05-03-2021

Fusion Drive For Mac Mini 2011



The Mac mini (stylized with a lowercase 'mini') is a desktop computer made by Apple Inc. It is one of four desktop computers in the current Macintosh lineup, serving as an alternative to the all-in-one iMac, and sitting below the performance range iMac Pro and Mac Pro. The Mac mini is Apple's only consumer desktop computer since 1998 to ship without a display, keyboard, or mouse.

Fusion Drive is Apple Inc's implementation of a hybrid drive. Apple's implementation combines a hard disk drive with a NAND flash storage (solid-state drive of 24 GB or more)[1] and presents it as a single Core Storage managed logical volume with the space of both drives combined.[2]

This video has been updated! Please view the latest version here: OWC's step-by-step video of how to install a hard drive in the. Review this: Fusion Drive- What is it? You'll need to wait until Apple offers them as an option or a repair part. You have other options like adding a SSD as a second drive or putting in a hybrid drive like Seagate's Hybrid HD and from what I'm hearing a lot cheaper than a Fusion drive will cost. Mac Mini Mid 2011.

The operating system automatically manages the contents of the drive so the most frequently accessed files are stored on the faster flash storage, while infrequently used items move to or stay on the hard drive.[3] For example, if spreadsheet software is used often, the software will be moved to the flash storage for faster user access. In software, this logical volume speeds up performance of the computer by performing both caching for faster writes and auto tiering for faster reads.

Fusion Drive For Mac Mini 2011 Mini

Availability[edit]

The Fusion Drive was announced as part of an Apple event held on October 23, 2012, with the first supporting products being two desktops: the iMac and Mac Mini with OS X Mountain Lion released in late 2012.[3] Fusion Drive remains available in subsequent models of these computers, but was not expanded to other Apple devices: the latest MacBook and Mac Pro models use exclusively flash storage, and while this was an optional upgrade for the mid-2012 non-Retina MacBook Pro discontinued by Apple, it will replace the standard hard disk drive instead of complementing it in the fashion of Fusion Drive. Supported products have the following configurations:

Release dateHDD storageFlash storage
Mac MiniLate 20121 TB128 GB
Late 2014
iMac
(all models)		Late 2012
Late 2013
2014
iMac
(27-inch non-Retina)		Late 20123 TB
Late 2013
iMac
(27-inch Retina)		Late 2014
Mid-2015
iMacLate 20151 TB24 GB
2 TB128 GB
Mid 20171 TB32 GB
2 TB128 GB
3 TB
Early 20191 TB32 GB
2 TB128 GB
3 TB
iMac
(21.5-inch)		Late 20201 TB32 GB

Design[edit]

Apple's Fusion Drive design incorporates proprietary features with limited documentation. It has been reported that the design of Fusion Drive has been influenced by a research project called Hystor.[4] According to the paper,[5] this hybrid storage system unifies a high-speed SSD and a large-capacity hard drive with several design considerations of which one has been used in the Fusion Drive.

  1. The SSD and the hard drive are logically merged into a single block device managed by the operating system, which is independent of file systems and requires no changes to applications.
  2. A portion of SSD space is used as a write-back buffer to absorb incoming write traffic, which hides perceivable latencies and boosts write performance.
  3. More frequently accessed data is stored on the SSD and the larger, less frequently accessed data stored on the HDD.
  4. Data movement is based on access patterns: if data has been on the HDD and suddenly becomes frequently accessed, it will usually get moved to the SSD by the program controlling the Fusion Drive. During idle periods, data is adaptively migrated to the most suitable device to provide sustained data processing performance for users.

Several experimental studies[3][6][7][8][9][10] have been conducted to speculate about the internal mechanism of Fusion Drive. A number of speculations are available but not completely confirmed.

  1. Fusion Drive is a block-level solution based on Apple's Core Storage, a logical volume manager managing multiple physical devices.[6][7] The capacity of a Fusion Drive is confirmed to be the sum of two devices.[6][7] Fusion Drive is file system agnostic and effective for both HFS Plus and ZFS.[8]
  2. Part of the SSD space is used as a write buffer for incoming writes.[6][7] In the stable state, a minimum 4 GB space is reserved for buffering writes.[3][6][7] A small spare area is set aside on the SSD for performance consistency.[7]
  3. Data is promoted to the SSD based on its access frequency.[6][7] The frequency is detected at the block level [9] and below file system memory cache.[10] Data migration happens in 128 KB chunks during idle or light I/O periods.[6][7]
  4. Operating system and other critical documents are always cached on the SSD.[6] Applications are likely to be handled similarly.[7] A regular file can reside on both devices.[9]

See also[edit]

  • bcache, dm-cache, and Flashcache on Linux
  • Smart Response Technology — a similar technology from Intel (for desktops)
  • ExpressCache — used on a number of Wintel laptops
  • ZFS - A file system using similar technology

References[edit]

  1. ^Dominguez, Alberto (3 January 2019). 'The best desktop computers of 2018'. Pandora FMS. Archived from the original(html) on 3 January 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  2. ^Hutchinson, Lee (October 23, 2012). 'Apple Fusion Drive—wait, what? How does this work?'. Ars Technica. Condé Nast. Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  3. ^ abcdShimpi, Anand Lal (October 24, 2012). 'Understanding Apple's Fusion Drive'. AnandTech. Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  4. ^'Computer Science Research at Ohio State Makes Impact in Apple's Hybrid Storage Product'. www.cse.ohio-state.edu. 2013-04-08.
  5. ^'Hystor | Proceedings of the international conference on Supercomputing'. doi:10.1145/1995896.1995902. S2CID207188516.Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. ^ abcdefgh'Achieving fusion—with a service training doc, Ars tears open Apple's Fusion Drive'. www.arstechnica.com. 2012-11-05.
  7. ^ abcdefghi'A Month with Apple's Fusion Drive'. www.anandtech.com. 2013-01-18.
  8. ^ ab'Fusion Drive - loose ends'. jolly.jinx.de/. 2012-10-31.[unreliable source?]
  9. ^ abc'More on BYO Fusion drive'. jolly.jinx.de/. 2012-10-31.[unreliable source?]
  10. ^ ab'Fusion Drive last words'. jolly.jinx.de/. 2012-11-04.[unreliable source?]
Fusion

External links[edit]

  • Fusion Drive – Apple's description
  • Fusion Drive – Apple Knowledge Base article
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fusion_Drive&oldid=978075993'

There are two basic types of storage devices available today: hard disk drives and solid-state drives. For the lowest cost per gigabyte, you can’t go wrong with a hard drive, and they come in truly massive sizes—up to a whopping 8 terabytes. However, they’re relatively slow.

For speed, you want a solid-state drive, also known as an SSD. Because SSDs rely on flash storage, a type of non-volatile memory whose chips retain data without power, they’re lightning fast. But chips are more expensive than hard disk platters and read/write heads, so the $250–$300 that will get you an 8 TB hard drive is enough for only a 1 TB SSD.

Fusion Drive Mac Mini 2011

In 2012, Apple came up with a compromise: the Fusion Drive. As its name suggests, a Fusion Drive melds a hard disk drive with flash storage to provide the best of both worlds. The user sees just a single volume, but behind the scenes, macOS automatically and dynamically moves frequently used files—notably those used by the operating system—to the flash storage portion of the Fusion Drive for faster access while keeping infrequently used files on the hard drive.

In essence, the Fusion Drive provides much of the speed of an SSD along with the capacity of a hard drive. What’s not to like?

There are some caveats. Good as a Fusion Drive is, it will never be as fast as a pure SSD, and you’ll probably notice that most when working with older files. Try editing some photos from last year in Photos and you’ll likely be working entirely on the slow hard drive.

1 Tb Fusion Drive Mac

Also, Apple provides the Fusion Drive as an option only for the iMac and Mac mini; there’s no room it in a modern MacBook. But not all Fusion Drives are created equal. They come in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 3 TB sizes, although not all iMac and Mac mini models can accept the larger Fusion Drives.

Originally, all Fusion Drives had 128 GB of speedy flash storage alongside the hard drive, but in 2015, Apple reduced the amount of flash storage in the iMac’s 1 TB Fusion Drive to a paltry 24 GB (the Mac mini’s 1 TB Fusion Drive still has 128 GB). The company subsequently increased it to 32 GB, but if you’re buying a new iMac and want better performance from a Fusion Drive, go for either 2 TB or 3 TB, both of which have 128 GB of flash storage.

One final note. As of this writing, macOS 10.13 High Sierra will not convert a Fusion Drive to Apple’s new APFS file system. We anticipate that will change at some point in the next year, and APFS might make Fusion Drives even a bit faster.

All that said, if you want the best performance and can afford the cost, get an SSD. If you need more space than an SSD can provide, consider using the SSD internally and adding an external hard drive connected via USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3. Barring that, a Fusion Drive—particularly one with 128 GB of flash storage—remains a good compromise. Honestly, we can’t currently recommend a hard disk drive as the primary storage for a Mac unless low cost is paramount. Hard drive performance just isn’t good enough.