> On Apr 22, 2015, at 7:31 PM, Jim Scott <jesco...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Most standard Apple rotating disk hard drives are 5400 rpm units, which are > reliable but noticeably slower than a 7200-rpm unit. A Fusion drive combines > a 128 GB SSD (solid state drive) with a 5400-rpm spinning platter drive, > using Apple’s proprietary drive software. The theory and intent is to load > the most-used applications and operating system on the much faster SSD and to > use the SATA hard drive for storage. My experience with a 1.28 TB Fusion > drive in a late-2012 27-inch iMac is that it compares favorably to the 2 TB > 7200-rpm hard drive I installed in a mid-2010 iMac, as well as a “hybrid” > (SSD + hard drive) 7200-rpm 2.5-inch unit I’ve used in a couple of late model > 13” MacBook Pros.
I just clocked my systems. the Mini (Mid 2011, 2.3Ghz i5, 8gb RAM), with a Fusion drive boots power on to login in 32 seconds. the MBA (13", Mid-2013, 1.3GHz i5, 4gb) power-on to login 14 seconds. so shorter for both than I remembered (I rarely reboot either) but shows the advantage of an ssd over even the fusion drive. Again, from personal experience setting up mini's as lab workstations, the base model hdd in these things are glacially slow in comparison. Even downloading stuff off the internet was faster (This faculty member was downloading ginormous 20-30 GB DNA restriction map datasets) because, it turned out, that disk IO was the primary bottleneck on the system. > > Where storage is concerned, be aware that any late-2012 or newer iMac has > four USB 3.0 ports, as well as two Thunderbolt ports. This means really > speedy read/write access to really huge external storage devices. I’ve played > around with a 240 GB SSD inside a USB 3.0 Mac with a 3 TB external hard disk > drive, and the combination can’t be beat as a speedy, inexpensive > consumer-level setup Yes, I keep forgetting how insanely fast USB3 is. I helped a faculty member set up Time Machine on her newish iMac plugged in the drive, and told her "Oh it may take up to a couple hours to finish the initial backup". We talked about some other things for about ten minutes and it was done. Unless you're really set on an iMac, I still believe that your best value for the budget will lie in getting a good Mini system (they also have 4 USB3 and 2 thunderbolt ports), along with a third party monitor. You'll get a larger monitor with a matte screen (no shiny glass to reflect glare!) and lower price. Like the iMacs the memory isn't upgradeable so make sure you get what you need up front. -- Bruce Johnson "Wherever you go, there you are." B. Banzai, PhD -- -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iMac Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
