Fred Greissing wrote:
It's a hybrid drive. You can put them in PCs too.

It's a hard drive with disks, but instead of a ram cache it has flash SSD memory.

Computer rites to the SSD cache and it's mirrored to the disks.

Most used files are kept on the sad for speed.

I have seen hybrid drives for sale.

hbutz New York wrote:
My rule of thumb is, if you have to ask what it is then the technology is too new to have a reputation for reliability.

I am never the one to be the "first person on the block" to own anything, hardware or software.

That's one way of looking at it, though it might just be me behind the times. Just because I was just introduced to the technology doesn't mean it hasn't been in use for some time already.

Fred Greissing wrote:
It's a hybrid drive. You can put them in PCs too.

It's a hard drive with disks, but instead of a ram cache it has flash SSD memory.

Computer rites to the SSD cache and it's mirrored to the disks.

Most used files are kept on the sad for speed.

Not exactly.

If you have a 100GB SSD and an 400GB HDD linked as a fusion drive then you get 500GB of storage in total.

Data isn't *mirrored* from the SSD to the HDD.  Files are kept on either the SSD or the HDD but not both. I think even *parts* of files (ie. blocks) can be allocated among the two drives but I'm not certain about that.

As you use your computer the OS decides which data can be stored on the slower HDD and which should be promoted to the SSD.  Your usage patterns and various other criteria are used to determine which drive a particular file/block is stored.

This is more of the concept of tiered storage than a simple hybrid drive (as that term is commonly understood).

Wye wrote:

Not exactly.

If you have a 100GB SSD and an 400GB HDD linked as a fusion drive then you get 500GB of storage in total.

Data isn't *mirrored* from the SSD to the HDD.  Files are kept on either the SSD or the HDD but not both. I think even *parts* of files (ie. blocks) can be allocated among the two drives but I'm not certain about that.

As you use your computer the OS decides which data can be stored on the slower HDD and which should be promoted to the SSD.  Your usage patterns and various other criteria are used to determine which drive a particular file/block is stored.

This is more of the concept of tiered storage than a simple hybrid drive (as that term is commonly understood).

It kind of does what I do manually.  I work off my SSD...once I feel I am "done" with a set of photos and don't plan on working on them any time to need the speed, I off load them onto my network drive or other internal HDD.

Would love for it to be automated. But this works for me for now...

Those "hybrid" drives I believe it only stores whatever you're currently working on on the SSD part which I think is no more than 8gb...but I haven't shopped for drives in quite a while so it may be larger now.

Christopher Hartman wrote:

It kind of does what I do manually.  I work off my SSD...once I feel I am "done" with a set of photos and don't plan on working on them any time to need the speed, I off load them onto my network drive or other internal HDD.

Would love for it to be automated. But this works for me for now...

Yes.. exactly.  The advantage (beyond just not having to manually deal with it) is that the file stays in the same logical location on the drive.  ie. it's path doesn't change. So it's easy to keep track of files rather than having to deal with things being in different locations.

Carkeet wrote:
Makes more sense to get a true SSD and use redundant external storage for large datasets IMO. Since the fusion drive still has moving parts, it's still prone to higher failure rates and such.

+1

since it has two parts, and only one has to fail for the whole thing to fail, you do the math ...

Christopher Hartman wrote:
It kind of does what I do manually.  I work off my SSD...once I feel I am "done" with a set of photos and don't plan on working on them any time to need the speed, I off load them onto my network drive or other internal HDD.

Would love for it to be automated. But this works for me for now...

Those "hybrid" drives I believe it only stores whatever you're currently working on on the SSD part which I think is no more than 8gb...but I haven't shopped for drives in quite a while so it may be larger now.

Yes, and it is based on tiered storage technologies found in Unix for a number of years.  Rather then applying the logic to storage based on "cost" it's doing it based on speed.  Works rather well, the tools are part of the OS and you can create one yourself.  It is much smarter then something the the Samsung Hybrid drives.

I also found like it because it is part of logical volume manager that I use for other storage organization tasks.

P.S. I find that my applications like Crome and PS start before the bouncing animations of the dock gets to kick in

Gary Blanchette wrote:
I was one the Apple site today just looking and dreaming. When I was looking at the options available for the iMac I noticed that they come with a Serial ATA Drive and can be upgraded to a Fusion Drive.

Can someone explain Fusion Drive to me?

Thanks.

"Fusion Drive" is Apple's marketing name for their feature which allows you to spread one logical volume across two physical drives (a standard HD and a SSD).  Typically both would be internal SATA drives.

Current options from Apple include a 120GB SSD paired with a 1TB or 3TB spinning hard drive, yielding a 1.12TB or 3.12TB volume.

A 3.12TB Fusion drive is less expensive than 3TB of SSD.  As long as your frequently used files are on the SSD portion of the Fusion drive, you will see similar performance to an SSD drive. 

For typical users the Fusion drive provides performance similar to a large SSD at a much lower cost than a large SSD.


Although this sounds similar to a "Hybrid" drive, their are some differences:
- Fusion drives typically have more SSD (120GB) than a hybrid drive (16GB).
- Fusion drives require two drive bays (as they are 2 physical drives) hybrid drives require 1 drive bay.
- Hybrid drives typically use their flash memory to mirror parts of the HD.  Fusion drives use the SDD in addition to the HD.

In typical Apple fashion, there are few user settings.  The Fusion drive "just works".  The operating system  keeps track of usage and decides what goes where.  The built in disk utilities understand fusion drives, so there are no special operational issues.

As has been pointed out, if either of the two physical drives fail, you will lose your data.  Apple's Time Machine is an easy to use (and free) backup system that is very well supported.  If part of your Fusion Drive fails, replace it.  Reboot off your recovery partition (or from Apple's servers over the Internet) and reinstall the OS.  On the first boot, choose the "restore form time machine" option, and you will have all your data back and you'll be ready to go.

Wicked LA Pix wrote:
If your looking at computers in that price range you may also want to look at the
ASUS ROG G750JH-DB71

I thinks it's allot more for the money, super fast and the screen reviews are very good

I'm not sure why we are comparing a Windows laptop to an iMac.

Eyesso wrote:

Eyesso wrote:
http://images.iskysoft.com/images/blog/16.jpg

Your post has a problem.

It's infected with troll. You should probably take care of that before it gets worse.

Art Silva wrote:
...Actually Lots of Truth to that graphic and you know it.

I never met a Windows OS i wasn't frustrated with

Then the problem is you!
I have used Windows successfully since the 3.1 version.
The world runs on Windows!   

Michael Bots wrote:
Or you can get the drive combo factory made, or piece together your own choices.

...

"Hybrid drives work much in the same way as the current dual-technology configurations in many gaming and power-user PCs, as well as some ultraportable laptops. Such systems have a small, discrete SSD to hold the operating system and frequently used data, augmented by a more capacious conventional hard drive for less frequently accessed data and large collections of documents and digital media."


"a caching algorithm will track the files you load the most often (operating system files, applications, and the like), and store them on the SSD portion of the drive. From that point on, these files will load into memory much faster than they did from the mechanical drive, although some overhead will be involved as the computer determines whether the file in question resides on the SSD. No caching will have occurred the first time you use a hybrid drive, so its initial performance will be the same as that of a mechanical hard drive, but the speed will increase over time."

There are a few differences between Apple's "Fusion" drive and a Hybrid (combined flash/HD) drive.

Perhaps the most significant is that current Fusion drive configurations have 120GB of flash storage.  Current hybrid drives have at most 16GB of flash.   The Fusion drive provides the speed improvements to 800% more data than a hybrid drive.

Most hybrid drives use the flash as a cache.  The drive needs to "learn" before you get any benefit.  Fusion drives use the flash as primary storage space.  Load up your fusion drive with 100GB of data and it all ends up in flash.  It's only when you have more than 120GB of data, that the spinning platters get used.  The OS notices which data isn't being used as much, and that data gets migrated to the spinning platters.

Create a new file on a hybrid drive and it probably starts not being in the flash.  You need to use the file a bit before you see speed improvements.   Create a new file on a Fusion drive, and it probably gets created on the SSD.  Your current work file starts out as a fast file.

Fusion drives are also available in large capacities.  Up to 3.12TB  from Apple.  I don't believe hybrid drives this big are currently on the market.

The software for Fusion drives is built into Mac OS-X.  You can create your own Fusion drive, with a larger SSD and larger HD (i.e. 1TB SSD with a 4TB HD).

A disadvantage of Fusion drives is that the require room for two physical drives.  A hybrid drive requires only one drive bay and one SATA port.


All in all, Apple's Fusion drive is a good solution to providing SSD class performance, with HD class storage capacities in an easy to use fashion.

Jerry Nemeth wrote:

Then the problem is you!
I have used Windows successfully since the 3.1 version.
The world runs on Windows!   

It depends on which "world" you are talking about.

Most people use Linux boxes far more than Windows machines.

A typical home user will have one windows machine.

Thy will use that to access the web.  Most of the websites they visit are hosted on Linux computers.  Many home Wi-Fi routers are Linux computers.

When they are not online, they are watching TV.  There's a good chance their TV and cable/satellite box are Linux computers.

Many people don't realize how many everyday devices are really Linux boxes with a fancy interface.   Even the fancy radio in my car runs Linux.

Even cell phones.  Android phones are all Linux based, and the iPhone is Unix based.


If you're going to claim "The world runs on Windows", you are going to have to come up with a pretty narrow definition of "world".

Carkeet wrote:
Makes more sense to get a true SSD and use redundant external storage for large datasets IMO. Since the fusion drive still has moving parts, it's still prone to higher failure rates and such.

+1

SSD's have come down in price dramatically.  A year or so ago a 500 GB SSD was over $600; now, I'm seeing them for under $300

SSD's boot and run programs up to 10X faster than conventional HDD's with moving parts.

Michael Fryd wrote:

It depends on which "world" you are talking about.

Most people use Linux boxes far more than Windows machines.

A typical home user will have one windows machine.

Thy will use that to access the web.  Most of the websites they visit are hosted on Linux computers.  Many home Wi-Fi routers are Linux computers.

When they are not online, they are watching TV.  There's a good chance their TV and cable/satellite box are Linux computers.

Many people don't realize how many everyday devices are really Linux boxes with a fancy interface.   Even the fancy radio in my car runs Linux.

Even cell phones.  Android phones are all Linux based, and the iPhone is Unix based.


If you're going to claim "The world runs on Windows", you are going to have to come up with a pretty narrow definition of "world".

I am talking about businesses.  They use Windows computers and servers.  Even the electronic cash registers and self serve checkouts were running Windows.  This only one example of a business with over over 500 stores online all linked together by Windows servers.  To run a business like this they have to have very reliable computers.  This can be multiplied many times with other businesses.  This is not narrow!

Wye wrote:

Not exactly.

If you have a 100GB SSD and an 400GB HDD linked as a fusion drive then you get 500GB of storage in total.

Data isn't *mirrored* from the SSD to the HDD.  Files are kept on either the SSD or the HDD but not both. I think even *parts* of files (ie. blocks) can be allocated among the two drives but I'm not certain about that.

As you use your computer the OS decides which data can be stored on the slower HDD and which should be promoted to the SSD.  Your usage patterns and various other criteria are used to determine which drive a particular file/block is stored.

This is more of the concept of tiered storage than a simple hybrid drive (as that term is commonly understood).

Quoted for truth, a fusion drive is more of a hierarchical storage device making background decision on how it thinks you'll use data based on your historical access of said data.