Experiences on DIY Fusion Drive with APFS?

[toke lahti]

I will try this very soon.
I'd like to hear, if anybody else has tried, what are the details and caveats?

And how well it has worked for you?
Any statistical speed info?

Does Monterey and Ventura have same version of diskutil?
How to check?

 

[toke lahti]

man diskutil in Monterey says "DISKUTIL(8) ".
Is it (9) in Ventura?

 

[gilby101]

man diskutil in Monterey says "DISKUTIL(8) ".
Is it (9) in Ventura?

The 8 is not a version number. It is the 'Section' number. The sections are listed in man man.

The Ventura diskutil man page is dated 27 October 2021. You can look in the Monterey man page - date is at the bottom of the page.

 

[Nermal]

That will only determine the date of the documentation though, right?

 

[toke lahti]

The 8 is not a version number. It is the 'Section' number. The sections are listed in man man.

The Ventura diskutil man page is dated 27 October 2021. You can look in the Monterey man page - date is at the bottom of the page.

In Monterey the date is 11 January 2021.
So it is different.

I presume that there's no documentation about the delta ie. what has changed?
(In my case now, has repairing cs/hfs+ fusion disk improved, I guess it's unlikely...)

 

[toke lahti]

What is the earliest macOS that can be installed in APFS Fusion Drive?

 

[sam_dean]

What is the earliest macOS that can be installed in APFS Fusion Drive?

2017 macOS High Sierra. Fusion Drive started in 2012 iMac.

Imagine an all SSD Fusion Drive

- 2TB NVMe M.2 ~7.5GB/s
- 8TB SATA SSD ~0.5GB/s

 

[Brian33]

Just for fun around a year ago, on Mojave I made an APFS DIY Fusion drive, and it seemed to work well. I didn't test it extensively, though. The 2.5" SATA SSD was in a Thunderbolt-2 enclosure, and the HDD component was a partition in a Thunderbolt-2 enclosure.

 

[toke lahti]

Just for fun around a year ago, on Mojave I made an APFS DIY Fusion drive, and it seemed to work well. I didn't test it extensively, though. The 2.5" SATA SSD was in a Thunderbolt-2 enclosure, and the HDD component was a partition in a Thunderbolt-2 enclosure.

Is that tb2-sata enclosure still available?

 

[Brian33]

Is that tb2-sata enclosure still available?

Unfortunately, no. It's a AKiTiO Thunder2 Duo Pro, discontinued in 2018. I have two of them, and IMHO they are superb enclosures. Excellent build quality and (more importantly) have been utterly reliable with daily use over six years. Maybe you can find a used one. (There is a firmware update for some 8TB drives, IIRC -- but they even supplied Mac software to apply it!)

 

[toke lahti]

I've got this other thread for hdd case:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cheapest-hdd-case-with-tb.2379806/

But Akitio's (now OWC) cases seem to be very nice, but really an overkill for just one hdd.

But I might fall to this:

OWC miniStack STX: Thunderbolt 4 Mac mini Storage Solution

Offers massive storage options of up to 28TB and three extra Thunderbolt ports. Perfectly sized to stack with any Mac mini, including the new M4 models.

eshop.macsales.com

Because also space for fast ssd, when needed and tb hub.
But I already have Caldigit's hub, so...