SSD or Fusion, the quesiton of our century

[Gabeascarl]

SSD or Fusion, the question of our century

Hello all,

I have been extremely torn over purchasing a late 2015 iMac or a new 2016 MacBook Pro 15 inch and have a question about the iMac.

I already know if I get the iMac (middle selection) I will:
- Upgrade to 4.0 GHz i7 processor
- Purchase two 8gb RAM sticks from OWC for $110 for a total of 24 GB of RAM.

Now the question is storage... I have seen both sides of the argument but I wanted to get it a bit custom to what I plan on using my Mac for. I plan on having Xcode, Spotify, possibly Photoshop, and Youtube open all at the same time. On top of this, I plan on also connecting it to my HP 21 Inch Monitor that it will sit next to. I am currently not playing WoW, but you never know, I may get into it once again.

I have an "average" amount of pictures, 99% from iPhones. I don't have too much music. 0 movies at the moment, and the rest would just be smallish files.

Do you recommend I:
1. Keep the 1TB Fusion Drive
2. Upgrade to 2TB Fusion Drive for $188.
3. Upgrade to 512GB Flash for $282, while also Velcro-ing a Seagate portable hard drive to the stand and keeping it plugged in at all times. We can think of this upgrade as a ~$420 purchase.

Thanks so much!

 

[harryb2448]

I suggest you get the 27" with 1TB of PCI-E flash storage ( the 512GB model if the readies are a little tight as is usually the case eh?) as the newer iMac Fusion Drive has only a 24GB of flash storage which is not enough for the operating system to be stored on let alone the apps you mention. Your only flaw is a Seagate hard drive. I use a Thunderbolt SSD as my backup and have a rack on the iMac leg from 12SouthDock to store the drive on. Apple reported a year or two ago the flash is now 2 x times faster than the SSD and mine sure flies with 12 second boot time and wireless keyboard and trackpad ready to go instantly with BlueTooth v.5.o.1.

I had the 2015 Retina 4GHz model with 512GB of PCI-E flash and it was marvellous, but my old eyes could not handle retina so I gave it to my son and went back to the earlier 2015 model i7 with 3.5GHz CPU and a 3TB hard drive with 128GB of flash, more than enough for me. Next consideration is graphics and I leave that to you.

After all this don't buy in haste. It is believed a new model iMac will be released come March with all flash storage, faster CPUs and memory.

 

[chscag]

After all this don't buy in haste. It is believed a new model iMac will be released come March with all flash storage, faster CPUs and memory.

As Harry recommends, you might wish to hold off till next Spring when we will likely see an refresh of the iMac. New iMacs will have Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 ports instead of the USB 3.0 that is now currently supplied. Also, the new iMacs will not have a SD slot so if that's something you need.... Overall, it should be a good refresh.

If you do intend to buy the current iMac, skip the spinner drives, fusion or no, and instead go for pure Flash Storage: either the 512, or 1TB if you can afford it. You don't need the faster CPU as that won't make much difference at all. Adding memory later on yourself is an easy do it yourself project. Takes about 10 minutes.

 

[Gabeascarl]

I heard rumor that the new versions were going to be quite a bit more (similar to the new macbook pro's vs last years), have you heard this rumor as well? I wouldn't be looking to spend too much more as this is already a >$2.5K computer

 

[Gabeascarl]

If you do intend to buy the current iMac, skip the spinner drives, fusion or no, and instead go for pure Flash Storage: either the 512, or 1TB if you can afford it. You don't need the faster CPU as that won't make much difference at all. Adding memory later on yourself is an easy do it yourself project. Takes about 10 minutes.

-The 3.5ghz i5 turbo boost to 3.6 vs 4.0ghz i7 turbo boost to 4.2, won't make a big difference?
-I already plan to upgrade the RAM right away from 8gb to 24gb by buying two 8gb sticks through Crucial or OWC. Is there a benefit of purchasing later rather then now when I first buy the computer?

 

[harryb2448]

Whilst I do own some Apple shares, Gabe, they don't share that information with anyone. If past experience is anything to go by, they usually leave the bottom of the line models at the same price and increase as you want more of the new 'goodies'. Opposed to that a 27" iMac with 1GB of flash is pretty well 'future-proofed' for the next five years or so.

 

[Gabeascarl]

I see, thank you so much Harry! Do you expect the 512 GB to be equally as future-proof? I guess that probably relies on how much stuff I have right... I need to figure out exactly how much "stuff" is 512 GB worth haha!

 

[harryb2448]

Spot on Gabe. I am not into iTunes,photos or movies and regularly use about 50-55GB of drive storage for operating system, office, and normal applications and use my iMac for banking,printing graphic design stuff and general usage. So for me 128GB is perfect. Hrses for courses if you follow. How big is your current storage

 

[Gabeascarl]

Spot on Gabe. I am not into iTunes,photos or movies and regularly use about 50-55GB of drive storage for operating system, office, and normal applications and use my iMac for banking,printing graphic design stuff and general usage. So for me 128GB is perfect. Hrses for courses if you follow. How big is your current storage

I hate to say it but currently it is extremely small. I am transferring 600 iPhone pictures MAX to my new computer, about ~100 short iPhone videos, a long with 400 songs MAX (but may not even do this, as I use Spotify).

With that being said, I don't want to give you the impression that I plan on staying at these numbers... Photo's and video's will increase, but not by a massive amount (not getting an HD camera that snaps 10 pics/second), these will all be off of an iPhone. Music may increase but not by a significant amount. But my worry comes in with downloading Xcode and building files with it, downloading Illustrator or Photoshop and building files with it, as well as possibly downloading WoW and starting to play that again at some point, and still leaving a bit of room for adventure...

Would 512 GB of Flash be enough?

 

[ferrarr]

Would 512 GB of Flash be enough?

You should be fine with 512gb. That's what I have in my Mac mini and I still have over 200gb free. I have about 100gb of video/audio/photos family stuff.