Will library Aperture files stay on the HD of a Fusion Drive?

I don't have a fusion drive, but based on the discription how it will work, I doubt that viewing some pictures will move the whole library.

Your Aperture Library is a folder with many items, some frequently used, like the database index files inside, and infrequently used items, like original (master) image files. If you use Aperture frequently, the database files should move to the fusion drive, but not all the original image files.

See: http://www.apple.com/imac/performance/

With Fusion Drive in your iMac, disk-intensivetasks — from booting up to launching apps to importing photos — are faster and more efficient. That’s because frequently used items are kept at the ready on speedy flash storage, while infrequently accessed items go to the hard drive. The file transfers take place in the background, so you won’t even notice.

But, as I said, I cannot check that, since I do not have a fusion drive.

Regards

Léonie

Until an iMac with Fusion Drive is released no one can say just how it will work. The information from Apple is spotty at best.

And once it is released I don;t think there will be ay way to check to find out just what files are where. If you go to /Users/me/Pictures for example the complete folder will be displayed. So unless there is an icon or some other symbol designating a file on the SSD or the HD or another utility to display this information the fact that a file is on one or the other will be invisible.

But again until it's out we can only guess.

regards

And once it is released I don;t think there will be ay way to check to find out just what files are where. If you go to /Users/me/Pictures for example the complete folder will be displayed.

You mean like browsing a Time Machine backup from the Finder - no way to tell, which of the incremental backups actually contains the file? A chilling thought, and it will take some time to get accustomed to having so little control over the allocation of disk space. But I think you are right, looking at this support article:

Mac mini (Late 2012) and iMac (Late 2012): About Fusion Drive

One thing that makes me pretty sure that Aperture libraries will not be moved to the flash storage in total is the size of the flash storage:

128GB of flash storage with a standard 1TB or 3TB HDD

The average Aperture library simply will not fit onto the flash storage in addition to the operating system, if it is a managed library. But enough speculation ... 😊

You mean like browsing a Time Machine backup from the Finder

No like looking at memory and not knowing what is in main memory, what is in cache and what is on paged out to the disk.

Why is it chilling? You have no control or knowledge of what is in memory or what is cached or what is paged, the system just does it as it sees fit. This is basically the same thing, fancy (very fancy) disk cache.

I don;t know why everyone is getting so worked up by this, especially in the thread in the lounge. It's fancy disk cache. The files will be on the HD (though Apple will seed the flash storage with what it figures most users will use most of) and as they are used the ones used more will be copied to the flash drive. And I mean copied, I'll bet most everything that they will also remain on the HD.

The fusion drive is not meant to increase storage size but access speed. So if you get a 1TB fusion drive that's the amount of storage you get. The added flash storage will not increase your disk space. So the files will be copied to the flash and accessed from there. This also makes the management of it simpler. Imagine if file was in flash and it was decided that it no longer needed to be there and that another file should take its place. The first file would have to be copied out of flash to the HD before the other file could be copied from the HD to flash. A potential nightmare. But if the flash file was just copied to flash then there is no need to copy it back to the HD it could just be overwritten.

Of course in the case of data files this presents a problem. So there will either need to be some sort of write through or else the changed files will be marked as dirty which will indicated a need to write them back to the HD.

A combination of he two would be most efficient. Mark a file as dirty and then when there are free cycles go through all the dirty files and write them back to HD.

Anyway like I said until one is out in the wild it's all just guessing and even them Apple is not likely to give out much information.

regards

Thanks for this clarification 🙂 and as I said, no more speculation, before the community host will remind me of the terms of use.