My late 2014 apple imac Fusion Drive started going bad and now it wont start up. what do i need to do to fix it? I had a backup via Time Machine but the hard drive out (that might for a different post.)
[Edited by Moderator]
iMac 27″
Get an external SSD, restore your backup to it, and configure and boot from that.
Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community
A tool such as DriveDx can potentially tell which part of the fusion is failing, and you can use Disk Utility to erase and reformat and continue to use the other part of the Fusion for some storage. I probably wouldn’t bother though, as the Fusion SSD is tiny and the Fusion HDD is exceedingly slow, so either way you won’t get a great result. And your description matches a slow , creeping failure, which is almost always the HDD failing and not the SSD.
Get an external SSD, restore your backup to it, and configure and boot from that.
Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community
A tool such as DriveDx can potentially tell which part of the fusion is failing, and you can use Disk Utility to erase and reformat and continue to use the other part of the Fusion for some storage. I probably wouldn’t bother though, as the Fusion SSD is tiny and the Fusion HDD is exceedingly slow, so either way you won’t get a great result. And your description matches a slow , creeping failure, which is almost always the HDD failing and not the SSD.
burdell1 wrote:
The failure is in the SSD not in the hard drive I believe
Okay.
Get and boot from an external SSD, and maybe then use the ~11 year old internal HDD for something.
Incremental failures are usually the HDD though, as SSDs tend to fail fast, and hard.
The first thing you should do is make sure you have a current and full backup of your User Data. A Time Machine backup is the best.
If you consider upgrading your Mac at this time consider the following: a 10 Core Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD ($1084 US) with a 32" LG 4k monitor ($331 US) from Amazon.com) is $1415 US which is $541US less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac ($1956 US) re 07/2025. Keep your keyboard and mouse from your current Mac for use with the Mini.
I got the above Mini with a 32" LG 4K monitor w/speakers for only $60 US more than the 27" (didn't know the Mini had a speaker). There are many monitors available in 27" size for $100 US to $500 US depending on what features you want. The monitor prices are before tariffs.
Just some food for thought.
The failure is in the SSD not in the hard drive I believe
Late 2014 iMac Fusion Drive is failing and won't start up
