When buying a Mac: Fusion Drive or SSD?

SSD

One of the great doubts when buying a Mac is usually to choose between an SSD disk or opt for the hybrid Fusion Drive, or what is the same: Maximum speed at the cost of less space or a hybrid between the agility of a solid state drive and the capacity of traditional hard drives.

SSD is your option if ...

If you are looking for the maximum speed of access to files with the SSD you can reach speeds that border on GB / s -According to Mac and configuration-, although the normal thing is that it moves between 500 and 800 Mb / s. We are talking about blazing speeds, ideal for opening huge RAW digital negatives in Lightroom or for opening multiple video files without waiting, no matter how large the file is. By eliminating any mechanical part, access times are drastically reduced, giving the impression of not existing at times.

Fusion Drive interests you if ...

If you don't want to lose quick access to files but need more capacity than what is usually found in an SSD, then you should go for Fusion Drive, which is nothing more than a hybrid with part SSD and part hard disk conventional. Thanks to this sum, Apple has optimized OS X to automatically place the files that we use the most in solid memory, while the less used or those that may have slower access go to the HDD. For a user who does not need the maximum performance, it may be the ideal since it gives us much more space than an equivalent SSD in price without completely giving up a high transfer and access speed. Of course, when we fill the disc the slowness becomes more evident, of course.

Conclusion

As a purely personal opinion, I I go for SSD storage pure for its speed and reliability, assuming that if more space is needed there is always the option of purchasing an external Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 disk.

But Fusion Drive is also a excellent choice for its versatility and for the excellent management that Apple makes of the combination of both types of discs, so in the end the choice depends entirely on the tasks to be carried out with the Mac and your preference between performance and capacity.


3 comments, leave yours

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  1.   Jhoan medina said

    I had the same doubt and I went for the solid unit, the reason? I do not see right, that I cannot manage the files that go to each disk, and even worse, when the solid unit is full, it can no longer be emptied, and then my Fusion Drive, it will be a normal disk

  2.   rene said

    The fusion drive is like a raid 0, that is, if a disk is damaged you lose everything.

  3.   José said

    "When the solid drive is full, it can no longer be emptied, and then my Fusion Drive will be a normal disk"
    Is not correct.
    The SSD works as a cache. On the SSD disk, the system leaves the files that are used the most, and those that are used the least go to the HDD. Everything automatically.
    It is a good option to not have to worry about where you leave a file, it is all automatic (Very Apple style),