# Fusion Drive for iMac



## iluvphotography (Aug 21, 2013)

i am thinking of buying an iMac and someone told me today that if i am using it for photo editing, l HAVE TO add fusion drive.....but couldnt really explain why?   Is it really necessary?


----------



## akshaymak (Aug 21, 2013)

Fusion drive is basically a solid state drive 

I was thinking that too but save the money and make a pc


----------



## Light Guru (Aug 21, 2013)

iluvphotography said:


> i am thinking of buying an iMac and someone told me today that if i am using it for photo editing, l HAVE TO add fusion drive.....but couldnt really explain why?   Is it really necessary?



No you don't have to have a fusion drive. People have edited photos on computers long before fusion drives came out. 



akshaymak said:


> Fusion drive is basically a solid state drive



No a fusion drive is not basically a solid state drive.

A fusion drive is a hard drive that is part solid state drive and part spinning disk hard drive.  Solid state drives are fast but the amount of data they can hold is smaller then a spinning disk hard drive.  What a fusion drive does is combine the two types of hard drives.  You have the the spinning disk portion to give you a large amount of storage and a solid state version to give you fast access to the files on the solid state part. The OS of the computer then tells the hard drive what files are accessed most often and those are stored on the solid state part.  Not all files will be stored on the solid state fast part of the drive.


----------



## Snapitjack (Aug 26, 2013)

I agree with Light Guru.

I have a fusion drive in my 2009 15" MacBook Pro, and it's pretty good. It doesn't make a huge difference when moving files and such. It boots faster though. 

I also have a 2009 27" iMac. It has a traditional hard drive. I hate it! "Clickety, clickety... grind, grind" It will be replaced with an SSD shortly. But it's about as fast for most things as the fusion drive.

I would say this, if one was going to buy a new hard drive I would say to go SSD and forget the fusion idea. Even if an SSD is too expensive I wouldn't get a fusion, I would wait until I could afford an full SSD.


----------



## ShaneF (Aug 26, 2013)

The fusion drive is a hybrid of the 2 technologies and as stated you wont notice much difference in performance.

In my opinion unless you need a laptop or just want one, build a tower you will get way more bang for your buck.


----------



## iluvphotography (Aug 29, 2013)

OK so should i build one with 8GB Ram or 16GB?  This is for iMac.


----------



## Light Guru (Aug 29, 2013)

iluvphotography said:


> OK so should i build one with 8GB Ram or 16GB?  This is for iMac.



More ram never hurts.


----------



## iluvphotography (Aug 30, 2013)

Light Guru said:


> iluvphotography said:
> 
> 
> > OK so should i build one with 8GB Ram or 16GB? This is for iMac.
> ...



Yes of course but I guess what I am asking is does it worth the extra $$?  Would I see a big difference between 8GB and 16GB ram?  From previous posts, it sounds like Fusion Drive is not worth the extra money but what about extra ram?


----------

