Create Fusion Drive for Mac Mini?

Can you post a screen shot of what yo see in Disk Utility?

I just now saw your post.

If there is no compelling reason to use a fusion drive (I do not know one), and you are willing or planning to do a clean Mavericks install, why not install the "standard" system: OS Mavericks on the SSD, and use the HDD for music/movie libraries. The disadvantage of fusion is, among other disadvantages, that there is more disk writing than necessary, shortening the ssd life and slowing down the ssd. Also it can be counterproductive for some complicated applications.

Yes, here is the screenshot:

Hi

i have the same issue with my mac mini 2011

did you mange to find a way around this?

Are you using the internal Recovery HD for ML 10.8.3 or above (Mavericks)?

I initially i installed a fresh copy of mavericks on SSD (externally connected), later i did create Mavericks recovery USB and booted from it.

Accessing disk utility i managed to locate both HHD and SSD, but couldn't format SSD until i swapped drive bays (SSD on top where HHD originally was, and HHD on bottom tray)

Disk utility later allowed me to format SSD but both drives appear without "fix/ignore" option.

I gave up and did the process via terminal commands.

Currently and as i am typing this email, my mac works good based on the terminal fusion setup, however, i cannot confirm if i might face an issue or not.

I am planning on installing Trim Enabler to ensuring nothing goes wrong.

Considering your knowledge; do you think i would be ok with terminal command fusion setup that i did, or do you recommend another way/method?

Many thanks for your reply

Whether you use the Terminal commands to create a Fusion drive or the Recovery HD GUI of DU to do it, you should be fine. I've done it both ways and it's the same. The one thing I did when using the Terminal commands was install OS X on the HDD; then restarted into its Recovery HD to do the Terminal commands for creating my Fusion drive. This way, I ensured that I had a Recovery HD accessible from the Fusion drive which is ONLY accessible by pressing Command+R at restart. Other than that, it all worked fin.

I mentioned the internal drive's Recovery HD because I've always just booted to it from the Alt/Option key and selecting it to do the Terminal commands. I can't remember if I ever used an external Recovery HD.

So I understand your bays with your drives, the UPPER bay is the one closest to the top of the Mac Mini. The LOWER bay is the one closest to the round cover that you have to take off to get inside the Mac Mini.

I don't think that i have used the internal HD recovery previously since this is my first (technically format) of my Mac mini in 3 years.

considering that my Mac mini will be stationed on my desk, i could always prepare a bootable USB drive on my MBP should i need to deal with any issues.

Many thanks for the information

As I said:

If there is no compelling reason to use a fusion drive (I do not know one), and you are willing or planning to do a clean Mavericks install, why not install the "standard" system.

I am not in favour of FusionDrive,

If you install Trim now, be aware that Yosimite does not allow kext manipulation.

LexSchellings conclusion against Fusion Drives is misguided. And he hasn't really explained why not to use one.

He advises to just install the OS on the SSD and data on the HD, and manage it yourself....that's the very management issue the Fusion Drive setup intends to remove. I think he misunderstands that most people, especially mac users don't want to get involved with where their data is.

There's also hypocrisy in his statements about SSD cost, lifetime and best usage practices.

Also, always writing to the SSD might actually be what you want.

I spent quite some time monitoring my Fusion Drive when I first set it up, and it does just work. The data does get moved around. And I can concentrate on using the computer for productive purposes instead of managing it.

Obviously though, as always, make sure you backup, as if one disk dies, the lot is gone without expensive recovery

Thanks Crimp.

I concur with your evaluation of the Fusion Drive or tiered logical volume as it is known in the server support industry. Having use them for years for exactly the reasons you stated, I found them to be a very nice addition to my Mac. The performance of the Fusion Drive has extended the life of my Mac.

I have tested it on occasion and so far have not been able to see any degradation at the time of my last test.

keg55, will your instructions likewise apply under Yosemite? I'm considering adding a 120GB OWC Mercury SSD to the 500GB spinning drive via the OWC Data Doubler. OWC is Mac-centric, and their drives may be closest to Apple's OEM spec, so they're unlikely to run into TRIM issues, from what I've read. If you can spare the time, could you please let me know about Yosemite and perhaps even in a reply consolidate your advice about creating a fusion drive? It would be a huge help.

This is wonderful, can i use the same method on my macbook pro 2011? Or is this only exclusive for Mac Mini? The "fix it"

I want to create a fusion drive without going into terminal.

If this works, seems so much easier. Iam waiting for my Optical drive bay to come so i can create the fusion drive with 850 SSD 256 samsung, i hope this works.

Should work, yes. I've only created a Fusion drive on Mac Minis but some folks I know created them on Macbook Pros also.

Jonathan Brown,

You should be able to do the Fusion drive with Yosemite the same as with OS X Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

With OWC SSDs DO NOT enable TRIM. No need to as they use the SandForce controllers which may cause data corruption issues. The Garbage Collection works great. I'm using a 120GB OWC SSD with a 500GB stock 5400 HDD as a Fusion drive in a Mac Mini and have not enabled TRIM. Everything is working great without TRIM.