HHD failed, but installed SSD still works to boot. Worth turning external drive Into a Fusion Drive?

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HHD failed, but installed SSD still works to boot. Worth turning external drive Into a Fusion Drive?

Hi. I have a late 2009 iMac and I have replaced the optical drive with an SSD using the OWC Data Doubler. The spinning HDD has now failed but the SSD still runs it fine, just with small storage capacity. I'm tired of replacing the internal harddrive (replaced it 3 times since 2010) and just want to use an external HDD until it makes sense to buy a new iMac (still fast with the SSD).

My question is this, would it better to just treat the external HDD as a mounted drive, or would it benefit from being turned into a fusion drive since I plan on using the external drive as the storage drive? Pros and cons? Let me know if anything isn't clear. Thanks!

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.6), 12 GB Ram

Posted on Jan 26, 2018 6:36 PM

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PeterBreis0807

Level 8

41,170 points

Jan 26, 2018 9:21 PM in response to fa1con

Just use it for plain storage of data you do not need in a rush.

Don't go complicating the set up, even if you can. You don't want to lose everything just because two separate devices are no longer communicating for whatever reason.

You can get a fusion drive and use that as your external, nearly as good as an SSD but with much more storage at a whole lot less expense.

Peter

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