Obscure wording in Apple's Fusion drive support FAQ

[Jaze]

Sorry, n00b here, a little confused by this Q/A in Apple's Fusion Drive FAQ:

Can external USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt hard drives be added to Fusion Drive?

External drives cannot be added to Fusion Drive.


That means specifically that you can't augment, say, a 1TB Fusion drive to a7TB Fusion drive just by plugging in a 6TB external hard drive, right? I can still use my external hard drives to store media etc?

Sorry, I know this is a bit of a facepalm question, but I don't want to order the wrong thing.

 

[Bierboy]

Sorry, n00b here, a little confused by this Q/A in Apple's Fusion Drive FAQ:

Can external USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt hard drives be added to Fusion Drive?

External drives cannot be added to Fusion Drive.


That means specifically that you can't augment, say, a 1TB Fusion drive to a7TB Fusion drive just by plugging in a 6TB external hard drive, right? I can still use my external hard drives to store media etc?

Sorry, I know this is a bit of a facepalm question, but I don't want to order the wrong thing.

That wording is confusing even the Apple Store employees. I pointed that out yesterday at the Indianapolis Apple Store, and the employee couldn't explain it to me. He went back to talk to someone, then returned to say that they interpret it as meaning the OS cannot reside on an external drive. Which sounds like what you may be stating. Bottom line is event he Apple employees don't know the answer to that one...

 

[Jaze]

Well, the same FAQ also mentions adding TimeMachine, which I figure means I'm being overneurotic about how I read it. But, still, it makes me a little wary of ordering a machine with a new, untested technology instead of just bumping up the SSD size and backing up/storing on fast external drives.

 

[Bierboy]

I think if the wording said "....added to the Mac Mini." rather than "...added to Fusion Drive." it would be clearer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446

 

[philipma1957]

don't be a guinea pig. you are talking about large addons so you don't want to chance it.

here is a good deal

http://www.macmall.com/p/LaCie-Hard-Drives/product~dpno~9378515~pdp.hjjefee

you can pull a hdd and put in an ssd. you have a lot of choice. and you can boot with this or this

http://www.macmall.com/p/LaCie-Hard-Drives/product~dpno~9105214~pdp.hcjeaji

 

[jshbckr]

Don't confuse adding a drive to your computer (to hold photos, video, music, etc.) with "adding to Fusion Drive".

All the Fusion Drive is, is an SSD and HDD combined together through software to appear as one drive. So a 256GB SSD and 750GB HDD would become a single 1TB Fusion Drive that shows up on your desktop as "Macintosh HD." Sounds like these drives need to be internal.

And honestly, I wouldn't want to add a large external to a fusion drive. Chances are the type of files you're storing on the external wouldn't be swapped over to the SSD for speed, anyway. So what's the point?

I'd opt for an SSD independent from HDD, so I can control the apps and files on the SSD.