I've read the arstechnica and anandtech articles, and I still don't see any significant technical advantages this has over a caching solution like Intel's SRT. Honestly, I think Intel's SRT is the more elegant solution since:
1) Block level caching vs. File level should be a more efficient use of the space
2) You can specify how much of the SSD to use as cache and use the remainder as its own dedicated SSD drive
3) As a cache, everything on it is mirrored so if your SSD fails, there's no data loss and all you have to do is plug in a new SSD and let it rebuild the cache, whereas on Fusion, you lose your most often used files, and will most likely have to recover from a backup.
4) Usable with any size/brand SSD and HDD. Have an old / spare / outdated SSD lying around? throw it in as a cache!
Block leveling is only useful for a large multiuser network, banging on the storage. If you read the articles, as you say, you would have read that too.
You don't need to specify how much cache to use. That one of those techie things that aren't helpful to 99% of users.
The cache IS on the SSD, so there's no advantage in doing it any other way.
You can likely use it with another SSD. It was pointed pun in iFixits breakdown that there's room for another SSD in the 13' MB P, at least, but you'd need to get a cable. Old SSD's are much slower than the ones Apple is using these days. I don't recommend them for this.
Block leveling is only useful for a large multiuser network, banging on the storage. If you read the articles, as you say, you would have read that too.
uh, where did you read that, because its in neither articles. The only mention of it is from the ArsTechnica article:
Most big disk arrays have different types of storage—some slow spinning disk, some faster spinning disk, and some solid state storage—and some have the ability to monitor what data is being accessed the most and can automatically move that data to a faster tier of disk as needed. These features typically operate at the block level, below the files, and can be done on large or small chunks of data, depending on what's hot and what's not. Auto-tiering also includes the ability to take data that is no longer in demand, or no longer "hot" and demote it down off of fast disk and onto slower stuff. In this way, a file that doesn't get accessed very often might be stored on slow SATA disks, but if a hundred people need to open it repeatedly over a short period of time, it will get pulled up and kept on SSD until it's not needed anymore.
I don't understand where you're getting the idea that a block level cache is only useful for a large multiuser network; It can operate exactly the same way that Fusion does, only it has more fine grain control over what data to pull into the SSD.
And if you've read the Anandtech article on Intel SRT, you'll know that it pretty much operates exactly the same as Fusion-- It pulls the most frequently accessed data into the cache. When the cache is full, it evicts the least frequently used data.
You don't need to specify how much cache to use. That one of those techie things that aren't helpful to 99% of users.
To each their own I guess, but I definitely want the ability to force certain data onto the SSD, and as far as I can tell, you can't do that with Fusion, you're reliant on the OS making the determination as to what belongs there.
The cache IS on the SSD, so there's no advantage in doing it any other way.
Not sure what you're talking about here.
You can likely use it with another SSD. It was pointed pun in iFixits breakdown that there's room for another SSD in the 13' MB P, at least, but you'd need to get a cable. Old SSD's are much slower than the ones Apple is using these days. I don't recommend them for this.
I hope so, but I got the feeling that it had to be a 128GB SSD for this to work. Even older SSDs' performance is an order of magnitude better than the best consumer HDs. I don't see why you wouldn't want to implement this or a caching solution if you have one lying around.
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Compared to the old mini the new mini is a better general purpose engineering computer except where GPU performance is required. In which case the old mini wasn't that awesome either but a lot better. IMHO the two additional i7 cores are probably worth more in practice than any OpenCL you could choke out of the Radeon in the old Mini.
Plus OpenCL is supported in the HD4000 on windows (if a little buggy) so if/when Apple provides the OSX drivers it'll work. Support for OpenCL is in Apple's hands, not Intel's according to Intel.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You can spec a GTX 680MX w/2GB RAM on the iMac 27" according to the Apple website.
Access to both CUDA and OpenCL > just access to OpenCL. CUDA still outperforms OpenCL in some areas. If I were still playing with GP/GPU development I'd MUCH rather have a nVidia over Radeon for OSX so I had access to both. The guys I know doing GP/GPU work around here seem to prefer CUDA but that's probably because they started with that.
Quote:
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
Given that many folks doing "heavy computational work" are using machines slower than a quad 3.4Ghz Core i7+GTX 680MX iMac that's BS. That's more than enough to do MATLAB or IDL computational work.
Grants only go so far so a lot of researchers are using older Xeon hardware a few years old. When they need more horsepower for "heavy computing work" they aren't depending on their personal workstation but banks of servers anyway. We've still got more than a few R610s in our racks with older 5500s as compute boxes. We have a couple populated C410x as well for GP/GPU use. Mostly nVidia.
Compared to the old mini the new mini is a better general purpose engineering computer except where GPU performance is required.
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
At $800 the middle Core i7 mini is not exactly low end even if it is the entry level platform for Apple. Even the $600 mini isn't very low end.
Old SSD's are much slower than the ones Apple is using these days. I don't recommend them for this.
The SATA SSD's being used by Apple are not much (if at all) faster than a Samsung 830 you buy off Amazon. They are a lot faster than the old ones that Apple was using but they were really slow.
The Samsung 830 benches at 520MB/s read and 400 MB/s write. The Apple SSDs are in the same ballpark:
Define engineering computer I guess. If you need ECC RAM then no, none of Apple's desktops, except for the Pro, is the right tool.
That thing is an i3-3220 with non-ECC RAM.
I don't know mdriftmeyer's idea of an engineering machine, but mine is at least something sold as a workstation. Even then, to say that Dell is stretching plausibility with that machine the boundaries is saying it mildly.
Even with a Dell, you're not going to get ECC until you get above mini territory. If you can't get a Dell workstation with a discrete GPU for $800, what good does it do to complain that Apple doesn't offer a discrete GPU for the same price?
And this is kind of my point. You don't think of a $600 computer as a low end machine, but it's sub-low end for workstations. It also strikes me as a bad idea to complain that $600-$800 computers aren't suited to engineering. That's trying too hard to be a cheapskate while saying you're doing demanding technical work, depending your livelihood on a consumer device strikes me as doing something wrong.
I imagine the Fusion drive will be a blade SSD + standard HDD and the SSD will use up the Mini's second HDD slot as there's no more room on the motherboard. The blade SSD is visible in the iMac pictures.
Fusion on the Server model would effectively be the same as Fusion on the middle model. The only difference is OS X Server being bundled but OS X Server is $19.99 from the App Store.
I don't understand why they have Server models. OS X Server should be a BTO option for every Mac but perhaps people would be less inclined to pay $180 for a 1TB hard drive that way.
Sounds like a Seagate Momentus XT with more flash.
It's not. Not even close. This is two physical drives, not one drive with some NAND cache. The "work" is done by the OS — something I hope gets hacked and ported for my OptiBay MBP — which determines at a much higher layer what files you need an why will benefit from being on the SSD. It's more an intelligent RAID0 setup.
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
"Engineering"? Depends on what you are doing. There are all kinds of engineering disciplines. They call software development "engineering." Trash collection is "sanitation engineering" What "engineering"? Are you calculating mathematical models or drawing or what? "Engineers" were using bleeding edge computers two decades ago that are less pocket calculators now. Your iPhone is a more powerful computer than the mainframe my uncle had back in the 50's.
If you are trying to run CATIA on a mini someone is being ridiculous.
A 2009 model Mac Mini with a 9400M runs Vectorworks just great.
It's not. Not even close. This is two physical drives, not one drive with some NAND cache. The "work" is done by the OS — something I hope gets hacked and ported for my OptiBay MBP — which determines at a much higher layer what files you need an why will benefit from being on the SSD. It's more an intelligent RAID0 setup.
That's too bad. I'd rather see a commodity part that could be used in something else.
That's too bad. I'd rather see a commodity part that could be used in something else.
No way! Imagine if Apple used a commodity, off the shelf ARM SoC for their iPhone. Imagine if they stuck with popular, commodity ports instead of getting Thunderbolt in their machines and USB 1.0 long before that.
Fusion Drive is considerably faster than any hybrid HDD, which you can install into any Mac with a 2.5" or 3.5" drive. That is all done in the drive in firmware. Simply put it's a low-level operation that doesn't understand the needs of the OS or the user. This is exactly what I et al. have been asking for for years and it's finally here.
Having used an SSD for my boot drive and apps, and a HDD for my home folder (~/SolipsismX = /Volumes/SolipsismX) as two separate drives I've very excited for Fusion. This is a huge deal to me and Im very excited.
No way! Imagine if Apple used a commodity, off the shelf ARM SoC for their iPhone. Imagine if they stuck with popular, commodity ports instead of getting Thunderbolt in their machines and USB 1.0 long before that.
Fusion Drive is considerably faster than any hybrid HDD, which you can install into any Mac with a 2.5" or 3.5" drive. That is all done in the drive in firmware. Simply put it's a low-level operation that doesn't understand the needs of the OS or the user. This is exactly what I et al. have been asking for for years and it's finally here.
Having used an SSD for my boot drive and apps, and a HDD for my home folder (~/SolipsismX = /Volumes/SolipsismX) as two separate drives I've very excited for Fusion. This is a huge deal to me and Im very excited.
If it's as you have described, standard format 2.5 or 3.5 disk, operating via firmware, then you have described a OS independent commodity part. There is a place for custom parts and place for commodity parts.
Apple's obsession with reinventing the wheel with commodity parts times past when the commodity parts worked just fine contributed to making them into a niche market player in the first place.
I have been a dedicated Apple computer user a long time, back in the days when Apple was on the ropes and the MS hordes were smelling blood to see it fold. But an Apple sycophant I am not. There is an undeniable hypocrisy to their manufacturing, sales and marketing which costs them in the larger market. They bill themselves as the computer for the every man (woman) yet engage in re-inventing the wheel creating these specialized parts when the commodity part will do just fine, making them more expensive and inaccessible to the every man, and engage in undeniable and outrageous price gouging for the commodity parts they do sell. Memory, drives. I never have and never will buy such items from Apple. They bill themselves as the computer company for everyone, yet they are undeniably elitist in practice. Which in turn is at the root of a lot of the market hostility towards Apple. Which I think is justified.
"Quality" and reinventing the wheel at every turn "custom" are not synonymous. How many different custom display connectors have they gone through? Sometimes just for one model.
If it's as you have described, standard format 2.5 or 3.5 disk, operating via firmware, then you have described a OS independent commodity part. There is a place for custom parts and place for commodity parts.
Apple's obsession with reinventing the wheel with commodity parts times past when the commodity parts worked just fine contributed to making them into a niche market player in the first place.
1) Yes, I described Hybrid HDDs as being OS independent. I described FUsion Drive as being a part of the OS.
2) If you really want to use a Hybrid HDD then you have no soapbox in which to stand and complain as you've had this ability for years.
3) Check out the performance reviews of Hybrid HDDs. You get a little better performance with the NAND caching but you don't get SSD-like performance and NAND is not SSD.
4) Once again, Fusion Drive is an intelligent OS-level comprehension of what is started often and would benefit from being on the SSD whilst giving you the capacity of the total of both drives listed as a single drive. This is not a Hybrid HDD!
5) Think of SSDs as RAIDed NAND orchestrated by a special controller. This is where the speeds comes in as NAND is remarkably slow on its own.
6) What "wheel" did they reinvent? What are they offering that already existed on Macs? Surely not Fusion Drive as it was only just announced this week. What about this bothers you as you don't have to buy it as it is an option and you are so damn adamant that a Hybrid HDD is the same thing and yet don't appear to have invested in that at this point?
Just so, it was just announced. Calm down. You are making the statement of what it is. I don't know what it is and what it isn't yet. I'm waiting to find out.
I said "sounds like a Momentus XT" It does.
Have you used it? Had you hands on it? Read the reviews of the testers? Its strengths and limitations? Form factor? What if anything else it can be adapted to?
Bare Feats doesn't appear to know what it is or what it isn't yet. iFixit has no tear down review yet. How is it you are so adamant what it is and what it isn't yet?
Comments
Block leveling is only useful for a large multiuser network, banging on the storage. If you read the articles, as you say, you would have read that too.
You don't need to specify how much cache to use. That one of those techie things that aren't helpful to 99% of users.
The cache IS on the SSD, so there's no advantage in doing it any other way.
You can likely use it with another SSD. It was pointed pun in iFixits breakdown that there's room for another SSD in the 13' MB P, at least, but you'd need to get a cable. Old SSD's are much slower than the ones Apple is using these days. I don't recommend them for this.
uh, where did you read that, because its in neither articles. The only mention of it is from the ArsTechnica article:
I don't understand where you're getting the idea that a block level cache is only useful for a large multiuser network; It can operate exactly the same way that Fusion does, only it has more fine grain control over what data to pull into the SSD.
And if you've read the Anandtech article on Intel SRT, you'll know that it pretty much operates exactly the same as Fusion-- It pulls the most frequently accessed data into the cache. When the cache is full, it evicts the least frequently used data.
To each their own I guess, but I definitely want the ability to force certain data onto the SSD, and as far as I can tell, you can't do that with Fusion, you're reliant on the OS making the determination as to what belongs there.
Not sure what you're talking about here.
I hope so, but I got the feeling that it had to be a 128GB SSD for this to work. Even older SSDs' performance is an order of magnitude better than the best consumer HDs. I don't see why you wouldn't want to implement this or a caching solution if you have one lying around.
Why no Fusion drive on the Server?
That's a good question, I think it would be at least as useful there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Compared to the old mini the new mini is a better general purpose engineering computer except where GPU performance is required. In which case the old mini wasn't that awesome either but a lot better. IMHO the two additional i7 cores are probably worth more in practice than any OpenCL you could choke out of the Radeon in the old Mini.
Plus OpenCL is supported in the HD4000 on windows (if a little buggy) so if/when Apple provides the OSX drivers it'll work. Support for OpenCL is in Apple's hands, not Intel's according to Intel.
http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/277695
Quote:
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You can spec a GTX 680MX w/2GB RAM on the iMac 27" according to the Apple website.
Access to both CUDA and OpenCL > just access to OpenCL. CUDA still outperforms OpenCL in some areas. If I were still playing with GP/GPU development I'd MUCH rather have a nVidia over Radeon for OSX so I had access to both. The guys I know doing GP/GPU work around here seem to prefer CUDA but that's probably because they started with that.
Quote:
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
Given that many folks doing "heavy computational work" are using machines slower than a quad 3.4Ghz Core i7+GTX 680MX iMac that's BS. That's more than enough to do MATLAB or IDL computational work.
Grants only go so far so a lot of researchers are using older Xeon hardware a few years old. When they need more horsepower for "heavy computing work" they aren't depending on their personal workstation but banks of servers anyway. We've still got more than a few R610s in our racks with older 5500s as compute boxes. We have a couple populated C410x as well for GP/GPU use. Mostly nVidia.
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
At $800 the middle Core i7 mini is not exactly low end even if it is the entry level platform for Apple. Even the $600 mini isn't very low end.
Show me an engineering computer in that price range. It's the wrong tool for the job.
OK, there apparently are some:
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-t1650/fs
Base price, $600. 2GB RAM (base mini has 4GB) and Intel Integrated Graphics and monitor extra. Who would have thunk?
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Old SSD's are much slower than the ones Apple is using these days. I don't recommend them for this.
The SATA SSD's being used by Apple are not much (if at all) faster than a Samsung 830 you buy off Amazon. They are a lot faster than the old ones that Apple was using but they were really slow.
The Samsung 830 benches at 520MB/s read and 400 MB/s write. The Apple SSDs are in the same ballpark:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6063/macbook-air-13inch-mid-2012-review/4
I'd rather avoid the SSD lottery and get the SSD I prefer. And I'd rather pay $169 than $300.
I'm not sold on Fusion. I'd rather have 512GB of SSD (256x2) for $338 vs 1TB fusion for $250 on a mini.
I'm still going to want a moderately sized RAID array (3-4TB) running off thunderbolt regardless of the extra 512GB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Show me an engineering computer in that price range. It's the wrong tool for the job.'
OK, there apparently are some:
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-t1650/fs
Base price, $600.
Define engineering computer I guess. If you need ECC RAM then no, none of Apple's desktops, except for the Pro, is the right tool.
That thing is an i3-3220 with non-ECC RAM.
I don't know mdriftmeyer's idea of an engineering machine, but mine is at least something sold as a workstation. Even then, to say that Dell is stretching plausibility with that machine the boundaries is saying it mildly.
Even with a Dell, you're not going to get ECC until you get above mini territory. If you can't get a Dell workstation with a discrete GPU for $800, what good does it do to complain that Apple doesn't offer a discrete GPU for the same price?
And this is kind of my point. You don't think of a $600 computer as a low end machine, but it's sub-low end for workstations. It also strikes me as a bad idea to complain that $600-$800 computers aren't suited to engineering. That's trying too hard to be a cheapskate while saying you're doing demanding technical work, depending your livelihood on a consumer device strikes me as doing something wrong.
I imagine the Fusion drive will be a blade SSD + standard HDD and the SSD will use up the Mini's second HDD slot as there's no more room on the motherboard. The blade SSD is visible in the iMac pictures.
Fusion on the Server model would effectively be the same as Fusion on the middle model. The only difference is OS X Server being bundled but OS X Server is $19.99 from the App Store.
I don't understand why they have Server models. OS X Server should be a BTO option for every Mac but perhaps people would be less inclined to pay $180 for a 1TB hard drive that way.
Sounds like a Seagate Momentus XT with more flash.
It's not. Not even close. This is two physical drives, not one drive with some NAND cache. The "work" is done by the OS — something I hope gets hacked and ported for my OptiBay MBP — which determines at a much higher layer what files you need an why will benefit from being on the SSD. It's more an intelligent RAID0 setup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Did anyone stop and ask whether it made any sense at all to use a low end computer for engineering? It strikes me as the wrong solution to the problem.
"Engineering"? Depends on what you are doing. There are all kinds of engineering disciplines. They call software development "engineering." Trash collection is "sanitation engineering" What "engineering"? Are you calculating mathematical models or drawing or what? "Engineers" were using bleeding edge computers two decades ago that are less pocket calculators now. Your iPhone is a more powerful computer than the mainframe my uncle had back in the 50's.
If you are trying to run CATIA on a mini someone is being ridiculous.
A 2009 model Mac Mini with a 9400M runs Vectorworks just great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
It's not. Not even close. This is two physical drives, not one drive with some NAND cache. The "work" is done by the OS — something I hope gets hacked and ported for my OptiBay MBP — which determines at a much higher layer what files you need an why will benefit from being on the SSD. It's more an intelligent RAID0 setup.
That's too bad. I'd rather see a commodity part that could be used in something else.
No way! Imagine if Apple used a commodity, off the shelf ARM SoC for their iPhone. Imagine if they stuck with popular, commodity ports instead of getting Thunderbolt in their machines and USB 1.0 long before that.
Fusion Drive is considerably faster than any hybrid HDD, which you can install into any Mac with a 2.5" or 3.5" drive. That is all done in the drive in firmware. Simply put it's a low-level operation that doesn't understand the needs of the OS or the user. This is exactly what I et al. have been asking for for years and it's finally here.
Having used an SSD for my boot drive and apps, and a HDD for my home folder (~/SolipsismX = /Volumes/SolipsismX) as two separate drives I've very excited for Fusion. This is a huge deal to me and Im very excited.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
No way! Imagine if Apple used a commodity, off the shelf ARM SoC for their iPhone. Imagine if they stuck with popular, commodity ports instead of getting Thunderbolt in their machines and USB 1.0 long before that.
Fusion Drive is considerably faster than any hybrid HDD, which you can install into any Mac with a 2.5" or 3.5" drive. That is all done in the drive in firmware. Simply put it's a low-level operation that doesn't understand the needs of the OS or the user. This is exactly what I et al. have been asking for for years and it's finally here.
Having used an SSD for my boot drive and apps, and a HDD for my home folder (~/SolipsismX = /Volumes/SolipsismX) as two separate drives I've very excited for Fusion. This is a huge deal to me and Im very excited.
If it's as you have described, standard format 2.5 or 3.5 disk, operating via firmware, then you have described a OS independent commodity part. There is a place for custom parts and place for commodity parts.
Apple's obsession with reinventing the wheel with commodity parts times past when the commodity parts worked just fine contributed to making them into a niche market player in the first place.
I have been a dedicated Apple computer user a long time, back in the days when Apple was on the ropes and the MS hordes were smelling blood to see it fold. But an Apple sycophant I am not. There is an undeniable hypocrisy to their manufacturing, sales and marketing which costs them in the larger market. They bill themselves as the computer for the every man (woman) yet engage in re-inventing the wheel creating these specialized parts when the commodity part will do just fine, making them more expensive and inaccessible to the every man, and engage in undeniable and outrageous price gouging for the commodity parts they do sell. Memory, drives. I never have and never will buy such items from Apple. They bill themselves as the computer company for everyone, yet they are undeniably elitist in practice. Which in turn is at the root of a lot of the market hostility towards Apple. Which I think is justified.
"Quality" and reinventing the wheel at every turn "custom" are not synonymous. How many different custom display connectors have they gone through? Sometimes just for one model.
1) Yes, I described Hybrid HDDs as being OS independent. I described FUsion Drive as being a part of the OS.
2) If you really want to use a Hybrid HDD then you have no soapbox in which to stand and complain as you've had this ability for years.
3) Check out the performance reviews of Hybrid HDDs. You get a little better performance with the NAND caching but you don't get SSD-like performance and NAND is not SSD.
4) Once again, Fusion Drive is an intelligent OS-level comprehension of what is started often and would benefit from being on the SSD whilst giving you the capacity of the total of both drives listed as a single drive. This is not a Hybrid HDD!
5) Think of SSDs as RAIDed NAND orchestrated by a special controller. This is where the speeds comes in as NAND is remarkably slow on its own.
6) What "wheel" did they reinvent? What are they offering that already existed on Macs? Surely not Fusion Drive as it was only just announced this week. What about this bothers you as you don't have to buy it as it is an option and you are so damn adamant that a Hybrid HDD is the same thing and yet don't appear to have invested in that at this point?
Just so, it was just announced. Calm down. You are making the statement of what it is. I don't know what it is and what it isn't yet. I'm waiting to find out.
I said "sounds like a Momentus XT" It does.
Have you used it? Had you hands on it? Read the reviews of the testers? Its strengths and limitations? Form factor? What if anything else it can be adapted to?
Bare Feats doesn't appear to know what it is or what it isn't yet. iFixit has no tear down review yet. How is it you are so adamant what it is and what it isn't yet?