Beginner Imac ,Fusion drive or SSD

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As above which suits my needs best ,Mainly for photo edit. Apple shop recommended Fusion as the best whats your opinion?
 


SSD… for sure.

No moving parts, faster read and write, no noise etc.
Somewhat costlier but this is the new standard and
the "no look back" solution I opted for. Very happy!
 
A few years ago I would have said Fusion, that was back when the SSD component was 128gb, these days the SSD component on a 1tb fusion drive is 24gb.

So if I was buying today I would say SSD with a couple of thunderbolt/usb3 external HD's....
 
Fusion drive ( I think that is what everyone else called Hybrid drive ) are much better as a single storage solution if their capacity meets your needs and SSD are too expensive at that capacity.

Many people want more than 1 TB ( typically 2 TB + ) now and are not prepared to pay to have that all is SSD space so end up with a combo of Smaller SSD and much larger HDD or Hybrid drive.

Plus I would not put much money into standard SSD`s because the new NVMe are going to make SSD look old like HDD in the near future ( but that is my opinion and not based on any actual facts )
 


SSD… for sure.

No moving parts, faster read and write, no noise etc.
Somewhat costlier but this is the new standard and
the "no look back" solution I opted for. Very happy!

Snap. I went this way as my earlier mac's hd failed (moving parts) so went the SSD and its good. Very quiet as well:)
 
A few years ago I would have said Fusion, that was back when the SSD component was 128gb, these days the SSD component on a 1tb fusion drive is 24gb.
It's 128GB in the 2TB and 3TB drives. Whilst undoubtedly superior, an internal SSD and external USB-C HDD adds a noticeable chunk of cash to the bottom line.
 


This was my thinking…

This iMac is STRICTLY for professional use in the PP room.
When I come back from a shoot, I want the images to upload
quickly to the machine and I want to go through the post-pro-
cessing of the shots a fast — read efficiently — as possible.

The folders will stay on the SSD until the pictures are published
— and that means a day or two — to then be backed up to the
external array and deleted from the SSD.

Unless you have very little picture to process and store — in
which case I would recommend the 2 or 3 TB FD — the SSD
along with external HD is the way to go, IMO.
 
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It's 128GB in the 2TB and 3TB drives. Whilst undoubtedly superior, an internal SSD and external USB-C HDD adds a noticeable chunk of cash to the bottom line.
I did quote 1tb as I was thinking of my way of working ;). I don't store images on my internal drive only using it on the odd occasion as a temporary work drive. If you do store your work on the internal (you still need externals for backup etc) then a 2 or 3tb Fusion would make sense...
 
SSD/nvme and then move files off to slower storage when finished with them.

You're relying on the fusion/hybrid drive to decide what should be placed in the flash section. Which may not always be the files you want.
 
Don't have a mac but a new PC laptop with a NVMe in it and it's great! It's very very fast.
Plus there was still room for a 2.5HD in it. So I got a 1TB in there!
I guess mac do the same thing?
 
Well there's fast and there's fast enough - I just bought a new iMac (today actually) with the 1tb Fusion drive as its both big enough and fast enough for my use

I will be adding more ram though, but relative to my NINE year old one that just died on me, (I never had a pc get past 18 months!) its already lightning fast by comparison - so I'm happy :)

Dave
 
Well there's fast and there's fast enough - I just bought a new iMac (today actually) with the 1tb Fusion drive as its both big enough and fast enough for my use

I will be adding more ram though, but relative to my NINE year old one that just died on me, (I never had a pc get past 18 months!) its already lightning fast by comparison - so I'm happy :)

Dave

This was my thinking.

I got a 2TB fusion drive (so it has the larger SSD segment) and although I know an SDD should be faster in theory, the drive controller does a fantastic job of deciding what to put where and I notice no difference in use between my Fusion iMac and 2017 MacBook Pro (which has a super fast SSD). So, if you want a one box solution the fusion drives are perfectly fantastic.
 
Well there's fast and there's fast enough - I just bought a new iMac (today actually) with the 1tb Fusion drive as its both big enough and fast enough for my use

I will be adding more ram though, but relative to my NINE year old one that just died on me, (I never had a pc get past 18 months!) its already lightning fast by comparison - so I'm happy :)

Dave

Same here Dave, bought mine last weekend, went with the 1tb Fusion Drive, 16Gb Ram and faster processor - seems very fast compared to my old PC.
Always got the option of upgrading the Ram as well if required.
Managed some editing last night for the first time on a Mac with Lightroom/Photoshop, bit of a challenge to start with getting to learn the keyboard shortcuts but after an hour or so seemed to be picking it up.
Photos on the screen though look fantastic - very happy.

Cheers - Paul.
 
Always got the option of upgrading the Ram as well if required

Ha - I'm currently sat here with TWO new iMacs :D

The one I bought Friday being the cheaper 21.5" where I thought I'd save a few bob and then upgrade the ram myself - except you can't on the smaller one :(

Hence I'm back to a 27" (as of yesterday), and as Time Machine has perfectly installed everything this is now my working mac and the smaller one is going back for a refund :)

I see this (bottom) spec 27"" mac - once I've added more ram - as being easily good enough for the job; and in this sense its a bit like my car, its fast enough and good value whereas a faster one costing 1/2 as much again would only be worth it for a few % of every drive I took, so the extra cost would not represent good value at all - same with most things and the law of diminishing returns (y)

Oh and being a Yorkie may have had something to do with it too :D

Dave
 
The trade off is cost v size.

A 2TB Fusion drive is significantly cheaper than a 2TB SSD. Someone mentioned speed for editing, I'd be surprised if you noticed the difference, more RAM will help your editing speeds and preview generation. Copy speeds will benefit from SSD, but if you don't bulk copy, then it's an expense you could save.

From my point of view it helps with keeping it multiple back-ups. For example my iMac has a 3TB Fusion, I run ChronoSync to an external 4TB drive and another ChronoSync to an 8TB drive which is also configured for Time Machine. I also back-up to Backblaze, as a disaster recovery measure in case the house burnt down.
 
Would love to see some PS/LR benchmarks for similarly specced iMacs with Fusion/SSD drives.

Currently need to upgrade. Struggling to justify the price differential over a 2TB fusion and a 512GB SSD (& external HDD) - excluding backup, etc.
 
I have a late 2015 iMac ann opted for the 3tb Fusion Drive as i was looking for a large amount of storage space. I only use it for photo work and it performs good enough.
 
Well there's fast and there's fast enough - I just bought a new iMac (today actually) with the 1tb Fusion drive as its both big enough and fast enough for my use

'xactly. I bought an iMac (2nd hand from the classifieds) about 5 years ago. It replaced a MacPro that had about 12TB of hard disk space and I spent ages researching the best way to add extra drives.

After 5 years, it turns out a 1TB drive is actually big enough for me. Files come in, get edited, get saved as finals and raws either deleted (yes really) or stored on the super slow NAS. Occasionally I'll need to have a tidy up - but then I did when I had 12 TB.

Fusion is fast enough - I don't think the slow downs I get are actually caused by disk speed. BTW it definitely gives a boost over a traditional HD. I boot the same machine to Win 10 which can't access the fusion bits and it's noticeably more sluggish. Still fine because most stuff takes place in memory just a bit less eager to swap between apps.
 
Files come in, get edited, get saved as finals and raws either deleted (yes really)

I delete all my culled files but I still can't quite do so with my chosen ones !!!

I think I have some bizarre hope that one day I'll have learnt how to edit them better and so will go back to them - its not happened yet though lol

Dave
 
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