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HD or Fusion Drive?

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HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Greg mgm » Mon Nov 23, 2015 12:44 pm

Been a while, and researching options for getting back into video and music. ::CLAP:
Considering a refurbished imac, but haven't decided on anything yet.
What do you think about fusion drives? worth the additional cost? Or is a regular HD fine?

Thanks in advance!
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Bob » Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:23 pm

Fusion Drive is Apple's name for a hybrid ssd/hardrive. Hybrid drives are a compromise between a standard SSD and a hard drive. Lesser used files tend to migrate onto the hard drive portion while frequently used files migrate to the SSD portion. A portion of the SSD storage is also used for cache. They do improve the apparent speed of the drive, but, the downside is that the constant migration back and forth increases the writes to the SSD. Theoretically, that should shorten its useful life, but I don't know whether that is a practical issue. Whether you use this type of drive or not you need to backup the drive. A Fusion Drive may make sense for a single drive device like the iMac.
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Peru » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:44 pm

Changing the discussion slightly:
On a Windows system with a BIOS that doesn't support SSDs, will it support a hybrid drive?
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Bob » Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:54 pm

The SSD portion will be managed by the drive firmware behind the scenes like a cache. It will look like a standard drive to Windows and the bios. As long as it looks like a supported drive type, it should work.
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby sidd finch » Tue Nov 24, 2015 1:44 pm

I would suggest an SSD drive for you main drive then a 7200 rpm drive with a thunderbolt connection or USB 3.0 for you video music files.

Sidd
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby John 'twosheds' McDonald » Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:19 pm

In the light of price reductions on SSDs and the imminence of Black Friday I would be tempted to consider SSD only.
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Greg mgm » Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:12 pm

I like the idea of an SSD as well. Problem is, I like the idea of a 27" imac too. A refurb 27" with SSD is over my budget. ](*,)
The good thing is I'm not in a hurry, but I'll keep my eyes open on black Friday. I may have to forgo either the large screen or SSD to stay in budget. I'm also researching music and video software to go with whatever computer I end up with, so I have my researching work cut out for me. Thanks for the input.
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby John 'twosheds' McDonald » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:21 am

I am not familiar with Macs but is it not possible to fit an SSD yourself? It is a piece of cake (changing internal devices) on a Windows PC.
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Re: HD or Fusion Drive?

Postby Greg mgm » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:59 am

I just looked into that, thanks to your post. Its doable, but I'm not sure Id want to install one myself on an Imac. I may change my mind after I look at some tutorials on Youtube. I like this idea though!
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