Will I regret not getting Fusion Drive in iMac 27?

[omfgskyler]

I'm currently deciding on whether to get an iMac w27 with or without a Fusion Drive...

Here's my situation. I'm selling my 13" MBP due to it's lack in screen real-estate, speed, and age. I do heavy photo editing(RAW images), and light video-editing. I will be going to school for film (I'm 17) so there will be heavier video editing in the future. I am selling more or my photos as well as selling other peoples' items on eBay for a slight profit. I NEED something faster.

Here's my options...

Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 $1,869 Plus Tax
Originally released October 2012
27-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology
8GB memory

1TB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX with 1GB
Built-in FaceTime HD camera


Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 $2,199 Plus Tax (even heftier tag because of it )
Originally released October 2012
27-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology
8GB memory
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX with 2GB
Built-in FaceTime HD camera

I will purchase myself a refurbed Air after high school, so I'll have a taste of SSD.... Is a fusion drive needed for my tasks? Is the extra $350 justifiable for a Fusion and 2GB VRAM? Can I live 4 to 5 years without it? Is a Fusion Drive computer easy to sell down the road?


Thanks for any responses. Kind of need an answer by the end of the day.


*I considered the Mid-2011 option, but I feel like USB 3.0 is a good way to future proof my purchase*

 

[enny001]

I am telling you right now get mac pro specially if you are going to do heavy editing with it. I was in same boat returned my imac because mac pro have so much options of adding hardware to it.

I will give you example why mac pro. Got out of film school, got my self imac 27 inch which was awesome and it looks awesome on my table got a job as assistant colorist, my boos ask me if i am willing to do some basic color automated correction at home he was going to set me up with spare red rocket card to edit/log and color correct raw red footage and reference monitor with kona card that was 2 years back now i am colorist just because of taking some of my work home and learning on my time but if i head imac i would not be able to do any of that since you cant add hardware to imac except HD and some memory. Get your self refurbished mac pro from apple and you will be future proof. Got my self mac pro 2009 quad core 3 years back and mac still working like crazy. I even have 2 pc video cards radion hd 5770 and gtx55ti in my mac pro ruining and it only cost me 200 for each card you see what i mean you can add so much to it

 

[omfgskyler]

I am telling you right now get mac pro specially if you are going to do heavy editing with it. I was in same boat returned my imac because mac pro have so much options of adding hardware to it.

Problem is.. I don't have the budget for one right now and would be stupid of me because they should be getting an update fairly soon. A Mac Pro will definitely be my next upgrade, but only when I have a superior need for it and a better job to support it. An iMac thru Senior year and most of college is what I need. After college I'll jump to Pro


I do agree with you in a sense

 

[PavelT]

i dont think so in your case, since you might use externals anyways for your cause. 1tb harddrive would be fine. you might want to look into full ssd though if you can.

 

[enny001]

hm

You can get refurbished 2.8 quad core for for $1,859.00 with apple 5770 video card And apple doing update soon man i been hearing and reading about that for 5 months now on this forum and still not even a fart from apple. But up to you man and i hope they fix that yellow tint at the bottom of imac.

byt as they say what ever makes you happy

 

[gnasher729]

You are comparing two Macs at different prices. I recommend comparing Macs at the same price: 3.4 GHz non-fusion vs. 2.9 GHz fusion. They are quite exactly the same price, and between them I'd take the 2.9 GHz Fusion.

 

[Bear]

I'm currently deciding on whether to get an iMac w27 with or without a Fusion Drive...

Here's my situation. I'm selling my 13" MBP due to it's lack in screen real-estate, speed, and age. I do heavy photo editing(RAW images), and light video-editing. I will be going to school for film (I'm 17) so there will be heavier video editing in the future. I am selling more or my photos as well as selling other peoples' items on eBay for a slight profit. I NEED something faster.
...
I will purchase myself a refurbed Air after high school, so I'll have a taste of SSD.... Is a fusion drive needed for my tasks? Is the extra $350 justifiable for a Fusion and 2GB VRAM? Can I live 4 to 5 years without it? Is a Fusion Drive computer easy to sell down the road?
...

Based on keeping a machine for 4 or 5 years, the extra $350 is not much spread over that time. The Fusion drive will help overall and the 2GB graphics will help with video editing. Some photo editing programs also make use of the graphics processor, so getting the best you can afford is a good idea.

 

[KenK-AZ]

Maybe

I have a mid 2011 pre-Fusion iMac 27. The Fusion technology sounded pretty good so I bought an OWC SSD kit and 120GB SSD drive. I installed it last night without much trouble. Directions indicate that to get true Fusion peformance I need to re-install OS X.

After more consideration, I dont think I want to go Fusion. Why? Well it seems like it will complicate bootcamp for one. Also, I really only need the OS and apps on the SSD. When you go Fusion, you have to go all in on the drives, no partitioning. Instead, I am going to split the SSD into a 80GB OS X partition and a 40GB Bootcamp partition. I'll split the 1TB HDD 900/100 for OS X/Win storage. More than enough space for my use.

----------

Problem is.. I don't have the budget for one right now and would be stupid of me because they should be getting an update fairly soon. A Mac Pro will definitely be my next upgrade, but only when I have a superior need for it and a better job to support it. An iMac thru Senior year and most of college is what I need. After college I'll jump to Pro

Sonnett makes a PCIe card adaptor for Thunderbolt iMacs. On the website it even shows a Red Rocket card inside one. Carefully investigate if any card you want is on their compatible list. Thunderbolt opens a lot of possibilities for an iMac.

 

[tears2040]

I am telling you right now get mac pro specially if you are going to do heavy editing with it. I was in same boat returned my imac because mac pro have so much options of adding hardware to it.

I will give you example why mac pro. Got out of film school, got my self imac 27 inch which was awesome and it looks awesome on my table got a job as assistant colorist, my boos ask me if i am willing to do some basic color automated correction at home he was going to set me up with spare red rocket card to edit/log and color correct raw red footage and reference monitor with kona card that was 2 years back now i am colorist just because of taking some of my work home and learning on my time but if i head imac i would not be able to do any of that since you cant add hardware to imac except HD and some memory. Get your self refurbished mac pro from apple and you will be future proof. Got my self mac pro 2009 quad core 3 years back and mac still working like crazy. I even have 2 pc video cards radion hd 5770 and gtx55ti in my mac pro ruining and it only cost me 200 for each card you see what i mean you can add so much to it

Are you sure you can't color on an iMac..........

Are you sure you can only transcode files with a Red Rocket card...........

Honestly a Mac Pro is a good computer , but simply cannot compare to the speed of a new iMac i7. Furthermore you are completely false as you can add hardware via the thunderbolt port.

http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t


Also a Red Rocket card has NOTHING to do with coloring, it is only used for debayering........ Even furthermore FCP X and many other non linear editing systems can edit Red Raw files.....

 

[omfgskyler]

[/COLOR]

Sonnett makes a PCIe card adaptor for Thunderbolt iMacs. On the website it even shows a Red Rocket card inside one. Carefully investigate if any card you want is on their compatible list. Thunderbolt opens a lot of possibilities for an iMac.

What's a PCIe card adaptor? Are you saying I should go with the non-fusion?

 

[omfgskyler]

Honestly boot up time isn't all that important to me as it's a desktop. An Air on the other hand is different. I'm sure it will help with rendering time, but I thought maybe I'd put the editing software on an external thunderbolt SSD

 

[js81]

Have you considered a Mini with dual 24" 1080p monitors (maybe Dell Ultrasharps)? That would be MY choice... Quad core Mini with 16GB of RAM and either single or dual SSDs, or Fusion drive, sounds mighty nice to me.

 

[benwiggy]

I have the Fusion drive, and it's truly a genius idea. It really does give you the speed of SSD with the capacity of HDD at a reasonable price.

Sure, SSDs are getting bigger and cheaper every day. But this tiered storage technology will be useful for years to come, whatever the hardware, I'm sure.

 

[PJM82]

To be honest if I purchased my iMac again I wouldn't bother with the fusion drive at all. Its not as impressive as I was expecting. However I then got hold of a 240 gig SSD, hooked that up externally for the boot drive and the performance difference is like night and day. I have a 4TB external for files etc and the internal is used as a program, install location and my occasional bootcamp drive. More important programs I install to the SSD.

I still believe its a huge oversight on Apples behalf to make the harddisk so inaccessible with the rates of failure of drives. I guess because the drive will fail long past the end of your warranty they honestly don't care.

 

[jmgregory1]

Spend the money and get the Fusion upgrade. Even if you're going to run a bunch of external ssd drives, having Fusion for resale value alone will be worth it. It's crazy that Apple even sells standard hdd drive equipped models of anything any more. I couldn't imagine working on my 2012 21" iMac without Fusion, given my portable is an 2011 Air.

I love the fact that I don't have to think twice about storage capacity on the iMac, in the way I do on the Air. You really do get the best of both worlds - big hdd storage and fast ssd.

 

[PJM82]

Spend the money and get the Fusion upgrade. Even if you're going to run a bunch of external ssd drives, having Fusion for resale value alone will be worth it. It's crazy that Apple even sells standard hdd drive equipped models of anything any more. I couldn't imagine working on my 2012 21" iMac without Fusion, given my portable is an 2011 Air.

I love the fact that I don't have to think twice about storage capacity on the iMac, in the way I do on the Air. You really do get the best of both worlds - big hdd storage and fast ssd.

Well that's the thing, Apple do now offer smaller SSD configurations which would be a good compromise. It's not exactly difficult to set program's to install to another drive or be your default file store locations. It's certainly easier than Windows.

 

[Arfdog]

Honestly boot up time isn't all that important to me as it's a desktop. An Air on the other hand is different. I'm sure it will help with rendering time, but I thought maybe I'd put the editing software on an external thunderbolt SSD

It helps in every other way as well. If you don't really heavily use the HD, the Fusion is indistinguishable from an SSD. It's like you're getting an SSD for 1/4 the price. If you're loading multi-GB files then you might feel the slog of the HDD, but otherwise it'll feel very SSD-like.

 

[flynz4]

It helps in every other way as well. If you don't really heavily use the HD, the Fusion is indistinguishable from an SSD. It's like you're getting an SSD for 1/4 the price. If you're loading multi-GB files then you might feel the slog of the HDD, but otherwise it'll feel very SSD-like.

Regarding the bolded section above... HDD vs SSD is fairly comparable for large files. It is when you are loading 100's or 1000's of tiny files from the drive when you feel the difference between HDDs and SSDs.

It is in latency/IOPs where SSD's shine. Repositioning the heads for a new file... and then waiting (on average) 1/2 revoution for the data to move into place. Large files are generally the least impactful to keep on HDDs... because you seek once... and then just stream the data.

/Jim

 

[Nuke61]

Regarding the bolded section above... HDD vs SSD is fairly comparable for large files. It is when you are loading 100's or 1000's of tiny files from the drive when you feel the difference between HDDs and SSDs.

It is in latency/IOPs where SSD's shine. Repositioning the heads for a new file... and then waiting (on average) 1/2 revoution for the data to move into place. Large files are generally the least impactful to keep on HDDs... because you seek once... and then just stream the data.

/Jim

Exactly, or put another way, when doing large sequential reads an SSD speed is ~4x that of an HDD - much faster. However, the average access time or seek time of an SSD is ~100x that of an HDD - a speed difference that puts the sequential read difference to shame

 

[Arfdog]

Bottom line is get the FD. If you don't want to pay for a pure SSD, want 90% of the speed of an SSD but with all the capacity of an HDD, get it. You won't be disappointed.