Two partitions and bootcamp

[aevan]

I have a Fusion Drive on my iMac and I have a 200Gb Bootcamp on it. I am running El Capitan. Anyway, I read somewhere (perhaps I misinterpreted it) that I can have only 2 partitions on my Fusion Drive (in other words, splitting the HDD portion into two partitions). Since I already have a Bootcamp partition, would it be fine to add an additional partition in the remainder of the Fusion Drive? And would it split just the HDD? Basically, I would like to make a 'storage' HDD-only partition on my FD where I can keep the files I use often, but that don't require fast access without them getting on to the SSD.

Anyone has any experience with that? Thanks.

 

[fathergll]

Off topic but how is the performance of the 200Gb Bootcamp on the HD portion of the fusion drive?

 

[SolrFlare]

I have a Fusion Drive on my iMac and I have a 200Gb Bootcamp on it. I am running El Capitan. Anyway, I read somewhere (perhaps I misinterpreted it) that I can have only 2 partitions on my Fusion Drive (in other words, splitting the HDD portion into two partitions). Since I already have a Bootcamp partition, would it be fine to add an additional partition in the remainder of the Fusion Drive? And would it split just the HDD? Basically, I would like to make a 'storage' HDD-only partition on my FD where I can keep the files I use often, but that don't require fast access without them getting on to the SSD.

Anyone has any experience with that? Thanks.

You can only have 2 total partitions with a fusion drive per apple's support article on fusion drives. It states that second partition can either be a boot camp or OS X partition. So, since you have used it for boot camp, you can not make another Mac partition beyond the one that is already there

 

[aevan]

Ok, that answers it - thanks!

 

[aevan]

Off topic but how is the performance of the 200Gb Bootcamp on the HD portion of the fusion drive?

Well.... It's HDD. It's very slow compared to FD in OS X. Windows boots slowly and it takes much longer to load apps the first time. Once everything loads up, it's fine. I don't mind, I use Windows only to play an occasional game, and it's quite fine for that. But if I had to get some serious work done, I wouldn't enjoy it. Fusion Drive is great in my opinion (I really like how it works in OS X), but it's not a great performer in Bootcamp as it uses the HDD only.

Basically, if you want to use Windows on a Mac for more serious work than gaming, you need a full SSD. If you just need it for gaming, FD is fine.

 

[fathergll]

Well.... It's HDD. It's very slow compared to FD in OS X. Windows boots slowly and it takes much longer to load apps the first time. Once everything loads up, it's fine. I don't mind, I use Windows only to play an occasional game, and it's quite fine for that. But if I had to get some serious work done, I wouldn't enjoy it. Fusion Drive is great in my opinion (I really like how it works in OS X), but it's not a great performer in Bootcamp as it uses the HDD only.

Basically, if you want to use Windows on a Mac for more serious work than gaming, you need a full SSD. If you just need it for gaming, FD is fine.

Thats actually the biggest reason I wish I had a giant SSD instead of a fusion drive(just to give an option on uses Windows with SSD performance). SSD costed way too much to upgrade to justify it.