TThinking of purchasing a 2TB FireCuda HHSD

[kdoug]

(Sorry SSHD) for my iTunes and photos. I already have a USB 3.0 dual docking station but I wanted to know if I'd see any performance gains with lets say the OWC USB 3.1 dual station?

 

[robeddie]

for my iTunes and photos. I already have a USB 3.0 dual docking station but I wanted to know if I'd see any performance gains with lets say the OWC USB 3.1 dual station?

The SSD portion is a measly 8gb. People on these forums say the fusion drive took a big hit when apple decreased the ssd portion to 24gigs (down from 128). Given that, it seems 8 gigs would be almost useless.

Personally I had an off the shelf sshd a few years back, which also had around 8 gigs of ssd, and frankly didn't see much speed advantage over a full spinning drive.

 

[techwarrior]

The model iMac you have has two Thunderbolt 3 ports. These two ports support DisplayPort, Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps), and USB 3.1 Generation 2 (up to 10 Gbps).

The SATA3 bus internally supports 6Gbps (750MBps) for internal drives, so theoretically the external drives might be faster.

But, the drive itself is SATA3, so regardless of the TB\USB3.1 speeds, the drive itself will be the bottleneck at a max of 6Gbps. USB3.0 speeds are roughly 5Gbps, so the upgraded dock would help (20% roughly) with transfer speeds between the Mac and Dock.

However, the drive itself supports less than 2Gbps sustained read or write speeds, which might be faster than HDD, but the bus, be it USB3, 3.1, or TB would be overkill. SSDs approach sustained read\write speeds of USB3.0.

So, faster transfers will not necessarily result in observable differences. The main difference would be SSHD VS HDD performance which is roughly 210 MBps (SSHD) vs 80-160 MBps (HDD). Some SSD by comparison can reach 500-550MBps speeds.

So, save some $$$ and put an SSHD in the existing USB3.0 dock.

 

[kdoug]

The SSD portion is a measly 8gb. People on these forums say the fusion drive took a big hit when apple decreased the ssd portion to 24gigs (down from 128). Given that, it seems 8 gigs would be almost useless.

Personally I had an off the shelf sshd a few years back, which also had around 8 gigs of ssd, and frankly didn't see much speed advantage over a full spinning drive.

Since I already have a fairly new bare 2TB and 3TB drive I might as well hold onto them and not waste the money on the SSHD then. For pictures, movies and photos it doesn't sound like reinvesting makes sense. Maybe I'll play around with making an external fusion drive if possible.

 

[techwarrior]

Since I already have a fairly new bare 2TB and 3TB drive I might as well hold onto them and not waste the money on the SSHD then. For pictures, movies and photos it doesn't sound like reinvesting makes sense. Maybe I'll play around with making an external fusion drive if possible.

Probably a wise choice. For the smaller files, HDD Vs SSHD is probably a non-factor. Movies might load a second or two faster, but how often do you really do that. Save your $$$ and use it on something more useful, HomePod maybe.

 

[robeddie]

Probably a wise choice. For the smaller files, HDD Vs SSHD is probably a non-factor. Movies might load a second or two faster, but how often do you really do that. Save your $$$ and use it on something more useful, HomePod maybe.

You could always just do what I did, and buy the crucial 2tb ssd. It's 'only' $529 😀

 

[kdoug]

You could always just do what I did, and buy the crucial 2tb ssd. It's 'only' $529 😀

Yikes!