1tb fusion drive. Tip How to optimize Fusion Drive on Mac. What is Fusion Drive
From Optical Bay installation to SSD selection and HDD integration.
IT-journalists sometimes forget that not all users are as deeply as they delve into the nuances of certain software or "hardware" products. That is why I was very much surprised when I saw a friend MacBook Pro 13 2010 with an HDD and DVD drive, which have not yet been replaced with something more useful by standard means or through OptiBay.
This MacBook is almost six years old and doesn't run as fast as we would like. And this is especially evident when opening serious applications like Photoshop or something similar. He advised the owner to replace the HDD with an SSD, which would give a serious increase in speed. But not everyone can afford a solid-state drive of normal size.
I asked a friend about the frequency of using CD / DVD. He said that he last opened the drive three years ago. I told him that accelerating the physical memory of an old MacBook Pro or iMac with minimal investment is possible with OptiBay, an inexpensive SSD of a small volume and a complete HDD in a tie through the Fusion Drive. The case was suggested by MacPlus specialists - many thanks.
1. Educational program for "dummies" - getting to know Fusion Drive
Fusion Drive is a specific hardware and software suite from Apple that is designed to combine SSD and HDD to work together. It automatically sorts frequently and infrequently accessed data and intelligently distributes it among drives based on the individual operating style of the owner. This gives a performance boost without expensive components.
And this is our case. The budget is minimal, and the needs are maximal. Of course, ideally, just replace the HDD with an SSD of reasonable capacity. 500GB of physical memory would be enough for him, but a solid state drive of that size is expensive. And the combination of 128GB SSD and 500GB HDD in Fusion Drive will be the best solution. Fortunately, you can tie them yourself.
2. Choosing an SSD - focusing on "cheap and cheerful"
Any SSD designed for laptops will work for Optical Bay. I don’t think that in this case we need to delve into the nuances of certain hard drives - this is too big a topic that is suitable for a separate material. I'll just give you a simple advice that I use myself - focus on the average cost or the notorious "golden mean", as well as read-write speed, the number of rewriting cycles and compatibility with Mac.
As for the volume, in our case the choice is obvious - 128 GB. It makes no sense to take less, and the price of more capacious options frankly "bites". But with a large budget, you can also look at the 512 GB or 1 TB models. Then for the Fusion Drive, you can also take the most capacious HDD that you can find on sale at all (I myself have not seen more than 2 TB).
By the way, MacPlus experts will help you choose an SSD for your MacBook.
3. Install SSD in MacBook Pro or iMac instead of HDD and HDD via OptiBay
Note! In the case of the MacBook, the SSD needs to be installed in place of the HDD, not in the Optibay. Only in this case will it be possible to achieve the maximum speed of the Fusion Drive.
A short guide to installing OptiBay in MacBook Pro
1) Remove ten screws with a dedicated Philips screwdriver:
2) Open the lid of the MacBook by simply using your fingers:
3) Disconnect the battery cable using any plastic tool with a thin edge:
4) Disconnect the AirPort / Bluetooth cable and camera cable. Remove them from the grooves assigned to them:
5) Disconnect the antenna cable:
6) Remove these five screws:
7) Remove the AirPort / Bluetooth Assembly and Subwoofer:
8) Disconnect the right speaker and hard drive cables:
9) Remove these three screws from the optical drive and pull it out:
10) Disconnect the drive ribbon cable and remove the mounting bracket screws:
11) Remove the two battery screws:
12) Pull out the battery using the dedicated lever:
13) Disconnect the battery cable:
14) Remove the two screws that hold the HDD:
15) Pull out the retaining plate and pull out the disc using the special tab:
16) Disconnect the hard drive cable:
17) Remove screws from HDD:
18) Remove the plastic pad from the OptiBay:
19) Install the HDD in OptiBay and return the spacer, fix the HDD in OptiBay with screws and screw the mounting bracket, install OptiBay and SSD in MacBook using the reverse sequence of steps:
A short guide to installing OptiBay in iMac
1) Pull out the protective glass of the screen using special suction cups:
2) Remove the eight screws that secure the shield to the case:
3) Lift the display slightly above the body:
4) Disconnect the vertical sync cables, backlight cables, data cable and thermal sensor cable:
5) Pull the shield out of the case:
6) Remove the four screws from the optical drive:
7) Disconnect the cables of the thermal sensor and the optical drive, and pull it out:
Important! There are a lot of cables in classic iMacs with DVDs. Connectors and cables are fragile. And MacPlus often got broken computers after trying to upgrade themselves. Of course, many do it themselves successfully, but it's worth considering. Fixing things like this is harder.
11) Remove the plastic strip from the OptiBay:
12) Install the HDD to OptiBay and replace the spacer, secure the SSD to the OptiBay with screws, install the OptiBay to the iMac using the reverse sequence of steps:
Keep in mind that you can also install an SSD on a new iMac and enable Fusion Drive on it. But in this case, it is much more difficult to do this, so it is better to contact specialists.
4. Create a special bootable USB flash drive with the system
But before that: After installing the SSD, you need to clarify whether Trim works by default, or you will have to enable it manually.
And further: immediately after assembly, when you turn it on for the first time, it is worth resetting the nvram parameters (hold on alt + cmd + r + p before the repeated greeting signal), which can in some cases get rid of incomprehensible glitches.
First, you need to download the OS X El Capitan distribution kit. For the convenience of further manipulations, it is better to immediately rename it to something simple - Elcapitan. With a flash drive (8 GB and higher) we do the same thing - Disk. Next, open the terminal built into the system and enter a fairly simple command, where Disk is the name of the drive, and Elcapitan.app is the name of the distribution:
sudo /Applications/Elcapitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume / Volumes / DISK –applicationpath /Applications/Elcapitan.app –nointeraction
5. Making a backup copy of computer data
Of course, it's best to back up your data to your MacBook Pro or iMac using standard OS X tools - using Time Machine. To do this, you need to open the platform system application and carry out the appropriate manipulations. We backed up to a simple external hard drive, but you can use Apple's own Time Capsule too.
6. Setting up Fusion Drive - home stretch
For a "clean" installation of the system and setting up Fusion Drive, insert the bootable USB flash drive into the computer and restart it while holding the Option key. We select the external media as bootable, and after this procedure we open the terminal. In order not to be mistaken, we immediately need to familiarize ourselves with the list of installed disks using the appropriate command:
diskutil list
Next, Fusion Drive is created using the disk utility built into the system, to which we will issue all the necessary commands through the terminal. It is important not to mix up discs. In this case, Fusion is the name of the new group. After its creation, the utility will provide the name of the combined Logical Volume Group in the format 34WD6RDE-6564-F2R0-B7F4-FT35EERB. Here is the required command for the terminal:
diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disk1
Finally, you need to format the resulting volume group to HFS +. It is in this case that the long set of letters and numbers that the utility assigned to the Logical Volume Group will come in handy. As soon as the operation is completed, you need to continue the installation of the operating system, following the instructions of the installer - there is absolutely nothing complicated here. And here is the formatting command for the terminal:
diskutil cs createVolume 34WD6RDE-6564-F2R0-B7F4-FT35EERB jhfs + Fusion 100%
Pros and cons of Fusion Drive
Pros:
- Cheaper than SSD, more volume;
- Fusion Drive can be customized on older Macs too;
Minuses:
- If one drive breaks down, data recovery is already very difficult. The entire Fusion Drive dies;
- Disassembling a Fusion Drive is a very complicated procedure;
- Fusion Drive's speed is still not equal to SSD speed. It is slower;
- Fusion Drive is susceptible to all SSD sores. For example, it is undesirable to use it with programs that constantly access the disk.
Not for stupidity's sake - a necessity for. Instead of output
Once you've finished installing the system and restoring your own backup data through Time Machine, you can start enjoying a much more productive system. Special disk tests show that the Fusion Drive is practically on par with SSDs in terms of write-read speed. Therefore, in this case, we saved money, but received the desired upgrade.
(5.00 out of 5, rated: 1 ) 
11/15/12 at 22:24
The Fusion Drive combines the features of a traditional large-capacity hard drive with a fast SSD. This new drive can be found in the latest Mac mini and updated iMac, but you can create one yourself.
This will require skills in the Terminal. Despite the fact that the commands are not complicated and there are not so many of them, inexperienced users should keep in mind that it is not as easy as using the Disk Utility application. In addition, you will need to use OS X 10.8.2 or later.
Collecting devices
1 TB Hitachi (from Mac mini) and 240 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
To create a Fusion Drive, you need two hard drives, one of which is an SSD. In our case, we used a Hitachi 1TB and 240GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. Please also note that Apple does not provide technical support to those who created their Fusion Drive.
Create a backup
Working in the Terminal
Disk Utility does not have the required functionality to create a Fusion Drive. To do this, we need the command line that comes with every Mac. The terminal allows you to use the CoreStorage application, which will "glue" hard drives and format them, but this cannot be done from the currently running hard drive, so you will need to reboot into system recovery mode.
Hold Command + R while turning on your Mac and launch Terminal. Note: If you are using a Mac from Apple's current lineup, such as the 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display or the new Mac mini, you will not be able to use the old installation disc to boot. These computer models require a special version of Mountain Lion, which is not yet in the App Store, so you will need to go into System Recovery.
Disc creation
With a terminal open, you're ready to create a Fusion Drive.
1. Display a list of all hard drives currently installed using the command:
Attached hard drives appear as / dev / disk #. In our case, / dev / disk0 is the boot drive, while / dev / disk1 and / dev / disk2 are the SDD and hard drive we want to put together in Fusion Drive. To understand which disk has which designation, pay attention to their name and sizes, which are displayed in the Terminal.
Creating a section group
2. You need to create a partition group, use the following command to do it:
diskutil coreStorage create yourGroup name drive1 drive2 In our case, the command will look like this:
diskutil coreStorage create myLogicalVolGroup / dev / disk1 / dev / disk2
When the process finishes, you will see a unique group identifier (LVG UUID), which needs to be copied to the clipboard.
Creating an entire section
3. Now, within the group, you need to create a partition of two hard drives, which your Mac will recognize as one. To do this, enter the following command:
diskutil coreStorage createVolume lvgUUID type name size
where lvgUUID - the unique group number to be copied in the previous step.
type - this is the type of partition, we need jhfs + (Journaled HFS +).
name anyone can use it, it's just the name the Mac will display. Traditionally used by Macintosh HD. Make sure you enter quotes and a space.
size - sets the amount of used space for the future section, we need 100%.
Contrary to the expectations of the first SSDs in consumer devices, it is now clear that an all-out migration to solid-state drives is not possible in the foreseeable future. NAND Flash manufacturers have made great strides in reducing the cost of chips, but the price of a gigabyte of capacity on magnetic disks is still an order of magnitude lower than SSDs. In addition, with each step of Flash memory to a "thinner" production rate, it becomes more difficult to ensure the reliability of reading the charge in the cell and the required number of rewriting cycles. Hard drives, on the other hand, still have an inexhaustible reserve for increasing capacity in a standard design with the usual GPP / GMR-heads (Perpendicular to Plane / Giant Magnetoresistance) and several exotic technologies in the future.
Flash memory is most widely used in mobile devices, where the advantages of solid state drives fully justify the higher price per unit of volume. If we talk about Apple, as a manufacturer of certainly expensive technology, it can install SSDs in computers that rival hard drives in capacity, which we see in the top configurations of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display. And the only Apple mobile device that still comes in a hard drive configuration is the retina-less MacBook Pro, which is aging every year.
In desktop computers, even for Apple, it is not easy to ditch the hard drive as a basic storage option. While the Mac Pro (fully converted to SSD) is limited by the principle of savings, all three basic iMac models that Apple now makes have a 500GB - 1TB hard drive. There are options with up to 256GB or 512GB of all-solid state storage that require an additional $ 200-500 investment on top of the terabyte HDD configuration. And between these extremes - Fusion Drive, which is an array of 128GB SSD and 1TB or 3TB hard drive. Upgrading a Mac to Fusion Drive in combination with a terabyte drive also costs $ 200, so the choice is tough. We will talk about him.
Approx. Prices shown are for the US Apple Store. In Russia, an upgrade from 1 TB HHD to Fusion Drive costs 7,960 rubles.
To be honest, the author of this article has not expected anything good from hybrid drives for a long time. So far, none of the solutions tested in 3DNews has come close to the manufacturer's declared goal - to combine the speed of an SSD and the volume of an HDD with an affordable price. Most of the "hybrids" are built according to a single scheme: a small solid-state component is used as a cache, which duplicates frequently requested information from the main drive - HDD. In some cases, SSD is also used for write caching. It is assumed that after a certain period of adaptation, the cache begins to duplicate the most popular data - OS and application files, and blockages of rarely used resources remain on the HDD. In this concept, it is natural that the larger the solid state component of the hybrid drive, the higher the average performance. For example, 8GB of Flash memory soldered to Seagate SSHDs is clearly not enough to keep the system as responsive as all-solid state storage. At best, we can talk about an intermediate position of this kind of "hybrids" between SSD and HDD, although in numerical terms - not even about the average.
A more efficient approach is implemented in Intel Smart Response Technology, which allows a separate SSD of up to 64 GB to be used as an SSD cache (provided that the system is built on one of certain Intel chipsets). But at the same time, the price is rising, and for this reason few of the ready-made computers and laptops enjoy this luxury. Finally, with a sufficiently large SSD, the thought already arises: shouldn't we have abandoned caching and set it aside for the OS and programs as a separate volume? Actually, this is what they did with the WD Black 2 drive, which is a terabyte HDD and a separate 120 GB SSD in one case. But again, the savings on SSD components, multiplied by raw software, does not allow WD Black 2 to be cited as an example of a successful hybrid drive.
⇡ Meet Fusion Drive
So what can Apple add to this? The Fusion Drive recipe is generally the same as that of that Jew from the joke: "Put more tea leaves." The solid-state component of the array in Macs is played by 128 GB SSDs, and, importantly, with high-quality controllers.
In principle, this in itself is a satisfactory configuration for comfortable operation. With some discipline, you can keep the OS and all running files within a 128GB SSD (ask MacBook Air users), and manually store your media library and other heavy resources on your hard drive. However, Fusion Drive is also Fusion because SSD and HDD are combined into an array. In such a case, the end result depends on how the SSD is used.
Apple iMac 21.5 ”Mid 2014
The total volume of the array is equal to the volume of the individual components. We tested a 21.5-inch iMac, which in our case is 1128 decimal GB (1 TB HDD plus 128 GB SSD). That is, we can immediately say that the data is not duplicated, the SSD does not function as a cache. Instead, tiering takes place: often requested data goes to the SSD, the stale data goes to the HDD. The question is: how are priorities determined? But more on that later.
⇡ Fusion Drive: components
First you need to understand what kind of iron we got. The iMac and Mac mini models prior to 2013 used variations of the Samsung PM830 - not the worst SATA 6Gb / s drive. Apple is now rolling out native PCIe SSDs all over the place, promising significant performance gains. Hard Drive - 1TB 2.5 "HDD for junior iMac and Mac mini, or 1-3TB 3.5" HDD for 27 "iMac.
The System Information utility lists the manufacturer of the SSD. Judging by the APPLE SSD SD0128F name, this is the same SanDisk drive found in the Mac mini, as well as the 2014 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It is possible that the alternative that Samsung supplies may also come across in the Fusion Drive configuration. Both drives are connected via PCIe 2x interface.
SanDisk SSD, photo by iFixit
The SanDisk SSD is based on the Marvell 88SS9183 controller, which we saw earlier in the Plextor M6e. The chip has a native PCIe interface with two lines of version 2.0, data transfers using the AHCI protocol (in contrast to NVMe, which is specially designed for solid state drives). Eight channels are provided for connection to Flash memory chips. The TRIM command is of course supported.
The SSD itself is made in a proprietary form factor, but economy lovers can try their luck with third-party trims by building their own Fusion Drive or using the SSD separately. Only with the iMac it is not so easy to do, unlike the Mac mini.
The Marvell controller is paired with SanDisk flash memory chips. Judging by the marking 05131 016G, this is a memory of the eX2 ABL MLC NAND type, manufactured using the 19 nm process technology. Its distinctive feature: some of the cells work in pseudo-SLC mode and serve as a cache that speeds up write operations and simultaneously extends the life of the microcircuit by defragmenting requests. However, there are hardly many such cells here, since the drive has reserved a standard volume of about 7% (the difference between the number of 128 GB in binary and decimal), which is also used for garbage collection, replacing failed cells and other service functions.
Eight enclosures are located on both sides of the board, each containing two 64 Gb (8 Gb) NAND devices. Thus, not only all eight controller channels are filled in the drive, but also NAND interleaving is involved.
All in all, very decent components for an SSD. But we will leave the verdict until the end of the tests, since in the case of Marvell controllers, a lot depends on the firmware. Previously, we most often saw them in Plextor drives with expertly made firmware. Let's see how SanDisk performs.
The hard drive in the iMac 21.5 ”is a trite 2.5-inch HGST Travelstar 5K1000 series drive with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm. There is nothing special here.
HGST Travelstar 5K1000 1 TB (HTS541010A9E662), photo by iFixit
⇡ CoreStorage - the foundation of Fusion Drive
The implementation of Fusion Drive became possible due to the fact that, starting with version 10.7 (Lion), OS X has built-in CoreStorage - a volume manager, which is a software layer between the file system and the drive. Thanks to him, it became possible to redistribute data blocks between two physically separate devices that make up an array, absolutely transparent to the overlying software stack. In CoreStorage terminology, physical devices are called Physical Volumes and can be connected into a Logical Volume Group that has a contiguous address space. It remains only to deploy on top of this Logical Volume, which is presented to the OS as a normal volume. Then, the software that manages data migration between echelons is included in the case.
Attentive readers may notice that there is another entity in the diagram called the Logical Volume Family, which is a container for the Logical Volume. Logical volumes enclosed inside LVF inherit its properties, the only of which can be full-disk encryption so far - due to this, the FileVault 2 service built into OS X works.
If desired, the structure can be disassembled with commands from the "Terminal", booting in OS recovery mode or from an external disk, and then using the SSD and HDD as separate drives. On a Mac with Fusion Drive, Windows is also installed without problems in the Boot Camp partition. The latter is cut from the end of the logical volume and can include almost the entire address space of the hard drive, but does not extend to SSDs. The Windows installation program, like the installed OS itself, sees the Mac partitions, which leaves it possible to accidentally kill all the contents of the Fusion Drive. When you next install OS X from scratch, Disk Utility, upon discovering the familiar hardware, will offer to collect everything as it was with complete destruction of data.
⇡ How it works
Since in the case of Fusion Drive we are not dealing with cached storage, but with layered storage, the first question is where the data written to the logical volume initially goes. It turned out that as long as there is enough SSD capacity, it is exclusively used for recording. Using Dynamo, the backend of the Iometer benchmark utility, a file over 128GB was created on disk, and in the process the drive load was recorded using iostat. In the beginning, calls were made exclusively to the SSD, but as soon as the file size became larger than the SSD capacity minus the installed OS, the load was completely switched to the hard disk.
Immediately after the recording ended, the fs_usage command showed a shaft of CoreStorage calls, from which RdChunksCS and RdMigrCS initiate data migration between array echelons. The fourth column of the listing also shows that data is being moved in chunks of 128-512 KB. Thus, due to the large scale of movements, a side effect of data defragmentation is. If you add up the calls, you get the volume in the region of 4 GB. Subsequent attempts to write showed that each time the first 4 GB of the file gets to the SSD, and then CoreStorage evicts the same amount of some other blocks to the hard disk. That is, there is always a 4 GB reserve on the SSD, which provides recording of freshly received data at high speed.
The average sequential read and write speed of 256 KB blocks with a queue of four commands from the SSD is 754 and 391 MB / s (binary), respectively. Very worthy - despite the fact that the operations take place on top of the file system. HDD read / write speed - 82-88 MB / s.
But how to cause data migration in the opposite direction - from HDD to SSD? It turned out to be quite easy to do with entire files. In order to immediately get into the address space of the hard disk, the SSD was clogged during a long write of a large file, and at the same time a 2 GB file was created using dd with randomized contents from / dev / zero. After stopping recording, a migration immediately followed, clearing up 4GB of storage on the SSD.
The first reading of the file took place at a speed of 87 MB / s (most of the load is recorded on the HDD). But the second time, the file was already read exclusively from the SSD at a speed of 427 MB / s (purge guaranteed a preliminary cache clearing). However, it is easy to see that the speed is far from the maximum: the file ended up on the SSD in a fragmented state.
Further experiments showed that Fusion Drive can also transfer individual pieces of large files. From the middle of the 400 GB file, which was mostly located on the HDD due to its size, a range of 2 GB blocks was read. Two 30-second loop read passes cause some blocks to move to the SSD and a dramatic increase in overall performance. But in order for all the blocks to be on the SSD, and the read speed to reach the maximum, it took as many as 34 passes! Interestingly, this method worked for writing data to the same range as well. In the latter case, the peak speed was reached on the 15th pass.
Red - reading from SSD (disk0), blue - mostly from HDD (disk1). Green - block migration after read iteration
It turns out that the algorithms by which Fusion Drive selects data for migration operate at both the file and block levels. Moreover, the files have priority. Accessing selected blocks within CoreStorage files is considered an atypical scenario, and it takes a long time for these blocks to get promoted. Well, the iMac is not the best candidate for the database server role, and the preference for whole files makes for less fragmentation.
In the next step, we will test the SSD in Fusion Drive separately and compare it to other high-performance PCIe or SATA 6Gb / s SSDs.
The second problem with the technology is the relatively high cost of the hybrid drive - for a 128GB SSD, the buyer will have to pay at least $ 250, which is more expensive than third-party SSDs. Moreover, prices for more spacious ones are falling, which is why advanced users have more options. Many will appreciate the simplicity and convenience of the Fusion Drive, but most likely few will happily overpay for it.
Do not forget that many users no longer need a spacious storage device. Macs are gradually losing the title of "digital hub", which Steve Jobs once gave them, more and more multimedia content is available in cloud services, and you don't need a large HDD to view it (Apple TV does just fine with these tasks). It looks like Fusion Drive is trying to fix a problem that by and large doesn't exist.
The technology also has other problems, for example, the flimsy software implementation of Core Storage, due to which a logical volume often becomes unusable and needs to be recovered from scratch.
Fusion Drive is an innovative technology that combines a hard drive and an SSD. It appeared in 2012 Mac models.
IMacs and Mac minis equipped with Fusion Drives will still receive support for the new APFS file system, contrary to the original. This is reported by MacRumors with reference to an e-mail of the corresponding content, sent to one of the readers of the publication by Craig Federighi himself.
On September 25, Mac users will be able to install a new version of the operating system. Among others, it will bring a new file system APFS. However, as it turned out, not all Mac owners will be able to use it. For some, it will remain inaccessible. These are computers that are equipped with Fusion Drives.
Recently, Apple is increasingly starting to equip Mac computers - the company is gradually phasing out in favor of a bundle of hard drives and solid state drives. Usually this symbiosis consisted of a HDD of a certain capacity and a 128 GB SSD - not much, but enough. However, in this situation, Apple decided to save money.
After successful in Cupertino, I decided to please buyers and slightly expanded the possible configuration of their monoblocks. And although the innovation only applies to SSD drives, it should have a positive impact on sales of these computers in the second quarter of this year.
Today service engineers from McFix are struggling with the problem of increasing the speed when using a bundle of SSD and HDD-drives and creating their own
