Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Help deciding on storage

luminouslight

luminouslight

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 29, 2012
291
230
Orlando FL
So I'm a bit indecisive on how much storage I should get for my new iMac and specifically if I should make the jump to all flash or go for the fusion drive.

I like the idea of more storage with the fusion drive but I also like the idea of no moving parts with the flash drive. I already had a bad experience with the 2012 version having a dead hard drive in less than a month.

So what are your guys opinions? Should I make the jump and pay a bit more for all flash? Argh I hate being so indecisive! :(
 
luminouslight said:
So I'm a bit indecisive on how much storage I should get for my new iMac and specifically if I should make the jump to all flash or go for the fusion drive.

I like the idea of more storage with the fusion drive but I also like the idea of no moving parts with the flash drive. I already had a bad experience with the 2012 version having a dead hard drive in less than a month.

So what are your guys opinions? Should I make the jump and pay a bit more for all flash? Argh I hate being so indecisive! :(
Click to expand...

get the flash it has a side benefit of much faster page outs if you use too much ram. use something like this for more storage


http://www.ebay.com/itm/LaCie-d2-US...343?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3385ec88cf



or this


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-Bac...External_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item58a574ebdd
 
Last edited:
At the end it will come down to how much money you can / are willing to spend for your machine. I decided to get the 1TB SSD solution (signature iMac Ivy Bridge will be returned and replaced by Haswell model within the 14 days period) because the iMac is basically not upgradable without causing warranty issues. Another reason for me was the fact that Fusion Drive does not support Windows via Bootcamp on the SSD under normal circumstances.

Even without having an idea how to fill up the drives at this stage (using a Synology DS1812 NAS with 8 x 3TB in RAID 6 for data storage) the plan is to use all machines for quite some time without the need to replace them. Because of this I decided to get 512GB SSD's for the laptops and the highest possible capacity for the 'desktop'...
 
luminouslight said:
That's a great idea about the external storage. Do you have any idea if I can install windows with boot camp on a external drive?
Click to expand...

I think people figured out how to do it - search the forums here, there's a couple of solutions around (or it may be the same solution found by different people).
 
luminouslight said:
That's a great idea about the external storage. Do you have any idea if I can install windows with boot camp on a external drive?
Click to expand...

I have windows as a vm on an external lacie little big disk. not sure about boot camp. I run 3 different minis two with internal fusion.

and one with the lacie little big disk as the osx booter and the windows vm using vmware. My eyes don't like iMac screens so i have a lot of minis. I have been very happy with lacie thunderbolt the little big disk and the big2 disk have work very well for me. the little big disk has a thread

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/

really happy with it
 
I went 512 Flash --

I know I am going to have external storage (ssd usb3 - maybe even TB) and 512 gets me 100G partition for OS and programs 50G for a seperate clean OS only partition and 350G for data (for me that's audio sample libraries and video from my band's shows) that I am currently working - old stuff to the NAS. Audio record disk is always separate.

The extra $500 that I would have spent on the 1TB Flash will go into a great TB or USB3 JBOD enclosure for all the SSD's I've collected :)

Spinning drives - even with fusion - won't even consider them :).
 
propower said:
I went 512 Flash --

I know I am going to have external storage (ssd usb3 - maybe even TB) and 512 gets me 100G partition for OS and programs 50G for a seperate clean OS only partition and 350G for data (for me that's audio sample libraries and video from my band's shows) that I am currently working - old stuff to the NAS. Audio record disk is always separate.

The extra $500 that I would have spent on the 1TB Flash will go into a great TB or USB3 JBOD enclosure for all the SSD's I've collected :)

Spinning drives - even with fusion - won't even consider them :).
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm actually really leaning for the 512 GB flash drive. I think that will be plenty of space for the OS and for a boot camp partition. If I had a boatload of money I'd go for 1 TB flash but that's another story altogether. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back