Fusion drive or RAM upgrade?

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Hi folks,

This humble and aspiring mac newbie was here a few days ago and everyone was very helpful with my question about the new v. refurbished iMac. As I go deeper into the research and decision-making I have another question.

Resources being limited, I'm trying to decide what will be the best use of my money for an upgrade (assuming the base model new iMac). Should I pay $200 to bump my RAM from 8 to 16, or should I pay $250 to get the fusion drive?

This computer will be mostly used by my wife for work. She will run Windows 7 through Parallels, and will be using MS Office and lots of proprietary work applications. Multitasking in the virtual machine will be significant. It is critical that the VM have zero lag and feel like a real-time Windows machine (32 or 64 bit?).

I would greatly appreciate any feedback as to which upgrade would be better to address our key needs from this machine.

Thanks everyone.
 

chscag

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Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
If you're referring to purchasing a new 21.5" iMac with your question, then it's a tough decision because that machine is not upgradeable. If I were buying it and had to choose, I would choose the 16 GB of memory rather than the fusion drive. It would be best to have both but I can understand if funds are limited having to choose between them.
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Another consideration is the hard drive. The 21.5" model now comes with a 5400rpm 2.5" laptop hard drive whereas the 27" model comes with a 7200rpm standard hard drive.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
late 2011 mac Mini, 2.3 GHz core i5, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, Sierra, Retina display iPad, Iphone 5S
I would bump up the RAM based upon Parallels usage. The more RAM the better it will function for your limited budget.

Bill
 

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