The Fusion Drive in the new 21.5-inch iMac finished our file copy and uncompress tests in a third of the time of the 1TB drive in the 2011 model. In our tests, the 3.1GHz 21.5-inch iMac was 53 percent faster overall than a 2011 BTO 21.5-inch iMac with an upgraded 2.8GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge Core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive.
IMAC FUSION DRIVE VS SSD BENCHMARKS MAC
To see how these new custom iMacs perform when compared to previous models, as well as the Fusion Drive-equipped Mac minis we just looked at, we turned to our overall system performance benchmark suite, Speedmark 8. Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, Albert Filice, Kean Bartelman, and William Wang. Mac mini/2.6GHz Core i7, 1TB Fusion Drive, 8GB RAM BTO (Late 2012)ġ5-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)Īll results are scores. The 21.5-inch iMac had the stock Nvidia GeForce GT650M graphics with 512MB of dedicated RAM, but the 27-inch had the optional Nvidia GeForce GTX 680MX with a whopping 2GB of memory (a $150 upgrade).Ģ1.5-inch iMac/3.1GHz Core i7, 1TB Fusion Drive, 16GB RAM BTO (Late 2012)Ģ7-inch iMac/3.3GHz Core i7, 1TB Fusion Drive, 8GB RAM BTO (Late 2012)Ģ1.5-inch iMac/2.7GHz Core i5, 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM BTO (Mid 2011)Ģ1.5-inch iMac/2.8GHz Core i7, 1TB HD, 4GB RAM BTO (Mid 2011)Ģ7-inch iMac/3.4GHz Core i7, 1TB HD, 4GB RAM BTO (Mid 2011) The 21.5-inch iMac had 16GB of RAM, a $200 upgrade, while our 27-inch model had the stock 8GB of memory. Both processor upgrades are available as $200 options. The BTO models we tested have Core i7 processors: a 3.1GHz quad-core version in the 21.5-inch model, and a 3.4GHz version in the 27-inch model. The higher-end 27-inch model uses a faster 3.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX with 1GB of dedicated memory for $1999. The low-end standard configuration 27-inch iMac now comes with the same 2.9GHz Ivy Bridge quad-core Intel Core i5 processor as the high-end 21.5-inch iMac, but with Nvidia GeForce GT660M graphics with 512MB RAM for $1799. The 21.5-inch models ship with either a 2.7GHz quad-core Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor and Nvidia GeForce GT640M graphics with 512MB of dedicated memory for $1299, or a 2.9GHz version of the same Core i5 CPU and Nvidia GeForce GT650M graphics with 512MB of dedicated RAM for $1499. The size of the solid-state drive component can differ depending on the machine, model year and overall size of the Fusion Drive, the configurations are shown in the table below.The new iMacs come in four standard configurations, all with updated processors and graphics, and all with 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM and 1TB hard drives. From the 2017 model year the 27-inch iMac offers the Fusion Drive as standard. The Fusion Drive was offered as an option with the introduction of the Late 2012 iMac and Mac mini, it has not been offered as an option for the MacBooks. Which models have Fusion Drive and how do they differ? In addition to the increase in performance, as solid-state storage is relatively expensive compared to hard drive storage it allows for a cost effective way to have a faster drive with a large amount of storage space without it being prohibitively expensive. This way the faster solid-state drive’s better performance is efficiently leveraged.Ī practical example of this would be that all of the operating system files are stored on the solid-state drive to reduce loading times when booting or opening applications. Most commonly accessed files are dynamically allocated to the solid-state drive portion of the drive, whereas less commonly accessed files are kept on the hard drive portion. MacOS combines these two drives so that to the user it appears as a single drive. How does it work and what are the benefits? Solid-state drives have higher performance than hard drives and by combining the two it increases the overall performance. Fusion Drive is Apple’s name for a hybrid storage drive consisting of a hard drive and a solid-state drive.