Dual SSD for Fusion?

[icemantx]

I have a Fusion setup in my early 2009 iMac with a 2TB WD Black HDD fused to a 256GB Crucial M4 in the Optical Bay.

Performace is definitely better than the HDD only setup I had previously, but still has me looking for better performance especially in iPhoto.

Would removing the 2TB HDD and replacing it with a 960GB SSD to then create a new dual SSD Fusion drive (keep 256 Crucial M4 in Optical Bay) make any sense or make any performance difference from the HDD/SD Fusion setup I have now?

I have about 40k photos in iPhoto and launching, importing, closing and sometimes moving between photos is sluggish. How much of the performance issue is HDD vs Processor I am not sure.

With only SATA II in my iMac, having a complete SSD setup makes me question the value for my issue ($591 for a Crucial M500 960GB SSD or $377 for 512GB).

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Bear]

Making that into a fusion setup would only create extra over head and not speed anything up. Use the SSDs independently if you decide to replace the HD with another SSD.

 

[tanker5]

I was under the impression that OS X wouldn't allow you to fuse 2 ssd drives together, only one ssd and an hd drive. If you were going for a dual ssd config, why not just get 2 identical drives and set it up in a raid-0 config??

 

[icemantx]

I will look into that - good idea. I am still deciding if it is even worth spending several hundred dollars on a 4 1/2 yr old iMac.

 

[Bear]

I will look into that - good idea. I am still deciding if it is even worth spending several hundred dollars on a 4 1/2 yr old iMac.

It might be worth saving up for a new iMac. A new processor will be noticeably faster.

 

[icemantx]

It might be worth saving up for a new iMac. A new processor will be noticeably faster.

I am tending to agree. What I am not sure of is that if I buy a new Mac, should be it an iMac, MacBook Retina or MacBook Air. Computing has changed a lot since early 2009 when I bought this iMac and with the advent if iPad and iPhones, the uses of the desktop of Mac OS X based computer are fewer than before.

 

[Bear]

I am tending to agree. What I am not sure of is that if I buy a new Mac, should be it an iMac, MacBook Retina or MacBook Air. Computing has changed a lot since early 2009 when I bought this iMac and with the advent if iPad and iPhones, the uses of the desktop of Mac OS X based computer are fewer than before.

I find the larger screens of the iMac better for working on photos. It all depends on what else you want to us ethe Mac for.

 

[Nuke61]

I am tending to agree. What I am not sure of is that if I buy a new Mac, should be it an iMac, MacBook Retina or MacBook Air. Computing has changed a lot since early 2009 when I bought this iMac and with the advent if iPad and iPhones, the uses of the desktop of Mac OS X based computer are fewer than before.

Particularly since new portable Macs make it easy to hook it up to a large desktop display via Thunderbolt.