Has Bare Feats helped you? How about donating to Bare Feats?
feed
|
SNAPSHOT: Apple's Fusion Drive's speed
versus the alternativesOriginally posted Wednesday, November 7th, 2012, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist The Apple Fusion drive is now a CTO option on the (late 2012) Mac mini and (late 2012) iMac. We have some preliminary speed test data to share with you. We compare it to five alternative storage options. Intech's QuickBench - The Custom Sequential Test (1024MB) to get a quick snapshot of the large block transfer speed of various drives compared to the Apple Fusion drive. (HIGHEST number means the FASTEST in megabytes per second.) GRAPH LEGEND
MP Fusion = 'home grown' Fusion volume on the 2010 Mac Pro 6-core created using an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 120GB SSD mounted the Apricorn Velocity x2 PCIe card and a Hitachi 7K3000 2TB HDD connected to the HighPoint RocketCache x8 PCIe card
OWC SSD = OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 240GB SSD (upgrade to 2012 mini sold by OWC)
factory SSD = 2012 Mac mini with the Apple 256GB SSD CTO option
factory Fusion = 2012 Mac mini with the Apple Fusion 1TB drive CTO option
7K HDD = Hitachi 7K3000 7200rpm 2TB HDD connected to a 6Gb/s host adapter (to represent a typical fast 7K Hard Disk Drive)
factory HDD = Apple's factory 'stock' 5400 rpm 1TB HDD for the 2012 Mac mini Core i7 ANALYSIS
We plan to expand on this topic as well as alternatives to the Fusion but suffice to say that the performance of the Apple Fusion drive is impressive and promises the best of both storage worlds: speed and space. It's also nice to know that you can 'roll your own' Fusion volume on the Mac Pro like we did. But is that something you really should do? Is there any downside? Lloyd Chambers argues that, 'The 'Fusion' option isn’t just a poor value— it actively reduces the robustness, reliability and versatility of the Mac Mini.' Download games for mac for free full. SPECIAL THANKS to Other World Computing test lab for helping provide test results for this article. Check out their memory and storage upgrades for all models of Mac mini. MUST READ
For expanded discussions of the Fusion drive, how it works, and how you can create your own, click these links: Anandtech's 'Understanding Apple's Fusion Drive' JollyJinx's 'Fusion drive on older Macs? Neat image for mac. YES!
ArsTechnica 'Fusion Drive: How it works and how to roll your own.' MacPerformanceGuide's 'Dual Drives Are Better than Fusion' Apple's FAQ on the Fusion drive for (late 2012 Mac mini and (late 2012) iMac ArsTechnica tears apart the Fusion drive Feedback or comments? Contact me , mad scientist.
Also, you can follow me on Twitter @barefeats WHERE TO BUY APPLE PRODUCTS
Help us earn a commission by ordering your Apple products using this link: Has Bare Feats helped you? How about helping Bare Feats?
copyright 2012 Rob Art Morgan
'BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS'
Email
|
INDEX of
recent articles
or..
|
Make Offer - Apple Mac Mini 2014/8Gb/2.8Ghz/Intel i5/1TB Fusion hard drive/keyboard/trackpad. MAC MINI i5@2.5 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM 60GB/500GB FUSION DRIVE + POWER CORD $550.00. Dual Hard Drives: The 2012 Mac mini has a second SATA socket on its logic board and plenty of room to install a second 2.5' hard drive. By installing a second drive you can greatly expand your storage capabilities or even install a solid state drive for lightning fast boot times. Mac Desktop Decline, Fusion Drive for Older Macs, Late 2012 Mac mini Teardown, and More, Mac News Review, 2012.11.03. Also Apple's record quarter, quad-core Mac mini vs. Mac Pro, Windows 8 'more like iOS than OS X', and more. 1TB Hitachi hard drive (from a Mac mini) and 250GB OWC Mercury Extreme SSD. You need two drives to make a Fusion Drive, and if you want to get the speed boost, one should be an SSD. When Apple first launched the Fusion Drive back in 2012 the SSD component was 128GB. Rather disappointingly, back in 2015 Apple reduced the flash component in.
Presented as a single volume on your Mac, Fusion Drive automatically and dynamically moves frequently used files to Flash storage for quicker access, while infrequently used items move to the high-capacity hard disk. As a result, you enjoy shorter startup times and—as the system learns how you work—faster application launches and quicker file access.
Fusion Drive manages all of this automatically in the background. And it comes already set up, so you don't have to do anything to make it happen.
Availability
Fusion Drive became available as an option for iMac and Mac mini models introduced in late 2012. Fusion Drive now comes standard on some iMac and Mac mini models, and is a configurable option on others. For even faster performance, you can configure a model that uses only flash storage (SSD).
Learn more
Replace Fusion Drive Mac Mini 2012
- You can use Disk Utility to add a single macOS partition to the hard disk on Fusion Drive, and that partition will function as a separate volume, not as part of Fusion Drive. Disk Utility then dims the button to prevent additional partitions. If creating a Windows partition, use Boot Camp Assistant instead.
- You can use Target Disk Mode to mount Fusion Drive from another Mac that is using OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 or later.
- Learn what to do if your Fusion Drive appears as two drives instead of one in the Finder.
- An external drive can't be used as part of a Fusion Drive volume.