Question for Mac users: Fusion Drive?
 

I'm going to order an iMac this week and I am stuck between getting the 1 TB SSD or the 3 TB Fusion. SSD would be my preference, but if Fusion is very similar than it is attractive as I would like a lot of space for my audio samples and plug-ins, this computer will mainly be used for music production/editing.

Is there a significant difference between SSD and Fusion?

I have an SSD in my Mac and I will not trade it for anything else. No matter what they call it, instant power up and lower noise level beats having more space. Buy an extra firewire drive to get the extra storage instead, or at least that's what I would do. I have been editing video on external firewire drives since 2000 and it has been working great, I assume audio would be somewhat the same.

As I suspected, SSD hands-down. Will go with that. Thank you.

add the $50 for the regular 1 TB drive, then get yourself a 2.5" external case for $30 and a 256 GB SSD for $100, replace the internal drive and voilá you just saved $120 and have an external drive for free

How did you get an SSD drive in your Mac? Did you buy one and install it yourself? Which Mac? I'm interested in doing the same. Can you share the procedure?

I recently bought a loaded MacMini minus the upgraded SSD/Fusion drive. For my use its fast enough without so no regrets.

I'm not Techie enough to tell you what increase in performance you would see.

From the Apple site:

About Solid-State Drives
For maximum performance, you can configure your Mac mini with a 256GB solid-state drive instead of a traditional hard drive. Solid-state drives deliver up to four times the performance of a traditional drive — speed you’ll notice when you boot your Mac mini, launch an app, or browse your photo library.

About Flash Storage
For maximum performance, you can configure your iMac with 256GB or 512GB of flash storage instead of a traditional hard drive. Flash storage delivers up to 5x the performance of a traditional drive* — speed you’ll notice when you start up your iMac, launch an app or browse your photo library.

About Fusion Drive
Fusion Drive combines 128GB of superfast flash storage with a traditional hard drive. And now it’s up to 50 percent faster than before.** It automatically and dynamically moves frequently used files to flash for quicker access. With Fusion Drive in your iMac, booting, copying files and importing photos are faster. Over time, as the system learns how you work, Fusion Drive makes your Mac experience even better. All while letting you store your digital life on a traditional, roomy hard drive.