Apple Fusion drive - is it good?

mranderson · 26 Dec 2012 at 16:11

Having a think about upgrading my Mac Mini with an SSD but not realy cleat about Fusion drive.
From what I understand it will keep on the SSD only the OS and some applications and as time passes it will keep adding files/appls etc that are used on a regular basis. Nobody knows what the algorithm used works. However am I wrong in thinking than by this way if the SSD or the HD fails you will not know what data may be lost?
Also with Fusion try and use as much SSD space as possible while if you manage the SSD seperately you can decide how much free space you want left?

theheyes · 26 Dec 2012 at 22:41

It's tiered storage and you don't really have much say in the process. For reliability purposes, treat it as a single drive and you won't go far wrong.

Caged · 26 Dec 2012 at 23:18

It's better than Seagate's pretty laughable attempt at it with the Momentus XT things, but that's about it. I would say the chance of failure is going to be higher than a single drive, as it moves the files onto SSD as opposed to caching them.

As always, AnandTech has a good article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6406/understanding-apples-fusion-drive

Feek · 27 Dec 2012 at 11:41

I have a 2011 iMac with Apple supplied SSD and 2Tb HDD. I'd love to be able to set those up as a Fusion drive in a supported configuration but I don't know if it's possible. I doubt it

/edit - It might be possible, interlesting.

Raymond Lin · 27 Dec 2012 at 12:23

It's funny how in the Mac Rumours Forum people are trying to figure out how to split the Fusion drive into SSD and HD, and someone has managed it as well.

mranderson · 27 Dec 2012 at 15:05

Others try to set them up as a Fusion drive and others try to split them ;-)

Space Cowboy · 27 Dec 2012 at 15:36

theheyes said:
For reliability purposes, treat it as a single drive and you won't go far wrong.

With double the probability of failure. Still, it's meant to be good, and as long as you have good backups I'd probably go for it.

Feek · 27 Dec 2012 at 15:45

Reading further into it, it appears that a 2012 Mac Mini is required to do this because the only version of Disk Utility that can do it is supplied with the new Mini. Hmmm.

theheyes · 27 Dec 2012 at 15:58

Space Cowboy said:
With double the probability of failure. Still, it's meant to be good, and as long as you have good backups I'd probably go for it.

Hmmmmm I wouldn't say it was a straightforward doubling actually, but our point is the same i.e. a single drive needs to be backed up regardless of what's going on in there.

hartgeh3 · 30 Dec 2012 at 14:26

make your own

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_odnNpv-FQ

http://doctorhappymac.co.uk/articles/make_your_own_fusion_drive.html

Roughneck · 1 Jan 2013 at 19:39

Caged said:
It's better than Seagate's pretty laughable attempt at it with the Momentus XT things, but that's about it. I would say the chance of failure is going to be higher than a single drive, as it moves the files onto SSD as opposed to caching them.

As always, AnandTech has a good article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6406/understanding-apples-fusion-drive

I have a Momentus XT in My 5 year old dell and must admit for the 100 pounds i paid for it , its very good. Wouldnt want to put a SSD in a laptop that old and the 500GB is a good size.

I cant see how you can really compare the two. one is about 18 months old tech and the other is brand new.

FreeStream · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:13

Feek said:
Reading further into it, it appears that a 2012 Mac Mini is required to do this because the only version of Disk Utility that can do it is supplied with the new Mini. Hmmm.

Nope.

You can do it via command line.

I tried it with a 160GB X25-M and a 2TB drive and it worked on my Mac Pro and 10.8.2.