The 650MB Recovery HD partition on Fusion drives is on the hard drive portion. You can see it on disk1 in posts #2 and #5 in this thread.
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24GB SSD enough for casual use?
- Thread starter daanodinot
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Didn't apple release the fusion drive 3 years ago and boast that it had a 128GB SSD instead of the 24GB or 32GB capacity other manufacturers were using? I remember it being a big selling point, here we are today and they release a 24GB version, not even 64GB. I wouldn't buy the 1TB fusion drive (24GB) unless it were solely for very casual users like grandparents, even then they wouldn't have any files so no, I would just go pure SSD. It seems very much so borderline buying a 7200 rpm HDD.
Then again I am fairly sure Apple said they would never make an iPad mini, iPad pro or 5.5" iPhone so...
Then again I am fairly sure Apple said they would never make an iPad mini, iPad pro or 5.5" iPhone so...
I think the following says it al wrt 24gb of an SSD in the fusion drive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive/6
The Practical Limits of Fusion Drive
Apple's Fusion Drive is very aggressive at writing to the SSD, however the more data you have the more conservative the algorithm seems to become. This isn't really shocking, but it's worth pointing out that at a lower total drive utilization the SSD became home to virtually everything I needed, but as soon as my application needs outgrew what FD could easily accommodate the platform became a lot pickier about what would get moved onto the SSD. This is very important to keep in mind. If 128GB of storage isn’t enough for all of your frequently used applications, data and OS to begin with, you’re going to have a distinctly more HDD-like experience with Fusion Drive. To simulate/prove this I took my 200GB+ MacBook Pro image and moved it over to the iMac. Note that most of this 200GB was applications and data that I actually used regularly.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive/6
The Practical Limits of Fusion Drive
Apple's Fusion Drive is very aggressive at writing to the SSD, however the more data you have the more conservative the algorithm seems to become. This isn't really shocking, but it's worth pointing out that at a lower total drive utilization the SSD became home to virtually everything I needed, but as soon as my application needs outgrew what FD could easily accommodate the platform became a lot pickier about what would get moved onto the SSD. This is very important to keep in mind. If 128GB of storage isn’t enough for all of your frequently used applications, data and OS to begin with, you’re going to have a distinctly more HDD-like experience with Fusion Drive. To simulate/prove this I took my 200GB+ MacBook Pro image and moved it over to the iMac. Note that most of this 200GB was applications and data that I actually used regularly.
While this isn't wrong, it still suggests a faulty implication. The ideal behavior of FD is that frequently accessed data is on the SSD. For almost every user this does by no means equate to all the application data. Hence the described HDD experience should only start appearing once the frequently accessed data exceeds the SSDs capacity of frequently accessed data, and I dare saying that this shouldn't ever happen for most users with 128 GB, and for more casual users it shouldn't even happen with 24 GB. This isn't a common SSD/HDD setup where you put your OS and applications on the SSD and media files on the HDD. Automatically micromanaging the distribution makes all the difference and provides a much more accurate sepparation, therefore greatly increasing efficiency.
I'm not arguing that you'll still get HDD speeds every now and then, but it should mostly happen with infrequently used things and therefore not be too severe.
From all the experience I've made with FD so far: Do I notice HDD speed when I copy hundreds of GB of media files? I sure do. Do I notice any difference to a pure SSD when booting up or starting programs 99% of the time? I can honestly say that I don't.
I hear and read a lot from people about how mediocre FDs are, but they always argue it from a very theoretical point of view. However, except from some real hardcore users, I didn't ever hear any actual user complain about it, they are generally quite sattisfied with it. And those hardcore users are well aware that they are an exception and attribute their dissatisfaction solely to their special use case while holding that FD would be good enough for them if they would't have to chug through such huge amounts of data.
I think that's the same misconception I pointed at before: why would anyone need 24 GB of OS data on fast storage?
Let me guess: there are some extremely convincing reasons why you would want to put rarely used parts of an OS on fast storage, and those reasons are so obvious to you that you see no need to even mention them.
But I'm affraid I'll have to disappoint you, they aren't to me. So please, go ahead and share them with the rest of the world.
The 1TB drive goes from 128GB SSD to 20% of that capacity and you're okay with such a downgrade? A downgrade which has been demonstrated as inadequate in original form based on circumstance in the Anandtech article I quoted from.
Have you meant to reply to a different post of mine? I really fail to see how this addresses the implied question of why anyone would desperately want the whole OS on an SSD.
Regardless, last years 1 TB FD basically got upgraded to include a 2 TB HDD as well as a twice as fast SSD. Furthermore, they introduced a lighter FD for more casual users that comes at a lower price.
Is this year's 1 TB FD is equivalent to last year's significantly more expensive one? Big surprise, it isn't. Do I consider it to be sufficient for more casual users that rather save some money none the less? Yes I do. Do I see any contradiction to this assumption in what Anand wrote in his article about his personal experience with the 2013 FD. No, sorry, I truly don't.
For a user profile like Anand's, mine or propably even yours, would I consider a 24 GB SSD in an FD being sufficient? I sure wouldn't. But since this was never up to debate, I didn't even see the point in mentioning it until now.