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AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
2,211
715
Yesterday I received my 21.5" maxed out iMac with Fusion drive.

First I transferred about 400GB of stuff from my old iMac.

At first the speed was pretty good but not fantastic. Then, after about 1/2 hour of using Safari and some other of my most used applications, the speed really started to pickup. I could tell that iMac was "learning". Now the speed is incredible. iTunes opens before the first bounce. Safari opens and surfs very complext sites like a champ and Final Cut Pro X takes less than 5 seconds to completely open with my last project loaded. Bootup also takes less than 15 seconds.

Did anyone else notice the learning curve?

Also I ran a test and the read speeds are about 390. Not too shabby. I actually like the fact I don't need to worry about what files are on which drive. Makes life a bit easier managing files and apps IMHO.

The whole system is also whisper quiet. Very pleased so far.
 

palmerc2

macrumors 68000
Feb 29, 2008
1,623
683
Los Angeles
Nice!! I've never used an SSD, I've always had a 7200RPM drive. I'm going to order the new iMac shortly, and am deciding on whether or not to get Fusion.

I did just ask this question on another thread, so sorry for duplicate post - I'd just like to get different feedback: I work with large video files (average between 5GB and 15GB) and while I work on them I'd like them to be on the SSD, but after I'm done can I manually transfer them to the HDD so they're off of the SDD? If I have a few of these video files they'll fill up the SSD portion pretty damn quick! Or better yet can I choose folders I can exclude from the SSD portion (similar to Time Machine)?
 

seble

macrumors 6502a
Sep 6, 2010
972
163
Well I filled my drive up a lot. 700gigs left. It's still mega fast with booting up and things. I've been doing a lot of imports into aperture etc. and it's supeeeeerrr fast for the first 4gigs or so then it really slows down! This is fine usually as it improves the overall speed of imports.

Havent been using it enough for 'fusion' to kick in so we will have to wait and see ;) but SSD is already helping in some aspects :)
 

Fatboy71

macrumors 65816
Dec 21, 2010
1,481
424
UK
I'm debating on whether to go with the Fusion drive or not when I order my iMac early next year.

Boot times are not important to me has I will be sleeping my iMac the vast amount of the time, rather than shutting it down when I've finished, as its advised to do this the majority of the time.

I rarely work with very large files and my main reason for considering the Fusion drive would be to speed up Application loading times such as iTunes and other Applications I would be using.

I was wondering.

Once the Fusion drive is full, any other Applications I would be installing would then go on the hard drive. So if for example I had an Application on the Fusion Drive that I'd either not used for a while or a newly installed Application that I'd began using more than some other Application that was resident on the Fusion Drive. Would this Application then be transferred to the Fusion Drive, and an older lesser used Application would then be moved to the hard drive?

Thanks. :)
 

tom vilsack

macrumors 68000
Nov 20, 2010
1,880
63
ladner cdn
As the ssd is 128 gig's i would guess mountain lion and ilife are both installed to ssd part...the reason i suspect it feels faster after a couple hours is spotlight is now done indexing.
 

CapnJackGig

macrumors 6502a
Jul 17, 2011
572
0
Speed isn't a real factor for me. A couple seconds here and there mean nothing. The only real plus I can see is the silence. My MacBook Air makes no noise unless a fan kicks on. How quiet are people with the fusion drive on the iMac finding it to be?
 

Fatboy71

macrumors 65816
Dec 21, 2010
1,481
424
UK
The only real plus I can see is the silence. My MacBook Air makes no noise unless a fan kicks on. How quiet are people with the fusion drive on the iMac finding it to be?

There is still a normal hard drive installed in the iMac as well as the Fusion Drive, so its possible to still get noise from this.
 

CapnJackGig

macrumors 6502a
Jul 17, 2011
572
0
After reading the zdnet article warning against the Fusion drive, my decision was made a lot easier.
 

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
Nice!! I've never used an SSD, I've always had a 7200RPM drive. I'm going to order the new iMac shortly, and am deciding on whether or not to get Fusion.

I did just ask this question on another thread, so sorry for duplicate post - I'd just like to get different feedback: I work with large video files (average between 5GB and 15GB) and while I work on them I'd like them to be on the SSD, but after I'm done can I manually transfer them to the HDD so they're off of the SDD? If I have a few of these video files they'll fill up the SSD portion pretty damn quick! Or better yet can I choose folders I can exclude from the SSD portion (similar to Time Machine)?

I don't have a fusion drive but my understanding is that you can *not* choose what goes where. That being said, I would assume that the fusion drive software will move whatever you're working on onto the SSD and for all intents an purposes it will be like you have a 1TB SSD.

If you want to have fine grained control over what goes where, you can very easily add an SSD to your iMac via USB3 and use it like any other disk. That's what I do and it's very easy to copy files to/from my hard drive.
 

comatose81

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2009
585
0
Greatest upgrade in the history of computing. I would have seriously regretted my purchase had I not gotten it - the speed is great and requires no user input. You can't beat that!

Apple's innovation strikes again.
 

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
2,211
715
Boot times are not important to me has I will be sleeping my iMac the vast amount of the time, rather than shutting it down when I've finished, as its advised to do this the majority of the time.
I was doing that as well. Just placing the computer to sleep. Now with the fusion drive, there is no need to do that. Bootup is about 15 seconds.

----------

Speed isn't a real factor for me. A couple seconds here and there mean nothing. The only real plus I can see is the silence. My MacBook Air makes no noise unless a fan kicks on. How quiet are people with the fusion drive on the iMac finding it to be?
I've noticed that my iMac is completely silent. I can't even hear the 5400 RPM hard drive.

As far as a couple of seconds here in there, with the fusion drive its much more than just a few seconds. In 20 seconds I can do a full bootup, check my e-mail and start surfing the web.
 

forty2j

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2008
2,585
2
NJ
What article is this, can you provide a link please.

Don't bother. The article amounts to "this is new technology and the tools to repair it properly if something goes wrong aren't available yet, so if you're doing anything important make sure you have backups". But if you're doing anything important, you should have backups anyway.
 

mihai.ile

macrumors member
Oct 12, 2012
95
3
Given that the fusion is just 2 normal drives (ssd and hdd) one can just reorder everything in terms of storage. Unsplit the fusion, make a partition on ssd or hdd and then fusion the remaining back (so you could reserve 20gb for windows partition on ssd for example). Another example would be to reserve something like 500gb on HDD for slow data and create the fusion back using the remaining 500gb/2.5tb on the hdd and the ssd.

You could even create 2 fusion drives, each having half of ssd and half of hdd, I mean there are just endless ways you could use an ssd+hdd in fusion mode.

I will not get the iMac with fusion because it is expensive here in europe, but I will create a fusion drive using an external SSD and the internal 1TB HDD. It's not that I will go anywhere with the 27" iMac so having an external SSD with one extra cable is not a big issue
 

kaelell

macrumors 6502
Nov 16, 2009
346
0
for those who already have a fusion drive, is there anyway to see what is installed where or manage folders to be excluded?
 

fjfjfjfj

macrumors 6502
Mar 20, 2009
327
140
New York, NY
Speed isn't a real factor for me. A couple seconds here and there mean nothing. The only real plus I can see is the silence. My MacBook Air makes no noise unless a fan kicks on. How quiet are people with the fusion drive on the iMac finding it to be?

My iMac is in the bedroom so I notice the sound a lot, especially when the room is quiet at night. There is an incredible difference with the fusion drive - it's pratically silent. I have yet to hear a fan or a hard drive spinning, so a vast improvement for me.
 

iohass

macrumors regular
Mar 11, 2012
164
0
Canada
Google: ZDNet Fusiondrive
2nd hit... was that so difficult?
Your question about a link to the article took you longer........

then of course you spent more time being an ass than it would've taken you to give him a link..
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,240
12,388
I prefer to partition my drives and keep system and data files "separated" (I have 8 drive icons on my desktop right now), so "fusion" isn't for me.

Indeed, it's "going in the opposite direction" from where I want to be.

If it works for others, fine.

I sense that within a year or two, we're going to start seeing posts that go, "my fusion drive won't boot -- what now?"

If they had two -separate- drives (SSD & HDD) inside, with a bootable OS on both, they'd be up running within two minutes....
 

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
2,211
715
People are talking about the Fusion drive corrupting easily. The iPads, iPhones and iPods seem to not have any problem with SSD's. :) I have never had to reload the OS into any of those devices since the first iPhone.

Sure, we may be talking about Apple's and Oranges here, but I think you know what I'm driving at.
 
Last edited:

Fatboy71

macrumors 65816
Dec 21, 2010
1,481
424
UK
Google: ZDNet Fusiondrive
2nd hit... was that so difficult?
Your question about a link to the article took you longer........

I only asked if you could provide the link, don't bother next time if you can't do so without giving a smart arse comment!
 

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
My iMac is in the bedroom so I notice the sound a lot, especially when the room is quiet at night. There is an incredible difference with the fusion drive - it's pratically silent. I have yet to hear a fan or a hard drive spinning, so a vast improvement for me.

Old iMacs had 3.5" hard drives and at least 2 fans. New iMacs have 2.5" hard drives and 1 fan. This will make a big difference, fusion drive or no.
 
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