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The fusion drive was a clever idea on paper (I would've made it up) but in practice it just caused confusion, especially when the majority of the cheap 21.5 inch iMacs had spinning hard drives.

Still can't believe they thought it was a good idea to keep selling them even after the Apple Silicon transition.

I actually did a DIY Fusion Drive back when I was trying to keep my old-ass Mac Mini in service. I opened it up, used a bracket and cable kit to cram a small SSD (all I could afford) alongside the HDD, ran a bunch of terminal commands I read about, and it worked brilliantly. I got quite a few years more life out of that little guy.
 
I have a 2012 27" iMac sitting in my basement which has been in nearly continuous operation for the past decade; it's no longer my primary computer, but it's still chugging along just fine, and the kids use it for some gaming by way of Windows 10. I did of course upgrade the RAM to 40GB within days of buying it, and I finally got around to replacing the internal HDD with an SSD just a couple of years ago. (I intentionally did not configure it with Fusion, because I've never really trusted that concept.)

You should get your kids some Steam Decks. They'd be a major upgrade from this old thing because that GTX in that iMac is no longer supported for modern titles.

Plus Steam Decks are portable while being supported on USB-C docking stations for TV play.

https://www.steamdeck.com/

I'd say you've got yourself a pretty decent workstation, there. Good find!

Thank you, but we might not use it now since the National Mac team is offering to take it off our hands and give us new Macs in it's place.
 
You should get your kids some Steam Decks. They'd be a major upgrade from this old thing because that GTX in that iMac is no longer supported for modern titles.

Actually, if I'm being totally honest: the one kid who still uses it for gaming also has a PlayStation 4... I don't think he would choose to go down the Steam Deck path for an upgrade; more likely, he'll be pushing me to get him a PS5 soon enough. My other two older "gamer" kids both have gaming PCs with RTX 3060 cards, which are quite satisfactory for most games. (My youngest is the real rebel... he only ever wants to use his iPad to play Minecraft. 😆)

Thank you, but we might not use it now since the National Mac team is offering to take it off our hands and give us new Macs in it's place.

Maybe you should ask them to send it back to you, sans drives, so you can turn it into a cheap DIY Studio Display. LOL!
 
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Actually, if I'm being totally honest: the one kid who still uses it for gaming also has a PlayStation 4... I don't think he would choose to go down the Steam Deck path for an upgrade; more likely, he'll be pushing me to get him a PS5 soon enough.

Oh...I'm sorry to hear that. I know having a console peasant as a child is rough, especially one on Playstation.

If you need to talk let me know. We're here for you

My other two older "gamer" kids both have gaming PCs with RTX 3060 cards, which are quite satisfactory for most games. (My youngest is the real rebel... he only ever wants to use his iPad to play Minecraft. 😆)

I got an RTX 3060 PC too but I still got a Steam Deck. To be honest I've been playing my Steam Deck more lately since it's more convenient. Plus, Linux Represent.

Maybe you should ask them to send it back to you, sans drives, so you can turn it into a cheap DIY Studio Display. LOL!

Yeah that's not how it works in the US Federal Government you silly billy. The iMac's drive is gonna have to be destroyed since it was used in a different facility.

Never a fan of Fusion drives anyway so not a big loss to me, I'd just open it up and put in an SSD.

Yes but still protocol states the drive will have to be destroyed first.
 
Yeah that's not how it works in the US Federal Government you silly billy. The iMac's drive is gonna have to be destroyed since it was used in a different facility.

Perhaps you misunderstood my comment: "sans drives" is the same thing as saying "without drives." To be clear, you don't actually need any drives for what I was suggesting. (Ignoring the fact that my comment was entirely tongue-in-cheek to begin with, as we all know perfectly well that nobody ever gets anything back from the proverbial "home office" once it has been "reclaimed"... government or otherwise.)
 
Perhaps you misunderstood my comment: "sans drives" is the same thing as saying "without drives." To be clear, you don't actually need any drives for what I was suggesting. (Ignoring the fact that my comment was entirely tongue-in-cheek to begin with, as we all know perfectly well that nobody ever gets anything back from the proverbial "home office" once it has been "reclaimed"... government or otherwise.)

Even then unfortunately we are not allowed to buy back equipment for personal use. Even I don't know where excessed equipment goes other than the drives get destroyed.
 
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I still use my Late 2012 27" Fusion iMac. The only changes I've made is adding RAM to keep up with the years. I've been looking to replace it soon, but Apple's current iMac lineup is lacking in so many areas, and I won't be stuck with a 24" crayon desktop. I also have a M1 MacBook Pro, but still prefer the iMac + iPad set up.
 
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