Fusion Drive Issues Survey

[Carl Sealove]

PT12.4HD - UA Apollo 8 & Apollo Twin on iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 4GHz Intel Core i7, Late 2014 (model 15,1) 24 GB Ram, 1TB Fusion Drive, OSX 10.10.5, Akitio ThunderQuad2 Drive Bay

I have not experienced any Fusion drive related issues that I am aware of - No pops, clicks, audio dropouts, etc... I use the iMac for many different applications constantly. (Almost never record to system drive, but seems to be okay when I do.) Am I the only one having no trouble, or were fusion drive problems related to earlier systems and iMac models and everyone is still cautious about using them?

I'm sure we'd all agree SSD system drives would be fastest and best, but it would be interesting to take a poll and see whether the issues with Fusion drives are Mac specific, OSX specific, PT version, hardware specific, etc.

Would you care to share your experiences, whether working well for you or not, with specific system details?

Thanks!

[spaceman]

I would love to hear more about this too as pondering a Fusion in my new iMac purchase. I can see alot of stuff online about issues with audio, but what is the latest from people in 2017?

[Goobs]

While I mainly use an external system SSD via a Thunderbolt dock for Pro Tools recording, I use the Fusion Drive as a system drive for a second installation of Pro Tools just to do quick tests without rebooting, etc.

It's been fine thus far. That said, I never record to the system drive, ever... so that may have more to do with it than anything else.

[spaceman]

I went ahead and got the iMac. So far (6 weeks in) not a single issue with the Fusion Drive and Pro Tools. Latest version for each.

[JFreak]

You're lucky,,,

[spaceman]

It is a late 2015 model dunno if they makes much difference, with 24GB RAM.

[Goobs]

Originally Posted by spaceman

I went ahead and got the iMac. So far (6 weeks in) not a single issue with the Fusion Drive and Pro Tools. Latest version for each.

Out of anecdotal curiosity, are you using a dedicated recording drive in lieu of recording directly to the system drive?

[Courtlaw]

I'm using iMac late model 2013 w fusion drive. I store projects on external hard drive. I haven't experienced any problems

[TrentWilliams]

I run a 2013 iMac with a 2TB Fusion drive (256SSD).

I run my video from an external 500GB Samsung 850EVO SSD, and my PT sessions from a seperate 7200RPM thunderbolt HGST drive. I keep my samples and audio material on another 7200RPM HGST drive.

I've never had any issues in the 4 years i've been using this setup as my main workstation.

[spaceman]

Oh yeah of course. That is paramount when dealing with audio. I never record to internal disk, just use that to run Pro Tools. I currently use a Samsung 850Evo SSD like Trent W.

Originally Posted by Goobs

Out of anecdotal curiosity, are you using a dedicated recording drive in lieu of recording directly to the system drive?