Are the 2019 fusion drives OK?

[MiniD3]

Hi Guys
My Daughter has has a late 2012 27 " with fusion drive, it is now failing, Mine is a 27" with SSD all OK
Are the Fusion drives OK or should she now go for a SSD ?
FWIW, she doesn't need the speed for video or PP images
She has decided to get a new 27" Mac as her current machine is failing
7 years is OK.........I think?
.........Gary

 

[iTurbo]

I have a late '12 27" as well. My 1 TB Fusion drive is still plugging away fine, but everybody's mileage may vary.

Back then the 1 TB Fusion drive came with a sizable SSD (128 GB) as part of the package. Not any longer....sounds like the 1 TB Fusion has been paired with a tiny 32 GB SSD and that really affects performance.

At any rate, and in this day and age, skip the Fusion and go full SSD if at all possible. If Fusion drive is the only choice due to budget, get at least the 2 TB.

 

[MiniD3]

I have a late '12 27" as well. My 1 TB Fusion drive is still plugging away fine, but everybody's mileage may vary.

Back then the 1 TB Fusion drive came with a sizable SSD (128 GB) as part of the package. Not any longer....sounds like the 1 TB Fusion has been paired with a tiny 32 GB SSD and that really affects performance.

At any rate, and in this day and age, skip the Fusion and go full SSD if at all possible. If Fusion drive is the only choice due to budget, get at least the 2 TB.

Tks for the heads-up,
Will try and convince her on the better option, did not know about the smaller SSD

 

[jpn]

avoid Fusion.
there is no reason for it to exist.
its only a question of time before its not supported.

future-proof your purchases:
there are very few cases where old tech is the best to have in any newly bought machine.

 

[fishbert]

yes.
avoid Fusion.
there is no reason for it to exist.

There's a $700 price difference between a 1TB fusion drive and a 1TB SSD... $1,100 between 2TB drives.
If you want/need that much internal storage and are even a little price sensitive, a fusion drive is still a great option.
But as iTurbo said earlier, buyers should be aware you get 4x the SSD with a 2TB or 3TB fusion drive over a 1TB fusion drive.

its only a question of time before [fusion drive is] not supported.

A fusion drive is just a logical volume created across an SSD and HDD with Core Storage, and there's no reason to believe logical volume support with Core Storage will be ending anytime soon.

 

[iTurbo]

I have seen some here say that that Fusion drive doesn't support the new APFS (apple file system). It didn't at first, but I am here to say that I successfully run MacOS 10.14.4 (current as of this post) and have reformatted my own late 2012 Fusion drive with APFS using nothing but Apple's standard updating. It still works great.

And hey, if you really need more storage, there is always the Samsung T5 (or X5, if you really need speed). They are so small and light you could velcro them to the back of the iMac and you'd never even know they are external.

Maybe your daughter should just save money now by downloading Carbon Copy Cloner and cloning the stock Fusion drive to a Samsung T5? If the stock Fusion drive is failing, it would be best to backup now. I did, and that T5 is fast as hell, even as a startup drive connected via USB.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Gary Fusion is old technology going back nearly eight years. If you can persuade to go SSD, that is the best way.

 

[iTurbo]

Gary Fusion is old technology going back nearly eight years. If you can persuade to go SSD, that is the best way.

I totally agree with this. Fusion drive tech is nothing but a stop-gap measure between the overall transition from traditional hard drives and SSD.

That being said, I can totally see why Fusion drives exist. There is still a huge disparity between price/performance and storage/cost for the average user. People bang on the Fusion drive all the time, but damn, my 2012 iMac still starts up from cold in seconds. And it's 7 years old. That is saying something. Certainly way better than my old PowerMac G4 or previous PowerMacintosh 6500 life span.

 

[Abbas]

I picked up the 2TB Fusion Drive iMac from the store today. It replaced the 2015 MPB with 512GB SSD in my office. My traveling laptop is also a 2017 MPB with SSD. And I honestly don't see what the fuss is about a Fusion Drive being bad. I get that it's a mechanical drive and less reliable than SSD but as far as speeds are concerned, the 128GB SSD in the Fusion Drive is doing a pretty good job of making my daily usage almost at par with the MBP it replaces. In fact, I can hardly tell that it's slower.

 

[MiniD3]

I have seen some here say that that Fusion drive doesn't support the new APFS (apple file system). It didn't at first, but I am here to say that I successfully run MacOS 10.14.4 (current as of this post) and have reformatted my own late 2012 Fusion drive with APFS using nothing but Apple's standard updating. It still works great.

And hey, if you really need more storage, there is always the Samsung T5 (or X5, if you really need speed). They are so small and light you could velcro them to the back of the iMac and you'd never even know they are external.

Maybe your daughter should just save money now by downloading Carbon Copy Cloner and cloning the stock Fusion drive to a Samsung T5? If the stock Fusion drive is failing, it would be best to backup now. I did, and that T5 is fast as hell, even as a startup drive connected via USB.

Thank you
Got the Back-up done and have also tried to get her to get CCC (like I have and naturally you great guys got mr in the right direction all those years ago
Many thanks!
[doublepost=1554103198][/doublepost]

Gary Fusion is old technology going back nearly eight years. If you can persuade to go SSD, that is the best way.

Tks mate, only just got off the phone actually,
Ive done the sums, will get an answer tonight
........Gary
[doublepost=1554103307][/doublepost]

I picked up the 2TB Fusion Drive iMac from the store today. It replaced the 2015 MPB with 512GB SSD in my office. My traveling laptop is also a 2017 MPB with SSD. And I honestly don't see what the fuss is about a Fusion Drive being bad. I get that it's a mechanical drive and less reliable than SSD but as far as speeds are concerned, the 128GB SSD in the Fusion Drive is doing a pretty good job of making my daily usage almost at par with the MBP it replaces. In fact, I can hardly tell that it's slower.

I guess once you have problems, like my daughter, time to move on
........Gary