Install SSD, then: - command r at start up - Install fresh OSX on the SSD - Boot Mac OSX from SSD, load Carbon Copy Cloner - Make a copy to a USB Flash drive (from SSD)
Then: - Boot from backup USB drive - OSX loads, says drive needs repair - Click fix - Drives merged - Open CCC and copy back to merged drive (from Flash drive).
and thats how i got the Fusion working with 3rd party SSD
I'm torn about the Fusion drives. On one hand, it's nice that it's baked into the OS. On the other, you have to backup/clone the entire drive as a unit. I'd like to see what happens when a Fusion drive is cloned to an HDD, then back to a Fusion drive using common tools like SuperDuper. If only to better understand what the rules are in terms of which folders are hardwired to the SSD and which are variable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
It can be done TO an older Mac, however. Get an SSD and HDD in it and look for the tutorial somewhere. It's not officially supported, but it isn't buggy.
I'd like to be able to uncouple the SSD and HDD halves of a fusion drive and run benchmarks both ways to get a better feel for what the performance boost really is. I mean, it's nice to see a comparison between the performance of a Fusion drive and a spinning HDD, but I would've also liked to see them add a straight SSD to the mix in their testing.
Oh, and I'd take a steampunked iMac any day of the week.
So Fusion seems like a worthwhile option. Yet, they don't offer it on the Mini Server. I want to get a new Mini and was interested in both the Server and Fusion. So I guess I get a regular Mini with the faster CPUs and a Fusion drive and then install the Server software myself. Thus I have built a Mini Server with a Fusion drive, or have I? Other than faster CPUs and dual hard drives I don't see any difference between the Server model and the plain model hardware. Am I right or am I missing something?
This is great and all but it has "kludge" written all over it.
The best knock-on effect of this is not the drive itself, but the fact that it can compete with regular SSD drives so it may in fact drive the price of them downward and their capacity upward.
Of course it won't last, and of course it's just a stop-gap measure along the road towards solid state storage. In a few years we will all be sitting around saying stuff like "Remember that weird period in the early 2010s when Apple had that weird hybrid drive thing?"
Yeah, well, Live in the now. We don't have cheap SSD storage, yet. At the rate SSD prices are coming down, it's going to be a while until Terabyte SSD storage are in the $100 to $300 dollar range.
I wonder if they are going to do this with RAID for the upcoming MacPro system, since it's going to have room for many drives.
Neat of apple combining, flash with standard hard drives, they could one day use this in all there devices, (mini standard drive on iOS).
The problem with traditional drives for iOS devices is room and battery life. I think it's safe to say that the Fusion drive is for OS X laptops/desktops.
I wonder if third party storage companies are going to have external Fusion drives.
This is great and all but it has "kludge" written all over it.
The best knock-on effect of this is not the drive itself, but the fact that it can compete with regular SSD drives so it may in fact drive the price of them downward and their capacity upward.
Of course it won't last, and of course it's just a stop-gap measure along the road towards solid state storage. In a few years we will all be sitting around saying stuff like "Remember that weird period in the early 2010s when Apple had that weird hybrid drive thing?"
While the cost of SSD does down and capacities rise, HDDs will continue to do the same. In 10 years, the numbers will be different, but the situation will be the same: either spend your $150 on 128TB of SSD or get 3.0PB of HDD.
It can be done TO an older Mac, however. Get an SSD and HDD in it and look for the tutorial somewhere. It's not officially supported, but it isn't buggy.
The problem with traditional drives for iOS devices is room and battery life. I think it's safe to say that the Fusion drive is for OS X laptops/desktops.
I wonder if third party storage companies are going to have external Fusion drives.
Any reason a third party storage company can't make a internal fusion drive? Sounds like OSX 10.8 supports it.
Seems like an external fusion drive rather defeats the purpose - isn't the external I/O a limiting factor on speed? I guess maybe thuderbolt, but alas, the iMac i have has no thunderbolt.
While the cost of SSD does down and capacities rise, HDDs will continue to do the same. In 10 years, the numbers will be different, but the situation will be the same: either spend your $150 on 128TB of SSD or get 3.0PB of HDD.
I disagree. Especially in a 10 year time frame.
The prices of both will continue to drop, and the Fusion drive technology will hopefully push the acceleration of that drop, at least for SSDs, to go even faster still.
The performance of SSDs however exceeds HDDs on almost every front and will no doubt get even better over time. That means that once SSD is cheap enough, it's a complete replacement for HDD and HDDs will fade away. You can buy older, slower HDDs or some other even older tech like tape drives, wire recorders or magneto-optical for cheaper than regular HDDs right now, that doesn't mean that anyone wants one though. Once SDD gets cheap enough, HDDs will vanish very quickly indeed.
I would seriously doubt that 10 years from now there will be a single computer for sale, at least in the consumer market, that uses HDDs.
The prices of both will continue to drop, and the Fusion drive technology will hopefully push the acceleration of that drop, at least for SSDs, to go even faster still.
The performance of SSDs however exceeds HDDs on almost every front and will no doubt get even better over time. That means that once SSD is cheap enough, it's a complete replacement for HDD and HDDs will fade away. You can buy older, slower HDDs or some other even older tech like tape drives, wire recorders or magneto-optical for cheaper than regular HDDs right now, that doesn't mean that anyone wants one though. Once SDD gets cheap enough, HDDs will vanish very quickly indeed.
I would seriously doubt that 10 years from now there will be a single computer for sale, at least in the consumer market, that uses HDDs.
I would love for that to happen. The densities of NAND keeps doubling so perhaps what you describe will come to pass. I use a pure SSD solution today and I only wish for more capacity, but I also remember a time when flash based MP3 players were a joke with only 128KB of flash ram and serious music players had 15GB HDDs. Once it becomes practical, no one will miss HDDs.
What you would need to do is have both a SSD and a regular hard drive in the system, then configure them to run as the same drive and it wil be recognized as a Fusion drive. There was a recent article about hwo to do this on ArsTechnica. The Fusion drives are not 128GB of SSSD in a drive unit like the Momentus hybrid drives, they are separate drives that are being viewed together by the system. I believe they may have been having to set it up w/the command line version of the Disk Utility program, but it is possible w/the current systems.
Any reason a third party storage company can't make a internal fusion drive? Sounds like OSX 10.8 supports it.
Seems like an external fusion drive rather defeats the purpose - isn't the external I/O a limiting factor on speed? I guess maybe thuderbolt, but alas, the iMac i have has no thunderbolt.
FW800 with internal SSD? The problem is putting the SSD in the darn system...
The limiting speed factor is less the external connection, but the fact your iMac is probably SATA II and not SATA III speeds for the internal drive bay therefore the SSD as quick (you may be 2X as fast, but not a 15Second boot;-)
Since this is in the SW now, I'd be curious if anyone has built up a MacPro with a 'Fusion' configuration.
[QUOTE]Major improvements were also found in a disk speed test, which revealed the Fusion Drive can achieve write speeds of more than 300 megabytes per second, and write speeds exceeding 400 megabytes per second.[/QUOTE]
What you don't have a coal-fired, steam-powered HDD on your Mac?
It really helps extend my MacBook's battery life, keeps my coffee warm in the Summer and warms my hands in the Winter. And of course the more coal you add, the faster it spins ... You want more speed, just shovel on some more fuel. Why I once got it up to 88.8 MPH ...
I have an inside track on one of the reactors from the recently decommissioned USS Enterprise. This should be able to blow a Fusion drive out of the water... ;-)
You could put one in your iMac. But Apple will not sell you one. You could buy a SSD Drive online (ensure it is compatible) then ask an authorised reseller to install it along with your existing HDD. You can then create your own fusion drive via a well documented and seemingly easy terminal hack.
I would love for that to happen. The densities of NAND keeps doubling so perhaps what you describe will come to pass. I use a pure SSD solution today and I only wish for more capacity, but I also remember a time when flash based MP3 players were a joke with only 128KB of flash ram and serious music players had 15GB HDDs. Once it becomes practical, no one will miss HDDs.
I guess I agree with you, LOL.
Well, prediction is hard. Perhaps we are both wrong and some other tech will come out of left field.
Comments
Originally Posted by saarek
The fusion drive is hardware…
No… it's any hard drive and any SSD…
…and the software required for it is Mountain Lion 10.8.2. No reason whatsoever that the fusion drive would not work in an older Mac.
Right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
No… it's any hard drive and any SSD…
Right.
And what is a HDD and SSD if they are not hardware? lol
then:
- command r at start up
- Install fresh OSX on the SSD
- Boot Mac OSX from SSD, load Carbon Copy Cloner
- Make a copy to a USB Flash drive (from SSD)
Then:
- Boot from backup USB drive
- OSX loads, says drive needs repair
- Click fix
- Drives merged
- Open CCC and copy back to merged drive (from Flash drive).
and thats how i got the Fusion working with 3rd party SSD
I'm torn about the Fusion drives. On one hand, it's nice that it's baked into the OS. On the other, you have to backup/clone the entire drive as a unit. I'd like to see what happens when a Fusion drive is cloned to an HDD, then back to a Fusion drive using common tools like SuperDuper. If only to better understand what the rules are in terms of which folders are hardwired to the SSD and which are variable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
It can be done TO an older Mac, however. Get an SSD and HDD in it and look for the tutorial somewhere. It's not officially supported, but it isn't buggy.
I'd like to be able to uncouple the SSD and HDD halves of a fusion drive and run benchmarks both ways to get a better feel for what the performance boost really is. I mean, it's nice to see a comparison between the performance of a Fusion drive and a spinning HDD, but I would've also liked to see them add a straight SSD to the mix in their testing.
Oh, and I'd take a steampunked iMac any day of the week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jovceata
Install SSD,
then:
- command r at start up
- Install fresh OSX on the SSD
- Boot Mac OSX from SSD, load Carbon Copy Cloner
- Make a copy to a USB Flash drive (from SSD)
Then:
- Boot from backup USB drive
- OSX loads, says drive needs repair
- Click fix
- Drives merged
- Open CCC and copy back to merged drive (from Flash drive).
and thats how i got the Fusion working with 3rd party SSD
Nice.
Does it appear as a single drive in OSX? Does it work with TimeMachine? What Mac did you do that on?
Thanks
So Fusion seems like a worthwhile option. Yet, they don't offer it on the Mini Server. I want to get a new Mini and was interested in both the Server and Fusion. So I guess I get a regular Mini with the faster CPUs and a Fusion drive and then install the Server software myself. Thus I have built a Mini Server with a Fusion drive, or have I? Other than faster CPUs and dual hard drives I don't see any difference between the Server model and the plain model hardware. Am I right or am I missing something?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
This is great and all but it has "kludge" written all over it.
The best knock-on effect of this is not the drive itself, but the fact that it can compete with regular SSD drives so it may in fact drive the price of them downward and their capacity upward.
Of course it won't last, and of course it's just a stop-gap measure along the road towards solid state storage. In a few years we will all be sitting around saying stuff like "Remember that weird period in the early 2010s when Apple had that weird hybrid drive thing?"
Yeah, well, Live in the now. We don't have cheap SSD storage, yet. At the rate SSD prices are coming down, it's going to be a while until Terabyte SSD storage are in the $100 to $300 dollar range.
I wonder if they are going to do this with RAID for the upcoming MacPro system, since it's going to have room for many drives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtis Hannah
Neat of apple combining, flash with standard hard drives, they could one day use this in all there devices, (mini standard drive on iOS).
The problem with traditional drives for iOS devices is room and battery life. I think it's safe to say that the Fusion drive is for OS X laptops/desktops.
I wonder if third party storage companies are going to have external Fusion drives.
While the cost of SSD does down and capacities rise, HDDs will continue to do the same. In 10 years, the numbers will be different, but the situation will be the same: either spend your $150 on 128TB of SSD or get 3.0PB of HDD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
It can be done TO an older Mac, however. Get an SSD and HDD in it and look for the tutorial somewhere. It's not officially supported, but it isn't buggy.
THX, i will look for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
The problem with traditional drives for iOS devices is room and battery life. I think it's safe to say that the Fusion drive is for OS X laptops/desktops.
I wonder if third party storage companies are going to have external Fusion drives.
Any reason a third party storage company can't make a internal fusion drive? Sounds like OSX 10.8 supports it.
Seems like an external fusion drive rather defeats the purpose - isn't the external I/O a limiting factor on speed? I guess maybe thuderbolt, but alas, the iMac i have has no thunderbolt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
While the cost of SSD does down and capacities rise, HDDs will continue to do the same. In 10 years, the numbers will be different, but the situation will be the same: either spend your $150 on 128TB of SSD or get 3.0PB of HDD.
I disagree. Especially in a 10 year time frame.
The prices of both will continue to drop, and the Fusion drive technology will hopefully push the acceleration of that drop, at least for SSDs, to go even faster still.
The performance of SSDs however exceeds HDDs on almost every front and will no doubt get even better over time. That means that once SSD is cheap enough, it's a complete replacement for HDD and HDDs will fade away. You can buy older, slower HDDs or some other even older tech like tape drives, wire recorders or magneto-optical for cheaper than regular HDDs right now, that doesn't mean that anyone wants one though. Once SDD gets cheap enough, HDDs will vanish very quickly indeed.
I would seriously doubt that 10 years from now there will be a single computer for sale, at least in the consumer market, that uses HDDs.
I would love for that to happen. The densities of NAND keeps doubling so perhaps what you describe will come to pass. I use a pure SSD solution today and I only wish for more capacity, but I also remember a time when flash based MP3 players were a joke with only 128KB of flash ram and serious music players had 15GB HDDs. Once it becomes practical, no one will miss HDDs.
I guess I agree with you, LOL.
What you would need to do is have both a SSD and a regular hard drive in the system, then configure them to run as the same drive and it wil be recognized as a Fusion drive. There was a recent article about hwo to do this on ArsTechnica. The Fusion drives are not 128GB of SSSD in a drive unit like the Momentus hybrid drives, they are separate drives that are being viewed together by the system. I believe they may have been having to set it up w/the command line version of the Disk Utility program, but it is possible w/the current systems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eightzero
Any reason a third party storage company can't make a internal fusion drive? Sounds like OSX 10.8 supports it.
Seems like an external fusion drive rather defeats the purpose - isn't the external I/O a limiting factor on speed? I guess maybe thuderbolt, but alas, the iMac i have has no thunderbolt.
FW800 with internal SSD? The problem is putting the SSD in the darn system...
The limiting speed factor is less the external connection, but the fact your iMac is probably SATA II and not SATA III speeds for the internal drive bay therefore the SSD as quick (you may be 2X as fast, but not a 15Second boot;-)
Since this is in the SW now, I'd be curious if anyone has built up a MacPro with a 'Fusion' configuration.
So it can only write?
Seriously: Proofread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac_128
What you don't have a coal-fired, steam-powered HDD on your Mac?
It really helps extend my MacBook's battery life, keeps my coffee warm in the Summer and warms my hands in the Winter. And of course the more coal you add, the faster it spins ... You want more speed, just shovel on some more fuel. Why I once got it up to 88.8 MPH ...
I have an inside track on one of the reactors from the recently decommissioned USS Enterprise. This should be able to blow a Fusion drive out of the water... ;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by saarek
You could put one in your iMac. But Apple will not sell you one. You could buy a SSD Drive online (ensure it is compatible) then ask an authorised reseller to install it along with your existing HDD. You can then create your own fusion drive via a well documented and seemingly easy terminal hack.
Oh, just do it yourself
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/12/ifixit-offers-kit-to-install-2nd-hard-drive-in-2011-mac-mini/
to quote MacRumors: "the install isn't for the faint of heart, though iFixit does include suction cups to pull the glass off."
Again, at SATAII speeds, I don't know if it's really that much value over a 7200 or 10K rpm SATA II drive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
I would love for that to happen. The densities of NAND keeps doubling so perhaps what you describe will come to pass. I use a pure SSD solution today and I only wish for more capacity, but I also remember a time when flash based MP3 players were a joke with only 128KB of flash ram and serious music players had 15GB HDDs. Once it becomes practical, no one will miss HDDs.
I guess I agree with you, LOL.
Well, prediction is hard. Perhaps we are both wrong and some other tech will come out of left field.