Pcie flash storage built in iMac

[bryced87]

Is the built in pcie flash storage drive on my iMac better than using an external usb3 drive for recording? Some have told me it is.

[Darryl Ramm]

We know either piece of information, so how can anybody compare them?

What exact model iMac? What size SSD? This was an Apple supplied drive right? And you are not using a Fusion drive right?

What exact make/model USB3 external drive?

Have you just tried the internal SSD?

[bryced87]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

We know either piece of information, so how can anybody compare them?

What exact model iMac? What size SSD? This was an Apple supplied drive right? And you are not using a Fusion drive right?

What exact make/model USB3 external drive?

Have you just tried the internal SSD?

It is a fusion drive. I got confused. It's a refurbished 2013 iMac 1TB drive dual core processor with 2GB of video ram.

[Darryl Ramm]

So you are still using it as a Fusion drive or did you split it up? And if you split it up what are the HDD and SSD part being used for? (and how large are they)?

If you did not split it up, then an external USB3 HDD (7200 rpm or faster) or better a good SSD is likely to be a safer/more robust choice. But again, we can't guess, what USB3 external drive do you have?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by bryced87

It is a fusion drive. I got confused. It's a refurbished 2013 iMac 1TB drive dual core processor with 2GB of video ram.

That is not sufficient to work out what model you have (there was no "2013" model iMac for instance only "Early 2013" and "Late 2013"). The System Report utility provides all the intonation you need. Just paste the "Hardware Overview" data here for

Model Name:
Model Identifier:
Processor Name:
Processor Speed:
Number of Processors:
Total Number of Cores:
L2 Cache:
Memory:
(i.e. everything just dont' include ID information).

And the same for the information it provides on the two physical drives (under SATA and PCIe presumably).

[bryced87]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

That is not sufficient to work out what model you have (there was no "2013" model iMac for instance only "Early 2013" and "Late 2013"). The System Report utility provides all the intonation you need. Just paste the "Hardware Overview" data here for

Model Name:
Model Identifier:
Processor Name:
Processor Speed:
Number of Processors:
Total Number of Cores:
L2 Cache:
Memory:
(i.e. everything just dont' include ID information).

And the same for the information it provides on the two physical drives (under SATA and PCIe presumably).

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac13,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 8 GB


Physical Volumes:

disk0s2:
Media Name: APPLE SSD SM128E Media
Size: 120.99 GB (120,988,852,224 bytes)
Medium Type: SSD
Protocol: SATA
Internal: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
Status: Online
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
PV UUID: FE6DD606-B3F3-4614-9FEC-F45D86944BE1

disk1s2:
Media Name: APPLE HDD ST1000DM003 Media
Size: 999.35 GB (999,345,127,424 bytes)
Medium Type: Rotational
Protocol: SATA
Internal: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
Status: Online
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
PV UUID: 43B68ABC-9CB0-41D3-B801-9FB0825A83C4

[Darryl Ramm]

So in fact you don't even have a PCIe SSD.

Your iMac is old enough that the SSD part of the fusion drive is only SATA. It will have an M.2 form factor SSD like modern iMacs but it uses slow SATA not PCIe interface on that M.2 card. And it is only 128 GB so maybe not big enough for a boot/system drive post Fusion split. If you do split the Fusion drive up, that might make an fine audio/session drive, but because it is an old SATA drive not really a great boot/system *and* audio/session drive.... never mind you don't have the space.

BTW the HDD show there is a 7,200RPM Seagate Barracuda, so usable as either a boot/system drive or audio drive post Fusion drive split.

On modern iMac's i would really encourage folks to buy the largest internal SSD option from Apple they can. That overall performance benefit of doing that is likely worth it, even at Apple SSD pricing.

[PMF Media]

And again - as Darryl alluded to - you MUST split the fusion drive into it's component parts! PT simply will NOT function reliabley on a FD.

Here are the instructions: http://www.macworld.com/article/2015...ion-drive.html

Good luck!

[ryanstewartguitar]

If you ever get a Mac with a PCIe SSD, I would recommend trying it out. A few months back - after discovering that the PCIe SSD in my late-2013 rMBP clocks read/write speeds of over 700mbps each direction - I decided to try out storing all my sessions not only on my internal drive but also within my Dropbox folder, so that everything is immediately backed up and shareable. I've been shocked to find that this hasn't caused any problems for me, and in fact has been noticeably more stable, despite the fact that this is a fundamental no no. All the audio from the timeline is loaded into RAM anyway. I should note that I always leave my buffer size at 1024 samples and never use Pro Tools for input monitoring when tracking. My sessions average around 40-80 tracks with around the same number of plugins.

Storing sessions on external drives is something that will soon be a thing of the past, it's just a matter of when it's the best choice for your system. The days of affordable 10TB internal SSDs are not too far off. V-NAND is now on the market, and who knows what's next after that (3D XPoint???). Samsung just released a 16TB 2.5" SSD.