems have firmware in a flash ROM, allowing the firmware to be updated after the system leaves the factory. My MacBook Pro had two firmware updates.

forty2j said:

To "fix" the hardware they are "selling with 3tb hard drive", they'd need to chisel a chip off the motherboard and solder on a new one. So.. no.

They're probably working on something, but it's a pretty substantial architectural change affecting how Macs boot up and recognize hardware. It's not going to come quickly, and there's not really anything they could do for computers already sold.

Click to expand...

Aren't mac already supporting efi?
Isn't just bootcamp that emulate bios boot? (changing bootcamp emulation should be enough...)

or not?

81Steven said:

Aren't mac already supporting efi?
Isn't just bootcamp that emulate bios boot? (changing bootcamp emulation should be enough...)

or not?

Click to expand...

You are correct. Intel Macs have always been EFI. However, when Boot Camp was first introduced, almost no Windows PCs supported EFI, so Apple used the available MBR emulation.

I don't think they will fix it because it will require a complete re-write of Boot Camp Assistant and it will require Windows 7 (guess).

Apple isn't in the business of making other Operating Systems run on their hardware. I think they will let Boot Camp Assistant 'wither on the vine'.

I wonder what the % of Mac users who use Boot Camp is? I use it daily for gaming, but that's it. I use Fusion for any legacy Windows apps.

I thought the 2.2TB issues was a Windows limitation, not Apples problem.

Anyway, the author of WinClone posted on his blog how to manually partition the 3TB disk such that you could get Windows to install and boot, but it puts the Windows partition in the middle of the drive table, with OS X partitions on either side. If you can live with that ... you are home free.

Now, if you are adventuresome, I think you should be able to "break" your factory Fusion drive and revert both drives back to standard, then follow the WinClone blog procedure to partition your 3TB drive, then re-build the Fusion drive using methods discussed here, but using the "drive_partition_ID" instead of "drive_ID" when specifying the join drive elements. Of course, you would use the first OS X partition-number to do so. This will leave the remaining OS X partition space (after your Windows partition) out of your Fusion drive space, but you should be able to still use it for simple storage.

Good luck... and let us know if it works!


-howard