Apple's New 'Fusion Drive' Not a Typical Hybrid Drive

[D.T.]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

256GB? You can find a 2TB HDD for $80 easily these days, maybe even less.

I found a couple under my mattress, no idea how they even got there...

[faroZ06]

This looks really cool, but it makes my Mac Pro look old

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

256GB? You can find a 2TB HDD for $80 easily these days, maybe even less.

He meant 256Gb SSD.

[brdeveloper]

Originally Posted by NewbieCanada

Probably the same way V8 Fusion and a thousand restaurants feel about it.

VMWare Fusion^2 - now with Apple's Fusion support.

[Lancer]

It's amazing how many people think they can run Apple better than they do, aren't the the worlds most valued company?

I'll have to wait for more details before placing my iMac order and making them a few dollars richer.

[heyjp]

I think we'll see Fusion Drive technology in MacBook Pros next year with the optical drives removed. A little surprised that didn't happen in the spring MBP w/Retina, but probably next year's upgrade. It's a sweet design.

Jim

[Candlelight]

So how do these Fusion drives compare to Momentus XT drives which have been around for years? Fundamentally they sound similar but I could be wrong.

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by heyjp

I think we'll see Fusion Drive technology in MacBook Pros next year with the optical drives removed. A little surprised that didn't happen in the spring MBP w/Retina, but probably next year's upgrade. It's a sweet design.

Jim

Come on man. It is available to the entry models. It should be made available to all models, including MBA. Not just the Pros.

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Originally Posted by Candlelight

So how do these Fusion drives compare to Momentus XT drives which have been around for years? Fundamentally they sound similar but I could be wrong.

See 2-3 pages back.

[Cougarcat]

Originally Posted by NewbieCanada

Probably the same way V8 Fusion and a thousand restaurants feel about it.

I doubt VMware minds, but those examples are not in the computer industry, so of course they aren't going to care.

[faroZ06]

Originally Posted by lilo777

and most likely that's exactly what it is. It has been available on PCs for a while.

The article specifically draws a distinction between Fusion and Intel's solution.

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Originally Posted by viacavour

He meant 256Gb SSD.

He meant 256GB SSD, and what I meant is that 256GB SSDs cost way more money per GB than HDDs. I like the compromise that Fusion as well as the caching solutions bring. Using an SSD alone is too expensive and doesn't provide enough storage.

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

He meant 256GB SSD, and what I meant is that 256GB SSDs cost way more money per GB than HDDs. I like the compromise that Fusion as well as the caching solutions bring. Using an SSD alone is too expensive and doesn't provide enough storage.

Indeed !

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by Candlelight

So how do these Fusion drives compare to Momentus XT drives which have been around for years? Fundamentally they sound similar but I could be wrong.

Momentus XT only has 8GB of SLC NAND for caching. The Apple solution has a lot more space for SSD storage which means the OS and apps can all happily reside it it. Something a caching system like the Momentus XT cannot do.

[faroZ06]

...So could you put an SSD and an HDD in a Mac Pro then set them up as a Fusion drive? Or is this controlled by some kind of hard drive logic not in Mac OS that's built into some SSD/HDD combo drive? If so, could I buy one of these Fusion drives and stick one in my Mac Pro and have the file management be done by the drive itself, leaving the CPU and OS out of it?

I wish they had more details on this stuff, but of course people care more about the specs of their phones than the specs of their iMacs, as shown by the iPhone tear-down reports

[RoverTX]

As other have said this is basically a RAID 0 with some smart save features. You loose all the reliability of an SSD for speed gains that aren't really going to help your productivity in any meaningful way, unless your having to reboot your OS or Photoshop every 10 minutes...

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

...So could you put an SSD and an HDD in a Mac Pro then set them up as a Fusion drive? Or is this controlled by some kind of hard drive logic not in Mac OS that's built into some SSD/HDD combo drive? If so, could I buy one of these Fusion drives and stick one in my Mac Pro and have the file management be done by the drive itself, leaving the CPU and OS out of it?

I wish they had more details on this stuff, but of course people care more about the specs of their phones than the specs of their iMacs

My guess is both. The file system measures, masterminds and commands the file routing. The driver and hardware does the actual work (and raw measurements) in a way to minimize impact to regular operations.

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Originally Posted by RoverTX

As other have said this is basically a RAID 0 with some smart save features. You loose all the reliability of an SSD for speed gains that aren't really going to help your productivity in any meaningful way, unless your having to reboot your OS or Photoshop every 10 minutes...

Nah... RAID is not needed here. The file is not split nor duplicated between the 2 disks.


EDIT: I don't know why people are so eager to apply their PC and RAID bad experiences here. This is a Mac. They are free to do things differently.

Just like how they take OS security more seriously early in the game.

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by RoverTX

As other have said this is basically a RAID 0 with some smart save features. You loose all the reliability of an SSD for speed gains that aren't really going to help your productivity in any meaningful way, unless your having to reboot your OS or Photoshop every 10 minutes...

RAID 0 is interleaving data across multiple drive to increase read/write speeds. That's not what happens here. Data can move from HDD to SSD or vice versa. It's not being striped and thusfar no verbiage about data redundancy has been mentioned by Apple.

[D.T.]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

RAID 0 is interleaving data across multiple drive to increase read/write speeds. That's not what happens here. Data can move from HDD to SSD or vice versa. It's not being striped and thusfar no verbiage about data redundancy has been mentioned by Apple.

Yeah, this is pretty much like having a separate SSD and HDD, where you manually move apps/files/etc., to the SSD you think need faster access and use your HDD for storing less accessed apps and files.

It's just one logical volume and the location of the files is determined by a system process that monitors how often a files it used, and maybe the nature of the use/file type (not absolutely sure on the logic since details are still pretty sketchy).

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by D.T.

Yeah, this is pretty much like having a separate SSD and HDD, where you manually move apps/files/etc., to the SSD you think need faster access and use your HDD for storing less accessed apps and files.

It's just one logical volume and the location of the files is determined by a system process that monitors how often a files it used, and maybe the nature of the use/file type (not absolutely sure on the logic since details are still pretty sketchy).

Exactly. I don't know why people are making it more complex that it is. At foundation of all storage tiering is moving data to where it operates best. Of course the Devil is details

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

Exactly. I don't know why people are making it more complex that it is. At foundation of all storage tiering is moving data to where it operates best. Of course the Devil is details

My guess is Apple's vertical integration simplifies the design and implementation even more. Those "old" RAID, and other redundancy solutions are all devised for all and any OSes. So they had to design it at very low level, and try to solve too many problems at the same time, to make more $$$.

They can also sell high margin professional services if the deployment is complex.

Trying to apply those enterprise technologies to consumer market may not always work.

Apple's business model is completely different. They cherish simplicity.

[RMo]

Originally Posted by shanmugam

most of us do not need that bigger size as main drive, you always need to backup the data into some external drive.

...and if your data lives only on your external "backup" drive, you'll need to back up the external drive, too.

And while we're on this topic, like others, I also wonder what happens if one of the drives (most likely the HD, I suppose) were to fail and how backups and restores will work.

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by RMo

...and if your data lives only on your external "backup" drive, you'll need to back up the external drive, too.

And while we're on this topic, like others, I also wonder what happens if one of the drives (most likely the HD, I suppose) were to fail and how backups and restores will work.

Someone email Phil. I'm too busy and couldn't be bothered. 8^P

I have a feeling he'll interest you to buy a Time Capsule.

[k995]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

The article specifically draws a distinction between Fusion and Intel's solution.

There is barely any difference between wats already out in the market, dont let some apple spin fool you .

http://www.ocztechnology.com/revohybrid-faq

this even does it on block level .

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He meant 256GB SSD, and what I meant is that 256GB SSDs cost way more money per GB than HDDs. I like the compromise that Fusion as well as the caching solutions bring. Using an SSD alone is too expensive and doesn't provide enough storage.

512GB costs 350 thats what ? 15% of the imac cost? Thats the difference between a 2.7GHZ i5 and 2.9GHZ i5 and thiswill make the imac a lot faster then that cpu bump.

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by k995

There is barely any difference between wats already out in the market, dont let some apple spin fool you .

http://www.ocztechnology.com/revohybrid-faq

this even does it on block level .

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[/COLOR]


512GB costs 350 thats what ? 15% of the imac cost? Thats the difference between a 2.7GHZ i5 and 2.9GHZ i5 and thiswill make the imac a lot faster then that cpu bump.

Don't let you fool yourself.

It's different because Fusion Drive is not a caching system. That's probably why they chose the name "Fused". The data resides on both disks and do not duplicate. It's like the disks are combined together. Your storage size should be 1.128 TB here theoretically.

The OCZ tech is "just" another hybrid drive caching system.

[G51989]

Originally Posted by shanmugam

This is actually not needed if apple went with 256GB as standard

Yeah....because 256gb is SUCH a huge amount of storage

Maybe the better part of a Decade 256gb was enough. But not anymore.

There isn't all that much different about this drive compared to a typical hybrid drive, some differences.

Very cool.

[viacavour]

Originally Posted by G51989

Yeah....because 256gb is SUCH a huge amount of storage

Maybe the better part of a Decade 256gb was enough. But not anymore.

There isn't all that much different about this drive compared to a typical hybrid drive, some differences.

Very cool.

A world of difference even though the goals may overlap.

Fusion Drive's total capacity is 1.128TB. A regular hybrid drive caching system is 1TB with the same disk.

"To be clear, this is not a caching concept, at least not in the current use of the word. Cache would imply that the data on the SSD is duplicated, and it's not. If you have a 1TB mechanical drive paired with the 128GB SSD, you have a 1.12 TB storage platform. This truly is the fusion of all the space on two separate disks."