2019 iMac fusion drive "issues"

Question

2019 iMac fusion drive "issues"

Hi All.

Firstly, I should say that I am by no means an expert when it comes to the intricacies of a fusion drive. I recently bought a used 2019 iMac that was sold to me as having been upgraded to an SSD. I have since learned that this is in fact, a one TB fusion Drive. A 32 GB NVME blade SSD with a 1TB spinny HDD. As I paid cash, the seller has disappeared into the night never to be seen again. When I investigated what had happened, the drive had been renamed Macintosh SSD to provide a fig leaf in aid of the deception. In an attempt to re-label the solid-state drive back to Macintosh HD I think I might have created some problems in terms of the fusion drive priorities. The boot sequence is odd and slow. And if I read it right I believe I'm now booting from the HDD and not the NVME. Also the mechanical hard drive seems to be formatted to APFS. Is that correct for a HDD in a fusion system? Or, should it be Mac extended journaled? I have no idea what the "system Snapshot Mounted" greyed out volume in Disk Utility is as well???? I've taken a number of screenshots in Terminal and disk utility. Please see below.

As this unit is new to me I would really like to reformat everything to factory and start fresh if that's possible?

Please accept my appreciation for those of you who respond.

Posted on May 3, 2022 11:00 AM

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Answer 1

Jack-19

Level 8

46,014 points

May 3, 2022 11:05 AM in response to Captain Splatz

Welcome to Apple Support Community.

Everything looks correct with your Fusion Drive setup. If you have issues or concerns, I would suggest you upload an EtreCheck report and a DriveDx report.

EtreCheck

Navigate to: https://etrecheck.com and get the free version of EtreCheckPro.
Download it. It is a free and trusted app. It is often recommended here on Apple Support Communities.
Open EtreCheck, and before running the report, be sure to check “Allow full Drive Access” at the bottom of the EtreCheckPro window.
Run the report, and put it in a post, as shown here: How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community. We will then examine the report for issues in your Mac.

DriveDx

Follow these steps for DriveDx, and make sure to upload both reports (one from the HDD, the other from the SSD): How to use DriveDx - Apple Community.

Jack

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Answer 2

May 4, 2022 8:05 AM in response to Jack-19

Jack

I'm sure you don't know this.... but..... I found an interesting article about EtreCheck.

Seems it's deemed Malware by some. I have to say....The website looks pretty Sketch.

A guy looking for answers is a pretty ripe target, I guess. Irony is I was looking for help from the community to investigate a shady dude who sold me an altered iMac.

HDD erased...New OS installed.

A bonus is that, after an entire erase of my system my HDD/Fusion now looks normal with a fresh OS installed!

So...Thanks?

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,230 points

May 4, 2022 8:48 AM in response to Captain Splatz

Captain Splatz wrote:

Jack

I'm sure you don't know this.... but..... I found an interesting article about EtreCheck.

Seems it's deemed Malware by some. I have to say....The website looks pretty Sketch.

Welcome Captain!

"Haters gonna hate." Especially on the internet. There will be a critic like that for every device ever made and every program ever written.

I have been here a very long time (20+ years) and have worked these forums with Etrecheck's developer for many of those years. Everything about his work is on the up-and-up. I consider him a person of quality and more than worthy of my admiration. He goes to great lengths to prevent a posted report from showing any personal or security information.

Etrecheck is the single best tool for these forums, where we can neither see nor touch the poster's computer. It provides hard data for decisions rather than having us guess—and we are terrible at guessing!

With one posted report, we are often able to resolve issues and make data-centered recommendations in only one more answer without playing a protracted game of "20 Questions" to ferret out important information then user may not know how to access.

I only wish we had it sooner!

One man's opinion.

A

Disclosure: I have no ties to the company EtreSoft other than as a customer and user, and get no compensation for my recommending or defending it here or anywhere else.

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