| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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The new iMac offers a "fusion" storage drive. Is that the same thing as this SSD you refer to?
Tha new Fusion drive is a very good idea, I don't have any feedback on actual use but although it's not new, I have recently discussed it with JK actually, it was previously only found on very high end computers.
It combines a smallish, fast SSD (Solid State Drive) with a large HDD (Hard Disk Drive). This all happens seamlessly, the two drives appear as one to the user. The Apple firmware places the operating system, applications and dynamic files (catches etc.) on the SSD, which typically takes about 32Gb for an average system. The remaining space on the SSD is then used for data.
When the SSD gets to a pre-determined capacity, say perhaps 90% during idle moments it moves less frequently used DATA from the SSD to the HDD. freeing up space on the SSD for the next chunk of data to arrive from the user. All saves of data are made to the SSD, the firmware decides which data to move on to the HDD.
On a technical note the big difference between the new Apple Fusion and previous methods is that the Apple Fusion only moves complete files onto the HDD, the original idea was to only move bite size chunks, which meant that you could end up with files split across both drives. That could lead to loss of data, the Apple Fusion idea is safer in principle. The data would be easier to recover if the drive crashed.
In simple terms this means you can combine very high speed with generous capacity, up to 3Tb according to the Apple store.
The info I have is that if you do want to get an SSD (or Fusion) upgrade it is very much cheaper and safer to get the update from Apple at initial purchase, rather than doing an upgrade with third party SSD's yourself. On the other hand Apple RAM is a rip off for some reason. However that is generally easy to upgrade yourself although Doug pointed out that the new iMacs are much slimmer and may not be so easy to upgrade, again no personal experience yet.
My only reservation is this is the first generation of fusion, Apple will have tested it extensively, it should be very safe, but often they improve these revolutionary features second and third time round. However if you feel it's what you want I think it will be a safe option and quite reasonably priced, I would go for it.
I would however also have a Time Machine backup too which is very important anyway. That way if there is a glitch in the onboard drive it's a simple job to restore anything or everything. Remember if a drive is going to fail it will usually be in the first month or after three to five years at least.
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Robert.