1TB SSD option? (27")

Auk said:

Anyone out there even considering this?
I have had my current iMac since 2007 and it has given absolutely no problems over the years. I didn't max it out when I bought it but I knew that I did enough to future proof it.

Over the last few weeks it has worringly started to give me a black screen which I can only exit by doing a hard shutdown. The wireless keyboard is also not being recognised during these episodes so I am guessing the logic board may be wearing out. So,

Would you call the 1TB SSD BTO option an investment or a waste of money? I actually wish it had more memory than that but it's witheringly expensive as it is.

Why not buy a fusion drive? Because of all the bad things I have read online here about their noise (3TB) and the fact that a spinning disk really cannot have that much more life in it as a proposition.

Is there a better way of getting another 6 years out of any new iMac I buy?

Thanks for all advice in advance

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As always, it really depends on your needs. Do you have that much data or do you anticipate that much storage over the next 6 years? Would it be acceptable for you to have a smaller, more affordable, SSD internally and add more storage externally later on?

Personally, I was pretty set to get the 500GB SSD on my new 2013 iMac but now I'm considering the 1TB SSD. I only have about 200GB of data but then I also have a 100GB Boot Camp partition. Considering that the iMac doesn't have any removable storage drive I'm thinking I may have to keep around more disk images driving things closer to the 500GB limit.

On the other hand, it took me quite some time to get from 100GB to 200GB of data and can probably get rid of some of that. Also, the $1000 price tag on the 1TB SSD is pretty darn high. I've never paid that much just for storage before, and don't know if I could really justify it, especially when compared the cost of the overall system.

I am also upgrading from a 2007 iMac. I chose the 256ssd on the 27" simply because its 'upgradeable' with a bit of diy down the track when the prices will be a lot more reasonable and also because I do not need more than that now. There are also plenty of other options such as usb3 and thunderbolt enclosures that will give you equally good speeds.

I went with the 256GB SSD and store my media on an external NAS. The $800 Apple wants for the 1TB SSD over the 256GB SSD bought me a 16TB NAS.

This might help some of you decide:


1tb apple pcie ssd - 700mb sec read/write. £800 or $1000

Can you achieve 1tb via thunderbolt with those speeds? (you've pretty much got to dedicate that TB port too)

Can you even get a 1tb pcie ssd on a windows box with that speed and price - nope!

When you think about it, the 1tb is very competitively priced by Apple

I was on the fence, 1 TB Fusion, 256GB SSD, or possibly 512GB SSD. I opted to go with the Fusion. My 2011 27" iMac was a 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD. Unfortunately the new Fusion used a 128GB SSD. But with the Fusion management, I figure it is ok. The 256GB SSD, while smaller than the Fusion option, but at the same price just didn't seem like a limit I wanted.

CWallace said:

I went with the 256GB SSD and store my media on an external NAS. The $800 Apple wants for the 1TB SSD over the 256GB SSD bought me a 16TB NAS.

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Can you fill me in on what 16TB NAS you bought? I'm looking into external storage as well and am just learning the in's and out's.

Best Current Solution

Samsung offers a great drive at a competitive price point. I own 4 of these and will vouch for them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147251

I've been toying with the 1TB SSD as well for a new iMac.

I'm just put off a little by the fact I could buy a Macbook Air for the price of that SSD!

I bought the latest iMac with the 1TB SSD option. Assigned 256GB to the bootcamp Windows 8 partition and the rest of the space to OS X with File Vault enabled. Black Magic was running at close to 720MB/s R/W without and 670-680MB/s R?W with File Vault enabled.

td2243 said:

Can you fill me in on what 16TB NAS you bought? I'm looking into external storage as well and am just learning the in's and out's.

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I went with a Synology DS413 with 4x4TB HDDs. I have them configured as two 2x4TB RAID 0 sets, which I then manually mirror using Carbon Copy Cloner.

I went this way instead of a RAID 10 because with RAID 10, if I delete a file from the array, it deletes it from both. By manually mirroring, if I delete a file from the array, I can recover it from the mirror up until I update the mirror (which I tend to do weekly).

I went with the 1TB SSD option.

It wasn't a tough choice. I don't want spinning disk, and I'd prefer to avoid clutter on my desk.

Earlier in the year, I faced the same choice. What size? Since the 1 TB is what we could call a "Plush Purchase" and in reality, not that much space for real storage, the mindset was how much do I really need on board beyond the system & apps.

If you've been on one of these for enough time, you know the answer. How much just sits there unused for weeks, months that could be parked on an external.

Auk said:

...
Am I correct in my understanding from some of the posts made here that I can run bootcamp on a 1tb SSD or do I need a mechanical HDD? It would obviously influence my decision.

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SSD is fine for Bootcamp.

What might have caused a question is the fact that with a Fusion Drive, the bootcamp partition goes on the hard disk portion of the FD.

Auk said:

Hi
Good to know about Bootcamp. One final round of questions.
1. With all the news today of the MacBook Air SSD problems does anyone know of any issues with the storage inside iMacs?
2.If so, is it manufacturer specific as in the case of the MBA?
3. and if so should I avoid the 1TB?
4. Are SSD drives flakey? I haven't had a HDD fail in the past 15yrs.

Thanks again and apologies if this is all generally known.

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I wouldn't be too scared of the 1TB. The failures are on a specific type of low-capacity drive, which uses a different interface, so definitely a different drive.

Of course, keeping a backup is always a good idea.

Haven't had a single drive fail in 15 years? Now that is amazing.

MacOG728893 said:

Haven't had a single drive fail in 15 years? Now that is amazing.

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That is pretty Amazing. My last drive failure was last year. The drive started making funny noises and my thought was it was going to fail soon and sure enough it died the next day.

Before that failure my last disk failure was at least 11 years ago.

MacOG728893 said:

Haven't had a single drive fail in 15 years? Now that is amazing.

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I take care of the computer lab at an elementary school. It has two dozen mostly 2007 vintage iMacs with a few 2008's. They run all day during the school year, used by 400 k-5 students per week. We haven't had to replace a single drive. It's a different matter for our laptops, however.

CWallace said:

I went with a Synology DS413 with 4x4TB HDDs. I have them configured as two 2x4TB RAID 0 sets, which I then manually mirror using Carbon Copy Cloner.

I went this way instead of a RAID 10 because with RAID 10, if I delete a file from the array, it deletes it from both. By manually mirroring, if I delete a file from the array, I can recover it from the mirror up until I update the mirror (which I tend to do weekly).

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What do you intend to do if the NAS hardware fails ? I had a single NAS originally and then bought an identical unit to use for mirroring and drive transfer if needed.

1TB SSD is available - fast, and cheap

SATA3 960GB SSD - Crucial M500 series, out now, ready to go:

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...=UTF8&qid=1382368072&sr=8-1&keywords=M500+960

$529 is the best cost per GB you'll find in a 1TB part. So no more excuses - go ahead!

Bear said:

That is pretty Amazing. My last drive failure was last year. The drive started making funny noises and my thought was it was going to fail soon and sure enough it died the next day.

Before that failure my last disk failure was at least 11 years ago.

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FredT2 said:

I take care of the computer lab at an elementary school. It has two dozen mostly 2007 vintage iMacs with a few 2008's. They run all day during the school year, used by 400 k-5 students per week. We haven't had to replace a single drive. It's a different matter for our laptops, however.

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Please shed some of that luck my way

I've just got a G-Raid 8TB Thunderbolt enclosure. It's 2x4TB drives in Raid 0 (backed up heavily before anyone chimes in!!). Read and Write speeds using black magic are 270MB/s, which is faster than the internal SSD on my mid 2011 iMac.

Can you (via boot camp) boot windows off an external ThunderBolt SSD? (I know this works great for Mac but I recall Windows being finicky about being installed to 'external' drives.)