fusion drive & ssd drive for MacOS

cwong668 wrote:

old toad,

to my understanding from your info that the speed of running macos could be listed as follow,

1/ have internal ssd drive

2/ have external ssd thunderbolt drive connected to the thunderbolt port

3/ have external ssd usb3 drive connected to the thunderbolt port

4/ have external ssd usb3 drive connected to the usb3 port

is this the correct listing on the operating speed?...

thanks & cheers,

#3 can't be accomplished. Otherwise that's about it.

Using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app here are the speeds of #1 and #3 from my setup:

#1

#3

I don't have a #2 as they are so expensive.

Unless you can get a Thunderbolt external SSD drive and connect it to a Thunderbolt port on your Mac it will be slower to boot than you have now. I have a couple of earlier systems on an external SSD connected via USB 3 and it's much slower in booting up but once booted you can't tell the difference.

With Thunderbolt the data rate will not be as fast as the internal buss for files on the SSD portion of the Fusion disk but will be faster for those files on the rotating disk portion of the Fusion drive.

Be aware that Thunderbolt external drive cases are very expensive and, IMO, not worth the speed difference. USB 3 is more than adequate.

I Have an, Imac 2017 with Fusion Drive,and its, run,smootly!

Why reinstall your,2017 iMac with an SSD Harddrive?

Will the SSD Drive Run Faster than the Fusion Drive? Maybe?

I can not see your issue,on this problem?

You have a 2017 imac with a Fusion Drive,like me,

why not be with it,and let it run?

Your internal Fusion drive is going to be faster than an external USB3 SSD unless you went external Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt 3 w/ SSD which can get pricier.

You can download Blackmagic Disk Speed test if you did want to do some testing if you obtained an external USB3 or TB2/TB3 drive temporarily.

You could de-fusion your internal Fusion drive turning it into a separate 128gb SSD + a whatever-Terabyte-sized HDD which would give you an internal full-speed SSD, but of greatly reduced sized, along with a secondary large-but slower HDD. For the vast majority of people though this would not be worth the loss of primary drive space size.

You could also get an Apple Authorized Service Provider to upgrade your internal Fusion drive to an Internal SSD.

I just did that very thing, same computer, and it's the best money I've ever spent.