Well I am happy today that I stuck with my instincts and did NOT go with the Fusion drive option for my iMac. Something told me "If it's too good to be true, it probably is". Turns out SSD technology has a tendency to "wear out" over time. That while it's fantastic for speed, up to 4x to 8x more with today's technology, that technology too has it's limitations. So, in light of the new sleek and "sealed" design of the late 2012 iMac, having a SSD that can wear itself out over time is not a good idea.
So one up for having your tradition 7200 RPM drive !!
Now then, that being said, I picked up today and quite easily installed my very first EXTERNAL SSD drive. Compliments the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB 3.0 people. I just followed the instructions off two major sources. One that recommended using Carbon Copy Cloner to handle the transferring of my HDD to the SDD in two easy steps and another site that showed me how to easily setup the /tmp directory for /RamDisk use thereby minimizing the usage of the SSD.
With all that said, for the record, my LaCie is performing something like 300 MB/s (write) and 425 MB/s (read) vs. the Fusion drives 350 MB/s (read/write). The trusty 7200 RPM HDD comes in at 110 MB/s.
So, to say that I am well-pleased is bit of an understatement. Now I have one up on anyone out there that bought the Fusion drive option. Their investment is running a risk as I don't think they'll have the tweaks in place to prevent over use of the Fusion SSD. So it's only a matter of time before they'll be needing maintenance. Further, the PEGASUS Promise J2 is in the wings at 550 MB/s (write) and 750 MB/s (read). The reason why I didn't go with that option was due to the fact that the late model 2012 iMac has a glitch that prevents it being a bootable device. So rather than waiting upon Apple to come up with a firmware update I chose reliability over speed and the LaCie is quite remarkable. In fact, I am using it with the USB 3.0 cable as it turns out to be faster than the Thunderbolt for some reason in this configuration. Mind you, this is June of 2013. This time next year something will dwarf the performance of the LaCie SSD but it's ok because I am in a position to easily "swap out" the external SSD for a newer one. No need to make any changes whatsoever to my iMac and thereby void the three year warranty in any way shape or form.
Yes, I am glad I stuck with instinct on this one and avoided the "new fangled" Fusion drive.
RE:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-InstallingSSD.html
http://blog.alutam.com/2012/04/01/optimizing-macos-x-lion-for-ssd/#ramdisk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLNhzxoTJBQ
So one up for having your tradition 7200 RPM drive !!
Now then, that being said, I picked up today and quite easily installed my very first EXTERNAL SSD drive. Compliments the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB 3.0 people. I just followed the instructions off two major sources. One that recommended using Carbon Copy Cloner to handle the transferring of my HDD to the SDD in two easy steps and another site that showed me how to easily setup the /tmp directory for /RamDisk use thereby minimizing the usage of the SSD.
With all that said, for the record, my LaCie is performing something like 300 MB/s (write) and 425 MB/s (read) vs. the Fusion drives 350 MB/s (read/write). The trusty 7200 RPM HDD comes in at 110 MB/s.
So, to say that I am well-pleased is bit of an understatement. Now I have one up on anyone out there that bought the Fusion drive option. Their investment is running a risk as I don't think they'll have the tweaks in place to prevent over use of the Fusion SSD. So it's only a matter of time before they'll be needing maintenance. Further, the PEGASUS Promise J2 is in the wings at 550 MB/s (write) and 750 MB/s (read). The reason why I didn't go with that option was due to the fact that the late model 2012 iMac has a glitch that prevents it being a bootable device. So rather than waiting upon Apple to come up with a firmware update I chose reliability over speed and the LaCie is quite remarkable. In fact, I am using it with the USB 3.0 cable as it turns out to be faster than the Thunderbolt for some reason in this configuration. Mind you, this is June of 2013. This time next year something will dwarf the performance of the LaCie SSD but it's ok because I am in a position to easily "swap out" the external SSD for a newer one. No need to make any changes whatsoever to my iMac and thereby void the three year warranty in any way shape or form.
Yes, I am glad I stuck with instinct on this one and avoided the "new fangled" Fusion drive.
RE:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-InstallingSSD.html
http://blog.alutam.com/2012/04/01/optimizing-macos-x-lion-for-ssd/#ramdisk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLNhzxoTJBQ