How to undo "fusion" pairing of new HDD&SSD?

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How to undo "fusion" pairing of new HDD&SSD?

2012 Mac Mini (6,1). With an OWC Data Doubler kit, I put a new SSD and HDD in my mini. SSD to use as main drive and HDD to be the internal Time Machine backup. I then connected the original HDD via an external USB enclosure. When I went to format them, Disk Utility forced the SSD and HDD to pair and operate as one in a "fusion" style setup. How can I undo this since Disk Utility sees them now as one drive? Do I need to open the Mini up again and pull a drive and format it as a standalone to break this or can I do it via Disk Utility or Terminal without pulling the computer apart again?

Posted on Mar 19, 2016 7:42 AM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,513 points

Mar 19, 2016 8:49 AM in response to SymesS

http://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-drive.html

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Answer 2

den.thed

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91,612 points

Mar 19, 2016 9:20 AM in response to SymesS

Make a fully bootable backup using CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper or Disk Utility Recovery of your current fusion drive to a Mac OS formatted external hard drive. (I do not trust Time Machine, when it come to setting up new drives or total recovery)

Then have a look at > http://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/storage-flash/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-d rive.html

Personally I would not use the internal hard drive for Time Machine.

Example: I have also upgraded my 2012 Mac Mini to a dual SSD/HDD drive setup. I run OS X on the SSD and store all of my larger (music, photo, movie) media libraries on the HDD.

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Answer 3

SymesS Author

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Mar 19, 2016 9:42 AM in response to SymesS

Thanks for both responses. I pulled the SSD out formatted it by connecting to another mac via external enclosure. Then reinstalled in the mini and booted to recovery mode. Selected it as the destination drive and it downloaded OSX. Updating that now to ElCap and then I will format the HDD to be the time machine drive and use migration assistant to pull over other files from my old mac. That should work (fingers crossed).

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Answer 4

SymesS Author

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Mar 19, 2016 9:43 AM in response to den.thed

Curious as to why you would not use the internal HDD as the Time Machine drive...

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Answer 5

lllaass

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210,513 points

Mar 19, 2016 9:46 AM in response to SymesS

Because a common failure could corrupt both the startup disk and the TM disk. For example a power supply failure that caused a voltage spite that damaged both drives.

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Answer 6

den.thed

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91,612 points

Mar 19, 2016 2:32 PM in response to SymesS

SymesS wrote:

Curious as to why you would not use the internal HDD as the Time Machine drive...

In addition to what IIIaass's said,

1. My SSD is not large enough to hold all of my current media and data.

2. Accessing media on the internal drive is faster than accessing it on an external.

3. I don't trust or like TM and use CCC to make backups of each internal drive on different external drives.

a. I was using CCC way before TM ever came along.

b. When I did use TM, it totally trash a perfectly good external drive.

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Answer 7

Mar 21, 2016 4:27 AM in response to SymesS

Hi,

did it work? In my experience recovering (with migration assistant) from a broken Fusion system shouldn't work.

Simon

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Answer 8

SymesS Author

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Mar 21, 2016 6:30 AM in response to SymesS

I was able to break the 'fusion' drive that Disk Utility created by removing the SSD and reformatting it alone in an external enclosure connected to another mac. Then I reinstalled in the new mini, booted to recovery, installed OSX on the SSD. Then simply updated to newest version, used migration assistant to bring over contents of old mac drive to SSD, use Disk Utility to format the HDD and made it the Time Machine drive. Everything is working great now.

I understand why some would not want to use the second internal drive for Time Machine. However, at 1TB each, the SSD and HDD should be enough space for a few years and using a cloud backup as well, I'm covered enough to not lose sleep.

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Answer 9

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,022 points

Mar 22, 2016 1:12 AM in response to SymesS

You'd be wise to invest in and learn to use an externally enclosed storage backup drive

for additional overflow, another for Time Machine (a Time Capsule, too) and perhaps

yet another for expanded libraries or copies of music, video, and other content archives.

Since both internal drives share the same power supply, system bus, and many connections

that could eventually fail, there is a better gamble in duplicate or triplicate backups elsewhere.

External drive examples; options, including multiple drive enclosures, & others on preview:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/storage

Faster connections and data transfer rates are available via Thunderbolt storage; good for

full system cloning, for the bootable backup option for use with SuperDuper or CarbonCopy.

That's where you can run the computer from a duplicate and that being a clone, can be set

up to automatically update; better than Time Machine as an offline option, to keep on going.

In any event...

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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