Video editors... Would you take a 256GB SSD as a boot drive over a 1TB fusion drive?

[zm15]

Seeing they are just about the same price, curious if getting a 512GB Evo 850 SSD as an external drive and running my After Effects and Premiere Pro cache from that and then the smaller internal SSD drive would be the best value. (considering buying the iMac 5k i7 with M295x, 24GB RAM)

Other than launching applications faster with a pure SSD, would I see an advantage of the SSD over the fusion? I'd like to store and render out the source files on the fusion drive if i get that.

I also use Dynamic Link a lot in my projects, how much does SSD play into that?

 

[rapicell]

It really depends on the usage. If really want that internal space and can deal with the slightly slow speeds of the fusion drive then get it. On the other handle, pure SSD is gonna have that faster read/write times and external store is pretty cheap to get at this point in time. I do video and photo editing and I keep all my files on an external drive (as well as have them backed up on a separate drive) because there isn't really a need for them on the boot drive unless you have the space

 

[yjchua95]

Seeing they are just about the same price, curious if getting a 512GB Evo 850 SSD as an external drive and running my After Effects and Premiere Pro cache from that and then the smaller internal SSD drive would be the best value. (considering buying the iMac 5k i7 with M295x, 24GB RAM)

Other than launching applications faster with a pure SSD, would I see an advantage of the SSD over the fusion? I'd like to store and render out the source files on the fusion drive if i get that.

I also use Dynamic Link a lot in my projects, how much does SSD play into that?

Pure SSD all the way for pure speed and reliability. Random I/O is also way better in a pure SSD setup.

Note that the 128GB SSD is significantly slower than the 256GB SSD when it comes to writes. So yes, the FD may be able to match the SSD in reads, but not in writes.

I've added two images showing the performance difference between a Fusion Drive (iMac15,1) and a pure SSD (MacBookPro11,1).

 

[xmichaelp]

Yes. If you're video editing you will want your projects on an external anyways.

I would get the baseline SSD for OS and apps and get an external SSD for video editing. External HDD for storing old projects you're not using.

 

[Chippy99]

Seeing they are just about the same price, curious if getting a 512GB Evo 850 SSD as an external drive and running my After Effects and Premiere Pro cache from that and then the smaller internal SSD drive would be the best value. (considering buying the iMac 5k i7 with M295x, 24GB RAM)

Other than launching applications faster with a pure SSD, would I see an advantage of the SSD over the fusion? I'd like to store and render out the source files on the fusion drive if i get that.

I also use Dynamic Link a lot in my projects, how much does SSD play into that?

I've made my views on this plain on other threads, but to reiterate, I see no point whatsoever in having a hard disk inside an iMac. They are noisy, consumer power (and therefore dissipate heat) and are prone to failure.

Given that you MUST have external media for backup purposes, there is no downside to having your data stored on external media as well.

 

[AlexJoda]

I've made my views on this plain on other threads, but to reiterate, I see no point whatsoever in having a hard disk inside an iMac. They are noisy, consumer power (and therefore dissipate heat) and are prone to failure.

Given that you MUST have external media for backup purposes, there is no downside to having your data stored on external media as well.

Totally agree with Chippy99. We see many dead iMac HDDs from our iMac customers over time and recommend to choose SSD only. We also recommend to add Thunderbolt external drives, eg. mSATA cases with dual 850 Evo SSDs. This is very fast, more flexible and much cheaper than the 1TB internal SSD from Apple.

 

[edjrwinnt]

I have my 1 TB Fusion Drive split down the middle so I can clone one drive to the other in case I screw something up, and I can boot off it right away instead of waiting for a time machine backup restore.

I do not save any files to my hard drive and I have 3 servers on my network for saving data. Plus, down the road when my warranty is up, I will have a second internal drive if one drive fails. If I pass the computer down to another family member I don't want to have an external hard drive hanging off of it for the computer to work. Plus, right now I already have about 10 things hooked up via USB and both of my thunderbolt ports have LCD's connected to them. My Fusion drives flies for what I want it do to and that is just loading applications.

 

[Chippy99]

I have my 1 TB Fusion Drive split down the middle so I can clone one drive to the other in case I screw something up, and I can boot off it right away instead of waiting for a time machine backup restore.

I do not save any files to my hard drive and I have 3 servers on my network for saving data. Plus, down the road when my warranty is up, I will have a second internal drive if one drive fails. If I pass the computer down to another family member I don't want to have an external hard drive hanging off of it for the computer to work. Plus, right now I already have about 10 things hooked up via USB and both of my thunderbolt ports have LCD's connected to them. My Fusion drives flies for what I want it do to and that is just loading applications.

I can't see any sense in what you are saying.

You don't save any files to your internal hard drive, and you have lots of other equipment attached, and your *only* requirement for an internal drive is in case at some point in the future you want to give the iMac to someone else? Is that what you're really saying?

Your SSD would fly too, for just loading applications. Only more so.

(And *of course* it would still work if it is SSD only!)