Fusion drives are a joke, we are in 2017 Apple!!. Even with 128gb of SSD they don't work well from my experience. Best to go for a 256gb or larger SSD and get an external USB 3 drive for large files.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Fusion Drives
- Thread starter jw3571
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Looking at some of the WWDC information it appears that the Fusion drive setup will be improved in High Sierra. I believe all file metadata will be stored on the SSD part, this should hopefully speed things up considerably.
I did read somewhere that Fusion drive iMacs in the Apple Stores have the fusion disabled, the SSD unused. Something to do with the system restore application which they run every night only working with the HDD.
I did read somewhere that Fusion drive iMacs in the Apple Stores have the fusion disabled, the SSD unused. Something to do with the system restore application which they run every night only working with the HDD.
I confirm.
I have noticed all FD are disabled in my 2 local Apple Stores (Lyon/France).
The 2 drives are not fused and only the mechanical HDD is used.
I did this with my last machine, a Late 2013 iMac but even on that machine the internal SSD component of the Fusion Drive was about twice as fast. With the 2017 iMac it is more like four times the speed.
No kidding, wow. Thanks for the heads-up. The thing that irks me is the price to upgrade from the 2TB Fusion to the 512 SSD is more than the entire cost of a 512 SSD on its own. I wish there was a way to bypass that price gouge a la the RAM situation.
I have a 3TB fusion drive and am very happy with it, seems fast to me and I can very seldom hear it, mind you I could be going a bit deaf! Just have a WD external for Time Machine and the combination works perfectly. I wonder if some people that rubbish them have actually got them themselves?
I doubt you're going deaf. The FD in my Late 2013 iMac was very quiet as well. I could occasionally hear noticeable noise from the internal HD but the HDDs in my USB dock are much louder and more noticeable. I wouldn't list that as a particular disadvantage of the FD option.
If you're happy with the FD then pay no mind to the naysayers. After all, yours is the only opinion that matters where your own machine is concerned.
A lot (not all) that trash them have never used one. They look at speed tests that someone posts and declare them a waste of money. I still believe fusion works for 95% or more of people out there. That's not to say that the SSD isn't a great upgrade still, but for most it's unnecessary. I hear very few complaints from actual fusion drive owners that don't go into it with the attitude that it's going to suck.
Fusion drives are OK, but they have several disadvantages vs. SSD. If you have use SSD, you would know some of the disadvantages. The biggest advantage of Fusion drives is cost, but it's up to you to decide if the price premium of internal SSD is worth it.
In my case, most definitely the price premium is worth it, but only up to a point. I am willing to pay for a 1 TB internal SSD, but not a 2 TB internal SSD. 1 TB is fine for now, but I will expand to external storage later, again likely with SSD.
In my case, most definitely the price premium is worth it, but only up to a point. I am willing to pay for a 1 TB internal SSD, but not a 2 TB internal SSD. 1 TB is fine for now, but I will expand to external storage later, again likely with SSD.
Has anyone seen any reasonable testing of the 1TB 2017 Fusion Drive? I only see kneejerk responses to it mostly, and the odd youtube video that may have a benchmark or two.
I'm more interested in userfeel opinions over time.
By the way, interestingly the old 24GB one had a 32GB stick as well, but it was over provisioned for the rest. Being a small drive acting as a cache, they were probably worried about read/write cycles. Now they seem to have removed the overprovisioning, maybe because the controller and read/write cycles improved, or maybe just because they found through later analytics that it was not a concern.
This is certainly of interest, thanks. I've read of people finding them slow in stores, so that shows why.
I'm more interested in userfeel opinions over time.
By the way, interestingly the old 24GB one had a 32GB stick as well, but it was over provisioned for the rest. Being a small drive acting as a cache, they were probably worried about read/write cycles. Now they seem to have removed the overprovisioning, maybe because the controller and read/write cycles improved, or maybe just because they found through later analytics that it was not a concern.
This is certainly of interest, thanks. I've read of people finding them slow in stores, so that shows why.
I read (or possibly misread) that Apple still doesn't have a way to replace a failed fusion drive? Is this correct? Vs SSD, I am assuming they can replace in a snap? Or am I missing something...
Can you split a Fusion drive and use the SSD portion as the main drive, and have the 2tb or 3tb spinner as a separate backup drive?
Yes ... be sure to backup your disk before splitting apart the Fusion logical drive as all data will be lost.
I purchased the 1st version (128GB SSD portion) of the Fusion Drive, when i bought the late 2012 mac mini. It was a large part of my decision to buy that unit.
Its performed admirably in the past 5 years, and even survived an apple (really) juice bath from my little one knocking a cup over on the desktop, where the SATA (seen in pic, on top of the Mini with the the protective sleeve peeled away and the connector detached)portion of the Fusion drive was sopping wet and had to be decontaminated.
I will say, I am really struggling on my new 2017 iMac purchase.
I want so bad to have the latest and greatest all SSD 1TB drive, but the Fusion served us so well, even in such adverse usage, and we can get a 3TB version for 500 less than what the all SSD costs, I'm heavily being pulled in the Fusion direction again....
![minijuice.JPG]( "minijuice.JPG")
Its performed admirably in the past 5 years, and even survived an apple (really) juice bath from my little one knocking a cup over on the desktop, where the SATA (seen in pic, on top of the Mini with the the protective sleeve peeled away and the connector detached)portion of the Fusion drive was sopping wet and had to be decontaminated.
I will say, I am really struggling on my new 2017 iMac purchase.
I want so bad to have the latest and greatest all SSD 1TB drive, but the Fusion served us so well, even in such adverse usage, and we can get a 3TB version for 500 less than what the all SSD costs, I'm heavily being pulled in the Fusion direction again....
Just share my experience on fusion drive.
I also have a late 2013 iMac in office. It's 1.12TB fusion drive has 128GB SSD. It works quite well and I can hardly hear its noise. But it started to crash frequently about 1 month ago. It at least crashed once a day, either unexpectedly rebooting or just hanging. All my other Macs use SSD and never show this kind of problem with similar configurations for web development. One of the reason I guess is maybe I open too many apps and too many tabs in Chrome at the same time. While on the iMac 2013, the SSD part is likely already or almost full, so the fusion controlling software has to switch frequently between apps and files, hence exceeding it capability.
Yesterday I decided to install High Sierra Beta on the iMac 2013, as I heard the new APFS can handle fusion drive better. The installation took more than 1 hour, comparing to 35 minutes on my mid 2012 MBA. I think it's due to larger drive and HD part of the fusion drive. After installation, the system became extremely slow. Installing Xcode 9 command line tools took about 30 minutes (I didn't count as I didn't expect it). I believed it was doing indexing work at the backend. It did gradually regain responsiveness and speed during my half-day use.
Today it got even better. It didn't crash once, the 1st time full day coding without interruption for a month. Some apps such as Atom and DayOne gave me problems intermittently, but overall no big issue. I even feel the system is snappier than under Sierra. It's a good sign to fusion drive and the coming new OS.
Of course I still prefer SSD, and my new iMac 5K 2017 has 1TB SSD. I also replaced HD to SSD for all my previous Macs. But the iMac 2013 is difficult to do so. I almost plan to change my office iMac. Fortunately, High Sierra Beta seems to make fusion drive work again at a more than acceptable level, and extend its lifespan.
I had the Fusion split during install of OS. That caused the system to stop working. I had to pack up my iMac and take to the store. They refused.
I will pass on Fusion with my Next iMac. I would be normally be OK with it, but since Apple made self servicing the HD impossible, I won't bet on a spinning disk again.
I will pass on Fusion with my Next iMac. I would be normally be OK with it, but since Apple made self servicing the HD impossible, I won't bet on a spinning disk again.
After the fun and games I've just been through and got nowhere I'd advise people to avoid fusion drives like the plague
Wading through arcane terminal stuff is not why I bought a Mac in the first place..
Is it me or is OS-x actually getting less user friendly not more ??
The new iMac I'm on is all SSD and lovin' it !
Wading through arcane terminal stuff is not why I bought a Mac in the first place..
Is it me or is OS-x actually getting less user friendly not more ??
The new iMac I'm on is all SSD and lovin' it !
I am using a 5k with the 24Gb FD for 2 years without an issue.
It's working perfectly well and it has good performances in most cases