Apple offers a new 5K 27" iMac . . .

[dtravis7]

Apple Announces 2015 15

Some are shocked that the 15" still has the older CPU.

 

[chscag]

Looks like they are no longer offering the standard (display) 27" iMac but instead both models are retina. Actually, $1999.00 for the base model 27" iMac retina with 8GB is a pretty good buy. I'm surprised though that they didn't mention anything about SSD upgrades for either model. I wouldn't buy one with a Fusion drive.

 

[pigoo3]

A $1999 27" retina iMac is gonna be pretty attractive to a lot of folks!

- Nick

 

[TattooedMac]

Apple offers up new 27-inch iMac

Apple has introduced a new $2,199 configuration of the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display and has lowered the price of the top-end iMac with Retina 5K display.

I love it when Apple go into the 2nd Gen of anything and they lower prices . . . Makes me want to sign up for that 10k Credit Card.

 

[pm-r]

I didn't think their latest new product introductions were going to happen until tomorrow Wednesday May 20 according to the rumours, — wait … — … of course, you're there already and ahead of us in N.A. So I guess the rumours were and are true. ;D

 

[chscag]

Combined both threads here where they belong. Dennis already reported the new retina iMacs this afternoon.

 

[chscag]

of course, you're there already and ahead of us in N.A. So I guess the rumours were and are true.

The problem is they're upside down and ahead at the same time. ;P And... the announcement leaked out earlier today.

 

[TattooedMac]

The problem is they're upside down and ahead at the same time. ;P And... the announcement leaked out earlier today.

Still, I count beat Dennis to the punch

I literally posted it as soon as it came up in my RSS feed, thinking I was on top of things . . Anyway, the word is out now . .

 

[pm-r]

The problem is they're upside down and ahead at the same time. ;P And... the announcement leaked out earlier today.

I'm never sure if such things seem to leak out down there ahead of time if it's due to them being upside down, the time zone they're in or the beer they seem to always have on hand.

I'm hoping and strongly suggesting it's the latter.

(Pssst: But I have a feeling that some down under posters try and tell us they're teetotallers. Yeah right. I've heard that they are now extinct and left with the missionaries. )

 

[IWT]

I wouldn't buy one with a Fusion drive.

@chscag

You are far from the only senior figure on the Forums who has expounded this view. If you've got the time, can you tell me why? I currently have a Fusion Drive, but your answer could well influence my future purchases.

(BTW, the predecessor to the Fusion, the separate SSD & standard HD was a disaster purchase for me especially when it came to upgrades. TM and Clone BUs never really worked and I wrote a long post about the upgrade problem at the time. But Fusion—why not?)

Ian

 

[Lifeisabeach]

@chscag

You are far from the only senior figure on the Forums who has expounded this view. If you've got the time, can you tell me why? I currently have a Fusion Drive, but your answer could well influence my future purchases.

I'm curious myself also. I personally plan to buy a Retina iMac when the next gen is released and expect to get a Fusion drive (I'll never go without an SSD as my boot drive again). I'd rather not use it as a Fusion drive though... I have an SSD and HDD in my current iMac and prefer to have them as separate volumes that I control what goes where. I know there is some hackery that can be done to force this on models that ship with Fusion drives, but I'd worry this will break with an OS update.

 

[vansmith]

Apple offers up new 27-inch iMac



I love it when Apple go into the 2nd Gen of anything and they lower prices . . . Makes me want to sign up for that 10k Credit Card.

While you're at it, want to throw an order in there for me?

I'm curious myself also. I personally plan to buy a Retina iMac when the next gen is released and expect to get a Fusion drive (I'll never go without an SSD as my boot drive again). I'd rather not use it as a Fusion drive though... I have an SSD and HDD in my current iMac and prefer to have them as separate volumes that I control what goes where. I know there is some hackery that can be done to force this on models that ship with Fusion drives, but I'd worry this will break with an OS update.

I don't know enough about any technical limits but I suppose my thinking is "why not go fully flash"? I admit that I keep things light on my machine (if I have more than 100GB of content, I've done something wrong) so I find it hard to want any semblance of a traditional HD in my machine. I suppose though, if you had a large amount of data that you needed to keep on your machine, a FD would look attractive.

 

[pigoo3]

I know some folks feel that the added complexity of a fusion drive (small SSD + traditional spinning HD) may increase the possibility of a failure.

Of course there are folks who like & dislike fusion drives…here's one article from someone who seems to dislike them:

Mac Fusion Drive: pro users beware | ZDNet

- Nick

 

[chscag]

I go along with what Nick stated. And just browsing the various Apple forums seem to say the same thing about the Fusion drives. Plus, we've had several members who reported problems with them.

 

[pigoo3]

I honestly don't know if fusion drives have a higher failure rate or not. I did some quick searching & couldn't come up with anything. But it does make sense that the more complex something is…in theory…the greater the possibility of failure.

But traditional HD or Fusion HD…Im guessing we're still not talking a super big difference in failure rates. And hey...either way…got to do our backups!

- Nick

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Yeah, I must say I'm not too crazy about the idea of the system constantly shuffling files around from SSD to HDD. Really, the more I think about it, I think I'd rather just get an SSD and use an external Thunderbolt drive for my media library. The key thing is to be sure not to go too small on the SSD. Right now I'm using a 128 GB SSD with room to spare, but that's with media and some select folders residing in my HDD. A 256 GB SSD should be plenty for me if I offload media to an external like I do now to my internal HDD. Hopefully Apple's prices for that upgrade will come down a bit in a year.

 

[pigoo3]

Really, the more I think about it, I think I'd rather just get an SSD and use an external Thunderbolt drive for my media library.

Sounds like a great plan.

I think back when fusion drives first came out (2012)...SSD's were super expensive/gig. So the fusion drive did offer an advantage over traditional non-fusion HD's (at a modest cost). But SSD prices have come down quite bit since then...and are now in an area that a decent sized SSD that the average person can find useful isn't too expensive.

Sure a fusion drive is still much less expensive/gig. But can't beat a 100% SSD's performance!

- Nick