Fusion drive reliability.
 

Got a mate looking at buying an iMac and he asked me what I know about the fusion drives - and that is very little.

AFAIK, if the SSD part fails, the drive is kaput. Is that correct?

Since we have had them available for some time now, do we have any idea if they are as, or less reliable than conventional mechanical drives?

Thanks for any input!

SSDs are certainly not unreliable, but their failure mode is Sudden Death. Fusion drives are all software (SSD over spinning) so if the SSD fails, data stored on the main drive should be ok. No idea if it can be read without a lot of tinkering.

If you don't like the arrangement, it's fairly easy to separate the drives and have 1Tb + 128Gb: move the OS to the SSD, keep your own stuff on the regular drive.

Ok, but Apple won't BTO it like that, will they, as far as I can see?

As long as you always have a backup, the result would be the same as if you'd had a spinning disk fail. Replace faulty hardware and restore form backup.

Lets back up and review the speed/size needs and benefits of fusions vs hd vs pure ssd.

How much space does your friend need.
Does he/she work with files larger then 4gb. Fusion drives slow to hd speed when working with files larger then 4 gb once larger then sed portion of fusion is reached.
Can they afford a pure SSD.

At least in Non Apple 250s are around $175 and 500s are around 250 to 300.

Choose carffully on a few fronts, prrhaps a Quad Core Mini and a monitor is a better choice.

New imacs have to be BTO the way u want 21 is not even ram upgradable and regardless there very non friendly service wise semi glued together. So Applecare becomes a more serious considertion. Storage can be migrated TB or USB3 which can get u very good speed and can be booted from with either imac or mini, or macbook.

Reposted after Spell check argh, bad to post from phone sometimes:)

Lets back up and review the speed/size needs and benefits of fusions vs hd vs pure SSD.

How much space does your friend need.
Does he/she work with files larger then 4gb. Fusion drives slow to hd speed when working with files larger then 4 gb once larger then SSD portion of fusion is reached.
Can they afford a pure SSD.

At least in Non Apple 250s are around $175 and 500s are around 250 to 300.

Choose carefully on a few fronts, perhaps a Quad Core Mini and a monitor is a better choice.

New iMacs have to be BTO the way u want 21 is not even ram upgradable and regardless there very non friendly service wise semi glued together. So Applecare becomes a more serious consideration. Storage can be mitigated with TB or USB3 external storage which can get u very good speed and can be booted from with either iMac or mini, or macbook.

I checked for you for fun on all the iMacs 256, 512GB and on some 1TB PCIe based SSD are an option. $200, $500 and $1000.

On a Mini there is actually room for two 2.5 inch drives but I think the bracket for it only comes with the Server version Quad core $999 and two hard drives versus the $799 Quad core Mini.

With the Mini of course you can just Pop a 1TB Samsung Evo SSD or similar for around $500.

You two trade graphic card performance you have to look carefully among the various iMacs if high end video card performance is important.

As stated above though an External SSD via USB3 or TB is a very valid option. Most would never notice the loss in performance running it over a good USB3 case that can hit over 400Mbs, vs. TB which with a good case can max out Sata3 interface around 550Mbs with the correct drive. Fast as they are there are workloads that slow them some so its not like everything happens at 550MBs hence why USB3 is fine. PCIe of course can hit around 1000 to 1300Mbs.

I'm not sure what he works with, but he's an insurance broker, so his workflow wouldn't be far off mine AFAIK, i.e., pdf. manipulation, MS Office - certainly nothing heavy. I do know it's a home office-away-from-his-office solution and his iMac idea came from the smaller footprint/minimal cabling and he was considering the 27".

Interesting idea of the two drives in a Mini - the standard mini doesn't have the rack for the extra drive then?

Its also a cable $ 29 from macsales...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMM11D2/

An iMac is fine so is a Mini. I would get it with 8 or 16GB of Ram and 256 or 512 GB SSD. For larger you can always get USB3 and SSD or if you have to have the fastest Lacie and others make striped 500GB SSD/1TB in Thunderbolt enclosures that can hit almost 1300MBs.

Here are some fast bus powered USB3 cases..

http://www.barefeats.com/hard189.html

Note to there are number of Combo USB3/TB enclosures. A lot of TB enclosures offer 2 or more drive bays and of course there ones for PCIe cards and tons of other things.

Correct, though the Server version of the mini comes with the mounting for a second drive since it comes with two HDDs. I installed the Data Doubler kit anthlover linked using their installation video.

The mini, like every Mac, is a tightly packed unit, but I was able to do the installation, and I'm not a mechanical whiz. The result is that my mini runs off the SSD I installed, and the HDD is partitioned to hold a clone of the SSD and a Time Machine volume.

Note the note on the MacSales page linked above. I don't remember if it was there when I ordered:

Ok, I'm just waiting for a postage quote from iFixit, before I decide who to buy from. I am yet to fit my RMA SSD back into my Mini, so, I'll do that and have the existing in the same config as NaOH. Good idea. Plagiarism is great. 😋

As for Matey, I'll suggest the Mini option to him, but I think he's quite struck on the looks of the 27" iMac, apart from his user requirements. Can't blame him either, I think it's a great looking bit of kit.

"Striped"?

Is that the same as white label?

Let's just back up a moment here:

Are you saying that the bay inside the current 27" iMac has room for two drives?

27 inch iMacs have space for two storage devices - one in a 3.5 inch spinning form factor with SATA interface, the other in a pc-card form factor with a PCIe interface.

Forgive my ignorance here, but i have never been near one of these machines - the PCIe interface is internal then?

i.e., a Royal pain to get at?

The current desktops are in the "Spawn of Satan" repair category. Not "Royal Pain" - that's the Minis.

You need a specific-size pizza cutter in addition to the assorted funky drivers and levers. And new adhesive strips each time you open one up.

OK, I'll drop that Idea before it germinates further then.

I'm reasonably content with my mid-2011 Mini - had that apart several times now and the fiddliest operation was actually getting a new SSD seated properly - the rest was straightforward enough. I always do my stuff with a 2 foot length of double-sided tape stuck next to my operating table and all screws and fittings are stuck on that in the order that they are removed. I also keep a roll of Kapton tape handy.

Just my mechanical engineer's take on the best way not to lose the smaller bits and pieces. When I am restoring, or working on my mil trucks and bikes, I use a few plastic bowls and a digital snappy for anything that I'm really unfamiliar with. Works for me.

Get a fridge magnet whiteboard (big magnet all across the back). flip it over and put a piece of paper on it. Draw boxes on the paper, labeled appropriately. Drop the screws on the box. (rather important to keep the 3.6mm and 4.3mm screws separate)

When done, file paper for next time.

Also a good idea, assuming you have such a whiteboard.

Er, why flip it over, btw?

Fridge whiteboards are $2 at the local housewares store.

You flip it over because fridge magnets are halbach magnet arrays - you get nearly zero magnetic effort on the front.

In Japan?

They are about $10 here - if you can find one.

Good old Klaus, eh? No magtape without him.

To answer earlier question striped is a raid array, combining two drives to get more speed, or more capacity, or more reliability... With enough drives you can combine these attributes into one array.

New iMacs are heat gun to release the glue/seal then merely horrible, there a videos. Buy it the way you want it.

Sure. I have fancied the newer shape iMac since it came out - I think it's a fabulously designed piece of kit. That said, I have no use for one until my old 24" finally carks it and it's trundling along nicely for my daughter at the time of writing.

As per my other recent thread, my next purchase will be an Air, or 13" MBP next year, morse likely the Air, thanks to all your input to my questions.

I still have an old iMac with the monitor attached to the half-football (sorry, no idea which model) still humming along when I occasionally boot it up. I also gave away an old eMac a few years ago and it's still running just fine.

Do you think Apple is deliberately moving away from repairability/durability, or are we just paying the price for miniaturisation?

I think Apple looked at the sales volume (with options) vs. the parts/repairs volume and decided that the customer base doesn't care that much. Once the limitation for a user-swappable battery etc. was removed the designers had a lot more options.

True. It's certainly not about to change is it? I'd imagine that their repair business is alo notably more profitable now, too.

That's my point - I don't think the repair business is significant. Therefore, machines can be designed without caring about repairability. (At least not warranty repairability. The water-sensitive keyboard is another discussion.)

I use Logitech K760s and I haven't found a suitable cover/protector yet.

The 27 unlike the 21 does have 4 user upgradeable memory slots via a little trap door. Yes in general thin means harder to repair, its not for spite or for profit.

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

FWIW, I've had the Mini with Fusion Drive since it was released in Late 2012.

I have nothing bad to say about it. It really does provide SSD speeds with HDD capacity.

As already stated, whatever the hardware of your storage devices, you should expect and prepare for them to fail.

Just to restate though Fusion drives slow to Hard Drive speeds if you work with Files larger then 4GB and you have more data then size of the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive. It is pretty Cool Tech.

I do feel though that as SSD storage prices have dropped its need has diminished for those who do not need gobs of storage (at least on their boot volume).

In this context, 'striped' means RAID Level 0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_0#RAID_0

Trevor

Edit: Oops, I see that anthlover already answered this.