True story.
There is a HDD bottleneck in general, but it tends to hit at around the same speed for most descent drives regardless of RPM value these days, not to mention the fact that there are countless other factors to consider that have as much or more of an affect on overall perceived drive speed.
The bottom line any way you swing it is that any HDD is going to be just plain slow compared to SSD. Since moving to SSD for my system drive, I've found that it's just not worth my time to nitpick HDDs; they're all slow. The 5400 RPM thing would've bothered me a few years ago, but at this point, it means nothing. In the end, it'll still probably average 80 MB/s read/write for most tasks, just like most descent 7200 RPM drives, even if they hit 110-120 MB/s on a speed test.
That said, I'm still somewhat surprised that Fusion drives aren't a standard component at this point. I expected something like the Fusion Drive from this generation, but I expected the bottom-end stock 21.5" to retain the 500 GB HDD and add a 128 GB SSD for the system and apps. Given that prices of SSDs have come down so much and that they offer such an obvious performance increase, it seemed like a reasonable option given that these machines start at $1299, especially considering the optical drive was dropped.
That an SSD-based disk option is not even offered as an upgrade in the base model is unfortunate. It's not surprising, but I was hoping they'd come out swinging with the SSDs this time around. That you can't get an SSD-only configuration without shelling out $1300 extra on a 27" model is downright absurd. Pricing grievances alone are one thing, but the lack of basic SSD options in general is just bizarre to me in general.
I love a lot of things about this iMac upgrade and overall it does look great from a design and likely performance perspective, but the more I learn, the more frustrating it becomes in some ways. It seems like Apple could still turn a very significant profit while offering configurations that would make more people happy as opposed to frustrated. To paint it broadly, it just feels like Apple is ignoring the seemingly quite-populated middle section of the market, and in essence then, annoying a lot of the users who are the types that are still interested in premium desktops. Plenty of people will be more than fine with the base 21.5" model, and that's fine. But a lot of other people need a bit more power or speed in certain areas without the need (let alone budget) to go "ALL IN" one might say.
And truly, I don't think I'm talking crazy here. To be clear, I just think it's a little nuts that in 2012, almost 2013, I can't upgrade to say a 256 GB SSD for $250-300. Most would say that's still overpriced, but that's my whole point. What's nuts to me isn't the price so much as just the utter and complete lack of middle-ground options.
