Hybrid drive vs. fusion drive performance

The primary difference between a hybrid drive and the fusion drive is that the hybrid is a hard drive with solid state caching. so as with all caching systems the data exists in two places. Whereas the Fusion Drive is a tiered logical volume in which data is alway sent and received from the solid state drive first. Later older data is demoted to the hard drive. In the case of the Fusion Drive data only exists in one place. So the only time that the computer is forced to get data from the hard drive is when the solid state drive has been overloaded.

Allan

From all the research I have done on the Fusion Drive vs the hybrid drive, I think Fusion Drive is the way to go. As soon as I get my tax refund I will purchase an SSD and the make it into a Fusion Drive.

I know from my days of doing system support on servers that tiered logical volumes, which is what a Fusion Drive is, are really good,

Allan

I would agree with Allan. The difference appears to be in the underlying software and how it manages tiering the data. Using a hybrid drive will more than likely use Intel Smart Response, but Apple (in typical Apple fashion) has rolled their own, and reviews are quite good.

I had an iMac that had an original 7200 RPM drive. I replaced it with a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid drive. It was like night and day on booting and opening apps. The hybrid is really much faster. Then I replaced it with a Vertex 4 SSD. My boot times and apps opening times were a little faster than the hybrid drive but not by much. I'm sure if I were moving very large files or doing non repetive tasks the SSD would be mush faster. However since most do repetitive tasks and the hybrid "learns" and keeps those items on the flash part of the drive it is a very good alt. to the SSD. I also tested the standard 5400 RPM 1TB drive in my new Mac mini and it is very slow, horrible actually. I replaced that with an SSD.

If the difference between both Systems is caching vs tiering, We may compare these technos as follow :

- caching involves duplicated data in both standard drive and SSD cache. And this is how works caching for years, even for RAM caching. In this situation, a SSD-cache miss (with full random IOs) will occur for every first reads.

Then, if a second Read to get this specific data is triggered shortly, we will get a cache hit in SSD.

This approach is very simple but needs dual reads to work, each of them being quite close in time (due to MRU algorithm) : too old blocks get evicted the first from Cache.

But always accessed blocks may remain in cache for ever !

- tiering makes blocks mouvements between low speed tier (Standard drives with cylinders) and High speed tier (cells).

I agree, there is no duplicated data.

In this case, the algorithm has to collect stats in a window-time frame to understand which blocks are to be moved from tier to tier. Warm blocks are moved to higher tiers, but only after the stats collection is finished.

Hence, this approach is not as immediate as caching. But it will perform great if the warm blocks remain quite the same.

On High end storage Systems, you can also freeze a tiering config to get sure that future stars results wont alter the expected config.

Imgine that you have to browse a 3 years old iPhoto package library.

If you stay working on the Last month, caching will Help you very fast as it will get help at the second access.

Tiering should Help too, but a bit later :-)

HTH

I had both a 1st and 2nd generation Seagate hybrid as well as a 1st generation Samsung SSD installed in my 2009 MacBook Pro. (obviously not all at once!) While both hybrids were significantly faster than the standard drive it shipped with, especially when starting/restarting, neither could hold a candle to the SSD. It was this experiment that eventually led to my decision to purchase a MacBook Air for traveling.

Today I have a new iMac with a fusion drive which is about 60% filled. In other words I have more 'stuff' than can fit on the small SSD Apple uses. In terms of drive access speeds, starting/rebooting, etc, I cannot tell the difference between an SSD and the fusion drive. Now I know someone could easily come up with benchmark tests to prove the fusion drive is slower than an SSD but in terms of my everyday use there's no practical difference.

Now having said that, I have some musician friends who claim a fusion drive isn't a good choice for live recording and I can't gainsay them. I don't record live music.

Hi thetoolwiz2. How difficult was it to install the SSHD into the mac mini? Thinking of doing this. I have the late 2012 i5 and it only has 500GB, so this upgrade is perfect: double the capacity, more speed, $100 🙂. If it's easy...

I bought a kit on eBay that comes with the tools and instructions needed, as well as the additional drive connector. The instructions are clear. I also dug around YouTube for videos people have made about how to pull the machine apart. It's not too bad if you're mechanically inclined.

FWIW, I upgraded to a MacBook Pro with an SSD in it, and I've gotten really spoiled by the speed of this sucker! The MacMini isn't much slower even tho it has a hybrid drive in it. But it has the same CPU and RAM. (Actually, I think the MacMini's CPU is a tad bit slower than what's in my MacBook Pro. But it's barely noticeable.)

Given the choice between a regular HDD and a Hybrid, I'll go with a hybrid from now on. It's way cheaper than an SSD, and nearly as fast for normal stuff.

Doesn't help one bit. It's like explaining sex vs. experiencing sex.

As I've said, I'm looking for people who've got personal experience working with both hybrid drives and SSDs in the same or comparable environments who can speak first-hand on what differences they found in terms of performance. All the theory in the world is just that ... theory.

I feel your pain. You've asked a simple question (essentially "which one will I like better?") and mostly received answers that had nothing to do with what you've asked. Seems to be a common probelem on a lot of discussion forums.

It helped me a lot! Thanks for all the information!

Looks like somebody's done these tests for you: Seagate SSHD "Hybrid" versus HDD, Fusion Drive, and SSD. From the looks of it, the hybrid drive is just not worth the extra money. I've got a 2008 iMac I'm trying to breathe life back into, and I was thinking of going the Hybrid route. But these test results make me think it's not worth doing; I think I'll just get a bigger internal HD, put the existing internal HD into an enclosure to run Snow Leopard on (so I can play Starcraft and run my copy of Word that can do things newer versions cannot, etc.), and when I have the time and money, buy an external optical drive and replace my existing (broken) internal optical drive with a SSD to make a Fusion drive.

I disagree. The test you reference was comparing working with files (like copying, etc.) which I agree the difference between Hybrid and standard drive is small. However repetitive tasks like opening apps over and over again the hybrid is much faster as it "remembers' the task you are performing. I have all 3 drives and the standard drive is much slower in everyday tasks. However, the hybrid drive I have is the previous Seagate 7200 Momentus which is faster than today's model (5400)