mac mini i7 quad SSD with external USb3?

[jimlongo]

Just my personal opinion, but recording to a 5400 internal drive vs a 7200 external coupled with the loss of the fusion functionality isn't worth it in my view.

Keep us updated on the results if you do try it.

[drguitar]

Just so you guys know, I have a 3TB fusion drive in my late 2012 iMac.

I did a LOT of research and talked to multiple people at Apple before purchasing it and doing this, but I definitely successfully partitioned the drive into two parts. The first partition has the OS and all apps on it and has access to the SSD and some of the platter drive. And the 2nd partition is platter drives ONLY. And I use that 2nd partition for PT sessions. Of course, I also have HD capabilities so I use Disk Cache, but it works great. Your mileage may vary.

[Cool711]

I figured this would work.

Two questions: is the negotiated link speed with the ssd 6gbps and the HD 3gbps?

And did you have any problem with updates?
Any software or hardware issues after breaking them up (as in did a software update force the drives to think they should be fused again?)

[drguitar]

I have no idea what the speeds are. The half with the OS and access to the SSD is just as fast as if it weren't partitioned at all. And the half that is just the platter hard drive is still quite fast too.
Zero problems with software updates. No the drives to not ever refuse without you doing so yourself in disk utility.
You cannot, however, as of now make more than two partitions this way on an Apple fusion drive. Who knows if that will ever change. And If you have two partitions the way I do, you cannot make another for Boot Camp (which I don't care about one bit)
Been operating with this machine since early spring.

[drguitar]

And I should add that when I clicked the button to begin the partition process, I really had to exercise a lot of patience. I was pretty worried because it took a long time. But I left it alone, walked away, checked on it occasionally, and it eventually completed.

[Cool711]

Just a follow up: I ended up not ordering the Fusion drive.

I figured I might run out of space on the SSD because of plugins etc., so I ordered the 256 SSD instead.

Had it shipped straight to OWC to install the data doubler kit (add second hard drive + mounting bracket; I don't mind doing the install myself, but I don't have the time and this way if they screw it up, I don't have to worry about it).

They are installing the HGST 1TB 7200 RPM drive.
The nice thing about these is that they communicate at 6Gbps. So the speed at which the two drives talk to each other is matched.

I figured even an external on USB 3.0 (which isn't officially supported I think) is still only going to be able to leverage 5Gbps, so why not just get it like this. If I ever want to move the machine home for mixing, I don't have to worry about grabbing another drive etc.

Will let you guys know how it works.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Cool711

Same questions here.

And for that matter, anyone ever try splitting the fusion drive and hosting PT on the SSD and recording directly to the HD?

Can't be done. The operating system makes the decision of what goes where depending on what gets used more often. The end user (you and me) only have one access point to the drive and that's the spinner part I believe.

[Cool711]

^Actually, splitting them apart is pretty easy: here's a link to the steps if you want to try: http://www.macworld.com/article/2015...ion-drive.html

Since it's only software controlled, you don't have to physically do anything.

I just wanted to know if anyone had tried it given that the HD drive spins at 5400 rpm, since the recommended was 7200rpm.

Also, knowing macs are sometimes quirky, I was wondering if on update it would think that it was broken and try to fix itself. IMHO, that's when it would become not worthwhile to do it.

But as I got to thinking, I figured it wasn't worth it since the ssd part is only 128gb, and I'm pretty sure I'll run out of useable space as we upgrade / add plugins.

[drguitar]

Can absolutely be done. You didn't read my post earlier apparently. And once you split them, the 2nd partition is absolutely only platter hard drives while the first partition is SSD + platter hard drives. From there, the OS only controls what happens on the first partition. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by musicman691

Can't be done. The operating system makes the decision of what goes where depending on what gets used more often. The end user (you and me) only have one access point to the drive and that's the spinner part I believe.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by drguitar

Can absolutely be done. You didn't read my post earlier apparently. And once you split them, the 2nd partition is absolutely only platter hard drives while the first partition is SSD + platter hard drives. From there, the OS only controls what happens on the first partition. Enjoy.

I was going by what DUC member Chief Technician (who knows a TON about Apple stuff) was saying some time back that the end user only had one access point to the fusion drive and the operating system what decided what went where.

You seem to be mixing partition and splitting the fusion drive into two parts the way I read your post.