friend has an IMac i7 with fusion drive, is he SOL?

[wwittman]

If he wants to run Pro Tools, is there a workaround?

is he screwed?

[ShiftStudios]

Not sure if he has an RME, but this should apply regardless.

https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=19358

Cheers.

[Southsidemusic]

Depending on the size of the SSD part of this fusion drive I say get a new SSD at 256GB minimum and better yet 512GB as they are much better in performance than the smaller 60-80-128GB SSD's. It is not worth the work in the long run as the SSD part of the fusion drive will fill up quick and you should never use more than maximum of 80% of any SSD drive,

If it is a larger SSD part of the Fusion drive it might be a workaround for now but we need that info to call it correctly.

As a gen rule never use Fusion drives for audio and definitely not for Pro Tools even if it works in Logic and Cubase

[wwittman]

when you say "get" I'm confused.

he already as this machine,

the iMac internal drive isn't upgradable, is it? otherwise he could just get a straight SSD

[ShiftStudios]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Depending on the size of the SSD part of this fusion drive I say get a new SSD at 256GB minimum and better yet 512GB as they are much better in performance than the smaller 60-80-128GB SSD's. It is not worth the work in the long run as the SSD part of the fusion drive will fill up quick and you should never use more than maximum of 80% of any SSD drive,

If it is a larger SSD part of the Fusion drive it might be a workaround for now but we need that info to call it correctly.

As a gen rule never use Fusion drives for audio and definitely not for Pro Tools even if it works in Logic and Cubase

Problem is new iMacs are like new MBPs. You can't change the internals, what you get is what you get.

[Darryl Ramm]

He's got to work out what the component drives in the Fusion drives are, especially if the SSD part is 7,200 rpm or not... becasue a 4,800 rpm drive sucks for use as anything.

Clone OS X to an external boot drive, boot off that, follow instruction available on the Web to split the Fusion drive into it's parts. If a 7,200 RPM HDD he is OK, if a 4,800 RPM drive I would get a 7,200 drive installed in it's place. Check out issues with cooling fans and non-Apple drives, or just take it to somebody who knows what they are doing. If the SSD part is large enough he may be able to install OS X there. All depends on what he needs. Ideally I would install a good large (1TB) SSD in place of the HDD part (whether 4,800 RPM or 7,200 RPM) and I'd use that for the OS and the fast Apple provided SSD as a audio drive.

[ShiftStudios]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

He's got to work out what the component drives in the Fusion drives are, especially if the SSD part is 7,200 rpm or not... becasue a 4,800 rpm drive sucks for use as anything.

Clone OS X to an external boot drive, boot off that, follow instruction available on the Web to split the Fusion drive into it's parts. If a 7,200 RPM HDD he is OK, if a 4,800 RPM drive I would get a 7,200 drive installed in it's place. Check out issues with cooling fans and non-Apple drives, or just take it to somebody who knows what they are doing. If the SSD part is large enough he may be able to install OS X there. All depends on what he needs. Ideally I would install a good large (1TB) SSD in place of the HDD part (whether 4,800 RPM or 7,200 RPM) and I'd use that for the OS and the fast Apple provided SSD as a audio drive.

That is the link I provided above.

EDIT: I'm also going to say SSD don't have RPM... rpm stands for revolutions per minute, which refer to the speed of the spinning discs, for which SSD's do not have. So SSD is as fast as it can read and write to the memory. Usually talking SATA3 speeds.

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by ShiftStudios

Problem is new iMacs are like new MBPs. You can't change the internals, what you get is what you get.

WOW!

That sucks. I thought after reading soo many posts of members using iMacs that they could swap out the main drive but I stand corrected if thats the case.

Well info on the fusion drive like Darryl said and take it from there then

[ShiftStudios]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

WOW!

That sucks. I thought after reading soo many posts of members using iMacs that they could swap out the main drive but I stand corrected if thats the case.

Well info on the fusion drive like Darryl said and take it from there then

Well, you could until the ultra-thin 5k's came out, it was around that time they started manufacturing iMac's like the rMBPs. If you want upgradability, you will need to go MBP, or Mac Pro. Those are basically your option with Mac now. :)

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by ShiftStudios

That is the link I provided above.

EDIT: I'm also going to say SSD don't have RPM... rpm stands for revolutions per minute, which refer to the speed of the spinning discs, for which SSD's do not have. So SSD is as fast as it can read and write to the memory. Usually talking SATA3 speeds.

No it not the same as what you provided. You can tell because the words and exact instructions are different. The instructions you linked to made assumptions about the OS X version, using time machine (bad idea-just clone the drive with Carbon Copy Cloner), and assumptions about what was going to be installed on what half of the split drive -- that choice depends on needs/goals.

The Fusion drive has two parts, a M.2 based SSD and a HDD. The HDD most certainly has an RPM, either 4,800 or 7,200 depending on the particular iMac.

And no a SSD is not as "as fast as it can read and write to the memory". SSDs are factors to orders of magnitude slower than memory (DRAM/DDR) speed.