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BingClawsby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 2, 2010
123
3
I'm trying to find out if having the fusion hd option in a late 2012 mini does anything specifically performance wise for Logic say.... more plugs, tracks, softsynths.... or is all that strictly cpu & ram dependent?

If so, I'd rather save the money now and just get the stock 1tb hdd, then have the option two or three years down the line to install what will probably be much larger capacity SSD's at much cheaper prices.

If its a matter of that booting, app launching, copying files are basically the sole benefits of the fusion, I can wait.

Also, if the only thing that might slow performance is software samplers benefiting from a fusion hd, then I can always opt for a USB3, TB, or FW external solution in the future as well if that be the case.
 

fastlanephil

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2007
1,289
274
I'd go for the Fusion drive. It won't up performance much but the 5400 rpm standard laptop drive in the Mac mini could give you problems accessing samples and recording audio. The base standard is the 7200 rpm drive.

If you're needs aren't great the standard drive should work fine but the Fusion drive isn't that much more for much faster read and write speeds.
 

BingClawsby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 2, 2010
123
3
Thanks

Ah, I forgot to say... I already run an external FW 7200rpm recording drive daisy chained to a FW interface into my current '07 macbook.

Granted this stuff is FW400 but it suits my purposes at this time. I don't even really run tons of tracks.

What I am actually really concerned about is whether or not the fusion is going to make any big difference regarding the amount of audio plugins and software synths (I have NI Komplete package) I can run as opposed to the stock HDD. I image all that stuff would be more cpu/ram dependent than having much at all to do with SSD or HDD speeds, no?
 

fastlanephil

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2007
1,289
274
What I am actually really concerned about is whether or not the fusion is going to make any big difference regarding the amount of audio plugins and software synths (I have NI Komplete package) I can run as opposed to the stock HDD. I image all that stuff would be more cpu/ram dependent than having much at all to do with SSD or HDD speeds, no?

Right. That is all dependent on the CPU and sufficient memory. Multi-core is more important than the multi-threading feature(i5 vs i7). I've read that even Apple's implementation of multi-threading is less than satisfactory when it comes to audio.
 

BingClawsby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 2, 2010
123
3
Thanks again.

I remembered another issue many as well as myself have experienced... the dreaded 'audio engine overload' issue.

It seems from what I've read is that Logic has a problem with its buffers or caching (I'm no tech) which sometimes causes the overload error when playing through a project the first one or two times then works fine (at least on my system).
Now I wonder if an SSD might have anything to do with helping that. BTW, I've never experienced hd overloads in Logic on my current system
 

Boyd01

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 21, 2012
7,676
4,556
New Jersey Pine Barrens
I run Logic on a 2011 13" MBA i5/1.7ghz with 4gb RAM and 256gb SSD. For my kind of use, it really flies. I do mostly live recording with 4 tracks although I have a few projects with MIDI also.

I have always assumed that the SSD is one reason for the speedy performance, but I don't have a frame of reference since my older MBP is still on OSX 10.5 and I can't run the app store version of Logic on it. The Logic disk indicator hardly seems to register any activity at all with my SSD.

Have never seen an "audio engine overload" and the program is fine even when I also run other software like Safari, iTunes and Photoshop. I would have gotten more RAM but 4gb was the max available on the 2011 MBA.
 
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