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From their online specs:

1TB (7200-rpm) hard drive

Configurable to 3TB hard drive, 1TB or 3TB Fusion Drive, or 768GB of flash storage.


http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

Im talking about the Fusion Drive, not the simple harddrive.

There's no specs saying a 7200rpm will be included with Fusion Drive.
They might choose a 5400rpm when you buy a Fusion Drive duo to heat or something
 
It's a 5400rpm drive, read the performance section in this review

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/03/apple-imac-review-2012/

If that's confirmed also for the 27'' it would really be kind of embarassing, and point me further into the direction of basically having a huge bootcamp partition on my 1TB Fusion only for gaming (and i'll be pissed off about the gaming loading times) and leave all my Mac stuff in the SSD Fusion part and external SSD.
 
Posted this on another thread last night. This from a chat with Apple also last night:

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It's a 5400rpm drive, read the performance section in this review

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/03/apple-imac-review-2012/

They were reviewing a 21.5" iMac. They said "That performance jump, we suspect, mostly comes from Apple's FusionDrive, which combines a 5,400 RPM hard drive and an SSD into one volume", but provided so source for the 5400 RPM claim. Even if they measured it on their review unit, it doesn't mean much about the fusion drives in 27" iMacs.
 
Ugh, this has been answered more than once in this thread already! 5400 in 21", 7200 in 27"... this includes fusion. The end.
 
If it is the same 2.5" that is in the Mac mini it is a dog. I don't even get 100MB/sec read or write on it vs. 400MB/sec on a SSD and ~160MB/sec on an external USB 3.0 3TB drive.

The 5400 RPM 1TB fusion has Blackmagic speed tests up to 400MB
 
Why does the actual speed of the hdd matter if overall performance due to the fusion drive makes any speed difference between hdd's almost pointless? Yes, I know, there are probably some rare circumstances where you'll want to pull data off the hdd (old files not kept on the ssd) and it may take a few extra seconds or minutes. If speed is the ultimate issue someone cares about, you might as well forego using any hdd's as they are dogs compared to ssd's.

And of course if speed comes at the cost of heat and heat has an effect on longevity, you're walking a fine line of speed now to life of the device.
 
Why does the actual speed of the hdd matter if overall performance due to the fusion drive makes any speed difference between hdd's almost pointless? .

because thrashing back and forth, data on the HD will either be written and read slower or faster depending on the speed of the HD. Pretty straight forward.
 
You really have to go out of your way to find a 3 TB hdd that spins at 5400 rpm. It would appear that Western Digital is the choice if that is what you have to have.

I've not found any other mfg that lists 5400 rpm 3TB drives.

This is very funny, much ado about nothing. The FUSION renders the drive rotation speed a mute concern, really.

If you believe otherwise, load your iMac with two SSD's and install them in a RAID0 array, and while you're at it, strap a NASA shuttle solid booster to the back of your iMac, make it gofast.
 
I'd much rather buy a macbook air than pay $1300 for a faster (and smaller) drive

I got my iMac! I just went for the base model. I was willing to pay $2500 for my DREAM iMac but I wouldn't pay that to have less than I wanted so I just went with the base model. It's great overall. As expected the biggest issue is the bottleneck of the 5400 RPM drive.

Yah, no way I would pay $1300 for the SSD. I'm sure they are just saying: "buy the fusion drive" by charging so much for the SSD.

----------

Macworld was testing the fusion drive in a Mac Mini. Mac Mini uses 5400 RPM HDDs, so it's no surprise that the fusion drive uses the same.

The unknown is the fusion drive in the 27" iMac. This system uses 7200 RPM HDDs, and it would be perfectly reasonable to stay with 7200 RPM for fusion in this system. Or they could go cheaper/cooler/quieter with 5400 RPM.

I think if was not the 5400 RPM they would make some noise about that fact. As the fusion drive gets it's speed from the SSD it make sense not to spend the money going from 5400 RPM to 7200 for the mechanical portion that wouldn't really affect the perceived speed.

We know that it would have to be 5400 RPM to fit in the 21.5" and by all accounts it's the same drive in the 27".

As mentioned I got my iMac (base) and love it. If you are ordering an iMac though I would highly recommend springing for the fusion drive. No other $250 upgrade will do as much for performance.
 
Can anyone who has actually received their 27" confirm that the 1TB hard disk that comes with the fusion drive is 7200? There seems to be conflicting data all over the forum and web.
 
Anyone knows for the Fusion Drive inside the Mac mini and the iMac?
 
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The HDDs in all configurations of the 2012 27" iMacs are 3.5" 7200 RPM desktop drives, either WD or Seagate drives.

There's no room for 3.5" drives in the 21.5" iMacs, so they are using 5400 RPM 2.5" laptop drives.
 
The HDDs in all configurations of the 2012 27" iMacs are 3.5" 7200 RPM desktop drives, either WD or Seagate drives.

There's no room for 3.5" drives in the 21.5" iMacs, so they are using 5400 RPM 2.5" laptop drives.

There are up to 1.5TB 7200 RPM 2.5-inch drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive-mini.cfm

And up to 4TB 7200 RPM 3.5-inch drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm

Besides the larger-capacity announced at CES 2013 (2TB and 5TB, respectively)
 
Can anyone who has actually received their 27" confirm that the 1TB hard disk that comes with the fusion drive is 7200? There seems to be conflicting data all over the forum and web.

This has been done in other threads where 27inchers with FD have posted their profile info and it clearly shows 7200rpm HDD.

There is no murky gray area here here with FD. 27 = 7200. 21 = 5400.

This should be put as a sticky on the iMac front page!

Hope this clears it up for you.
 
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