Fusion drive installation. How to activate Fusion Drive on older Macs. We create a special bootable USB flash drive with the system

One of the latest Apple technologies presented at a special event held last month in San Jose was Fusion Drive, Apple's take on a hybrid drive. I suggest you figure out what it is and how it works.

What is Fusion Drive?

With Fusion Drive, the Cupertino company has implemented an idea that has been floating around in computer circles for quite some time: take advantage of the advantages of two main types of drives, combining them into one ideal hybrid product. The main “advantage” of SSDs today is high speed work with data, while a traditional HDD allows you to store large amounts of information and not think about saving space, which owners of other Macs with solid-state drives are accustomed to. As a result, two physical disks will be installed on the computer, but the user will see a single logical volume in the system, the capacity of which will be equal to the total volume of the SSD and HDD.

How does Fusion Drive work?

Lee Hutchinson from ArsTechnica took up a detailed study of the principles of Fusion Drive, resulting in an impressive and, perhaps, the most complete/accurate overview of the technology. I'll try to save you from reading 5000+ words of the original by summarizing the main points in this section of the article.

So, if you are a regular user, then you don't need to do anything to get Fusion Drive working. You simply buy a Mac and turn it on. and that's all standard applications On such computers, the system is pre-installed on an SSD, so the system should initially boot and respond to user actions in the same way as regular Mac with solid state drive. Moreover, according to Apple's documentation, the system and some other important files will always reside on the SSD, so performance should remain similar over time.

However, this is all theoretical, so Lee decided to find out how the new technology works in normal use, while simultaneously testing Anandtech's assumption that the SSD has a 4 GB “landing zone” from which data is transferred to the HDD. Initially he copied a 3 GB file and left Mac mini for a while, monitoring the physical disks using iostat. But no disk activity was observed. Copying the second (3 GB) and third (8 GB) files also did not move the data to HDD- they remained on the SSD.

Then Lee simulated “typical user behavior” and set 120 GB of data to be copied, which was more than enough to overflow. This is where Fusion Drive showed its true colors: when the solid-state drive was filled with ≈110 GB, disk activity shifted towards the HDD and continued until the copying was completed.

But after completing the task, the fun began. Fusion Drive waited about 20 seconds and began moving data from the SSD to the HDD for a certain amount of time before stopping. The volume of copied information was approximately 4 GB. After repeating the experiment several times, Lee found that the behavior of Fusion Drive did not change - solid state drive Immediately moves data to the hard drive until there is at least 4 GB left on it free space.

A few words about convenience

Where are new files created? On what drive are applications installed or files downloaded from the Internet? The answer is simple: absolutely everything goes to the SSD first. And it is impossible to configure what is saved where (at least for now). In this regard, freeing up space on a flash drive turns into a non-trivial task that only advanced users can handle.

There are several more interesting moments related to new technology that are definitely worth mentioning:

• Officially external drives devices connected via USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt cannot become part of the Fusion Drive. However, developer Patrick Stein managed to create a Core Storage volume from an SSD and connected via USB hard drive.
• On hybrid drive You can only create one additional partition (for example, using Disk Utility). Physically it will be located on the hard drive, and it can be used for Windows installations through .
• Fusion Drive can be used in Target Disk Mode, but only with a computer running OS X 10.8.2.
• Resetting NVRAM may slow down Fusion Drive. This can be corrected by forcibly installing the boot volume in the System Preferences panel of the same name.
• A computer with Fusion Drive comes with a special modification of Disk Utility. Older versions of this application do not support creating hybrid drives.
• And a special article from the Apple knowledge base describes how you can restore a “collapsed” Core Storage volume. Please note that as a result of some operations, data on the disk will be permanently deleted, so do not neglect backup.

Eventually

The logic behind Fusion Drive is simple: it is designed to ordinary users, not geeks who already have an SSD drive and a traditional HDD, independently deciding which files to store where, and creating symbolic links to libraries or iPhoto. The mechanical insecurity of the hard drive also plays a role, but the prevalence of backup systems, including Time Machine, allow you to use technology and not worry about data safety.

Fusion Drive cannot be called a panacea for all ills, and thanks to it your computer will not gush out a rainbow from all the ports. However, Apple has once again introduced technology that just works © And we all benefit from it.

I read it and wanted something like this for myself. At first I thought it was hybrid hard a disk like this Seagate. But no.

Fusion Drive turned out to be not an innovative piece of hardware at all, but rather a software feature of Mountain Lion 10.8. It's something like RAID0 (with all the problems of RAID0), but also with some additional benefits. In short, the system analyzes which files are used more often and puts them on the SSD. And the SSD capacity limitation is no longer annoying. Read more on the page of the one who took it all apart - Patrick Stein aka @jollyjinx
So, if you have SSD and HDD drives, you can try it.
Before we begin:

1. You can also try to create Fusion Drive on external drives.
2. You can create a bootable Fusion Drive. You just need to perform all actions from the terminal console in the installation utility.
3.The information on the experimental disks will be destroyed. There will be no turning back.

Now about the main thing.
To create a Fusion Drive you need two drives. Not two partitions of one disk, not a partition and a disk, but TWO PHYSICAL disks. One SSD and one HDD. Fusion Drive works on any media, so the SSD manufacturer does not matter.
Also required is a Mountain Lion (installed or boot disk).

Stage 1: Create an array (CoreStorage)

Let's launch the terminal. Let me remind you that if you want to make a boot disk, the terminal must be launched from the installation program.
Enter

something like this will come out


Select the disk identifiers to merge. In my case it is disk0 (which is SSD) and disk1 (which is HDD)
Check your selection. Once again. Sure? Double check!
Now let's move on to creating logical drive CoreStorage.
enter in the terminal

where: UUID - what you copied (remembered, wrote down), Name - Partition name, Size - size in gigabytes.
As for the size - add up the sizes of your combined physical disks and subtract 6. At the end without a space, the letter g/
I got this line like this

Hello Geektimes! Surely many people continue to use computers MacBook Pro 2011-2013 (those with an optical drive) and want to replace their device with a newer model. But if doing this is problematic for some reason (for example, due to crisis prices), you should not write off the “old man” - there is Alternative option, which will give the device a second wind. Its name is Fusion Drive.

First, a few words about what Fusion Drive is. In simple terms is a software RAID array with the ability to analyze the frequency of data usage. Files that are used more often are stored on the SSD, while the rest of the information is on the hard drive. When using data from HDD system transfers them to an SSD, so the operating speed becomes several times faster.

IN old MacBooks were installed hard disks with a rotation speed of 5400 rpm, which in modern realities is not at all impressive. Therefore, when installing Fusion Drive, which implies the presence of a solid-state drive, it would not be amiss to upgrade the HDD - ideally to 7200 rpm.

Many people believe that an SSD with Fusion Drive will not be of much use, and it is easier to put the system on a solid-state drive and store the rest of the information on the HDD. However, such a solution has a lot of disadvantages, and is there any significant speed loss with FD? Let's try to answer this question.

First, you need to decide on the choice of SSD. Since this post is on the OCZ company blog... well, you get the idea :) Below is comparison table SSD. Because we need SATA interface 3 for connecting the drive to a MacBook Pro (2012 model), RevoDrive 350 with PCIe Gen. 2 x8 immediately disappears. In terms of the combination of controller, endurance and maximum read/write, we like the Radeon R7 and Vector 180. By the way, the latter is more reliable due to the presence of PFM+, and the five-year warranty is impressive. To configure Fusion Drive, you can easily choose it, but a lot depends on your needs. If they are limited to studying, surfing the Internet and office applications, you can choose simpler models, but not lower than ARC 100.

As for capacity, it is better to take at least 240 GB. Although a large amount of data will be stored on the hard drive, you may need to temporarily leave large files on the SSD.

Let's say we have decided on the choice of SSD. Don’t rush to tear off the lid of your MacBook and install it - first you need to prepare your computer for such a serious upgrade. Before installing the SSD and setting up Fusion Drive, you must create boot drive With operating system(this can be OS X Yosemite or OS X El Capitan, but not younger than version 10.8.3). The maximum effect from installing Fusion Drive will be achieved if the system is installed “from scratch” on a ready-made SSD + HDD combination.

To create bootable USB flash drive, you will need a drive with at least 8 GB of free space and “Terminal”. First, we download the operating system distribution and rename it for ease of entry - say, Elcapitan.

It is also better to rename the flash drive itself (say, to DISK), after which you can safely open the “Terminal” and enter the following command:

sudo /Applications/Elcapitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/DISK --applicationpath /Applications/Elcapitan.app --nointeraction
Where DISK is the name of our drive, and Elcapitan.app is the OS distribution.


The process of deleting data on the drive will begin; you may be required to enter an administrator password. Copying the installation files may take some time, after which the message Done will indicate that a bootable USB flash drive with the operating system has been created.


In the meantime, it’s time...yes, for a backup. Since we will be performing a “clean” installation, it is better to save all important files on an external drive. You can, of course, upload everything to the “clouds” if you have an extra terabyte lying around there. Backup You should not neglect it: otherwise you risk losing all your data.

Once the boot drive has been created, as well as the backups, you can proceed to SSD installation. This is done using Optibay by moving the hard drive into place optical drive(admit it, when was the last time you used it?), and a solid-state drive instead of an HDD.

Optibay

In the MacBook Pro 2012 they are located next to each other. Models with Retina display, unfortunately, they fly by - there’s simply not that much free space there.

Before performing any manipulations with the hardware, you must disconnect the battery from the system board.

Replacing an HDD with an SSD is not very difficult - just unscrew a couple of screws on the side plate, remove the hard drive and install a solid-state drive in its place, then secure it with the same screws. To remove the optical drive, you need to disconnect five cables with extreme care. These are cables for the hard drive, Wi-Fi, camera, optical drive and speakers. Once again - we disconnect and connect everything very carefully - these cables really do not like bending, pulling and other rough things, and their replacement is quite expensive.

Only after this can you unscrew the screws that hold the optical drive and remove it.

Then we place our HDD (or a new one, if you followed our advice) into Optibay, “borrowing” a special cable from the optical drive, and install it in place of the drive.

Of course, this is a simplified manual, but it allows you to understand that there is nothing complicated or scary about installing an SSD + HDD combination. But before we configure Fusion Drive using them, let's check what speed characteristics our brand new SSD has in order to further compare this indicator with the results of Fusion Drive.

Let's use the BlackMagic DiskSpeedTest utility:


427 MB/s write, 493 MB/s read – quite good result, which is as close as possible to the declared one. Well, let's see what the SSD will please us with after setting up FD.

Let's move directly to setting up Fusion Drive. To do this, insert a bootable USB flash drive and turn on the laptop while holding down the Option key. Select the connected drive as bootable, and then open the terminal.

First, you need to view the list of installed disks using the command below - it is very important not to make mistakes here.

Diskutil list
For example, the SSD may be disk0, and the HDD may be disk2. Here everything depends on the specific disk configuration.


Next, the FD is created using the diskutil disk utility, which uses the CoreStorage parameter. A single group of tops is created by entering this command:

Diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disk1
It is important not to mix up the disks. In our case, Fusion is the name new group. After its creation, the utility will provide the name of the combined volume group - Logical Volume Group, in this format:

Diskutil cs createVolume 34WD6RDE-6564-F2R0-B7F4-FT35EERB jhfs+ Fusion 100%
Once the operation is completed, you can continue installing the system. Further necessary files can be transferred from Time Machine, another external storage or “clouds” - depending on which backup method you chose.

It's time to return to the main question - will there be a loss of speed after installing Fusion Drive? Let's make a control measurement.


It can be seen that, although there are losses, they are small - they are compensated by the ease of use of Fusion Drive. Instead of
installing a separate SSD in the MacBook Pro and connecting an external HDD, we get a full-fledged working solution.

If on previous versions OS X there was a possibility of losing some data and incorrect operation SSD, then starting with Mavericks it was minimized. Everything also works fine with OS X El Capitan.

So instead of selling your old one Mac is better install Fusion Drive and you will see that it will not disappoint.
Good weekend!

Fair, not overpriced and not underestimated. There should be prices on the Service website. Necessarily! without asterisks, clear and detailed, where technically possible - as accurate and concise as possible.

If spare parts are available, up to 85% of complex repairs can be completed in 1-2 days. Modular repairs require much less time. The website shows the approximate duration of any repair.

Warranty and responsibility

A guarantee must be given for any repairs. Everything is described on the website and in the documents. The guarantee is self-confidence and respect for you. A 3-6 month warranty is good and sufficient. It is needed to check quality and hidden defects that cannot be detected immediately. You see honest and realistic terms (not 3 years), you can be sure that they will help you.

Half the success in Apple repair is the quality and reliability of spare parts, so a good service works directly with suppliers, there are always several reliable channels and your own warehouse with proven spare parts for current models, so you don’t have to waste extra time.

Free diagnostics

This is very important and has already become a rule of good manners for service center. Diagnostics is the most difficult and important part of the repair, but you don't have to pay a penny for it, even if you don't repair the device based on its results.

Service repairs and delivery

Good service values ​​your time, so he offers free shipping. And for the same reason, repairs are carried out only in the workshop of a service center: they can be done correctly and according to technology only in a prepared place.

Convenient schedule

If the Service works for you, and not for itself, then it is always open! absolutely. The schedule should be convenient to fit in before and after work. Good service works on weekends and holidays. We are waiting for you and working on your devices every day: 9:00 - 21:00

The reputation of professionals consists of several points

Company age and experience

Reliable and experienced service has been known for a long time.
If a company has been on the market for many years and has managed to establish itself as an expert, people turn to it, write about it, and recommend it. We know what we are talking about, since 98% of incoming devices in the service center are restored.
Other service centers trust us and refer complex cases to us.

How many masters in areas

If there are always several engineers waiting for you for each type of equipment, you can be sure:
1. there will be no queue (or it will be minimal) - your device will be taken care of right away.
2. you give your Macbook for repair to an expert in the field of Mac repairs. He knows all the secrets of these devices

Technical literacy

If you ask a question, a specialist should answer it as accurately as possible.
So that you can imagine what exactly you need.
They will try to solve the problem. In most cases, from the description you can understand what happened and how to fix the problem.

I recently purchased an iMac with a 2TB Fusion Drive. It comes with 128 GB of high-speed PCI SSD memory (read speed up to 3000 MB/s) and a regular but capacious 2 TB hard drive (read speed up to 200 MB/s).

Fusion Drive combines them into one virtual disk and automatically distributes frequently used files to the SSD. The result is instant launch of programs and systems. What are the disadvantages?

I started noticing that the system was sending photos and videos from the Photos application, tool libraries from Logic Pro, and other files that I use often to the SSD, but they take up a lot of space.

I personally don’t care how many milliseconds a photo or tool opens faster. With this algorithm, 128 GB (or 32 GB in other models) can become full, and then the brakes will begin where it is not needed. Over time, many users note low speed Fusion Drive performance, especially when free disk space is running out.

Yes, the Fusion Drive algorithm is not ideal and cannot be ideal.

But we can help him.

And manually free up additional space on the SSD.

Simply dragging files onto the HDD will not work: in the system we see only 1 logical drive, we don’t know what and where it is located. You can only make assumptions based on the launch and opening speed of certain files. But there is another way.

You can use Disk Utility to separate some of the free space on your hard drive from Fusion Drive. Yes, exactly the hard drive. As a result, we will get a new partition, all files on which will be placed exclusively on the HDD, without affecting the SSD area. Next, we transfer there everything that takes up a lot of space and does not need to be launched immediately. It turns out to be a familiar scheme: the system and applications are stored on the Fusion Drive (SSD), everything else is stored on the hard drive.

You need to select Fusion Drive in Disk Utility and create a new partition on it. All. To ensure data safety, it is better to perform all manipulations from a bootable flash drive.

What can you put on the HDD? Folder shortcuts

Let me give you a few examples:

System folders

Use shortcuts. For example, almost any system folder with content (movies downloaded from iTunes, backups, etc.) can be transferred to your hard drive by first creating and leaving a redirecting shortcut where the folder was previously located. How to do this, read below:

Reserve iPhone copies and iPad in iTunes

I published a separate article on this topic with detailed instructions. Using the same method, you can transfer it to your hard drive and other system folders. This is how I transferred Logic tools to the HDD.

In short:

1. Find a heavy folder with content on the system drive (Fusion Drive).

2. Copy the folder to your hard drive.

3. Delete the folder from where it was previously located, and leave the redirecting shortcut there instead. Each time the program accesses system disk, the shortcut will redirect it to your hard drive. iCloud Photo Library (photos and videos)

For example, about 5,000 of my photos are stored in iCloud and are automatically synced across all devices. This is 60 GB of data, and there is no place for it on an SSD.

The library is located in system folder Images are called Photos Library, just drag this package to your hard drive, open the Photos application and select it as the main library.

And…

Photos, videos, and movies not stored in iCloud. Instruments, plugins, sample libraries. Music collections. Download folders.

If you receive notifications about low free space while working with Photoshop, you can select HDD as the scratch disk in the settings.

Look, just remove Fusion Drive and live in peace.

Yes, it is possible to disband Fusion Drive completely. Manually transfer heavy files to the HDD, install the system and programs on the SSD and don’t worry.

But in reality, 128 GB, not to mention 32 GB, is not enough. The system constantly warns you about lack of space, some heavy programs create a huge cache on the disk while running, and the hemorrhoids become three times larger.

Personal experience, I already had one such computer. Users who use Mac only for accessing the Internet, photo processing and some everyday tasks may not be affected by this. But for creative activities and large-scale projects, this is a barrier.

P.S. If you allocate space very wisely (including using tips from the article) and do not download a bunch of software, 128 GB SSD-only will be enough. But definitely not 32 GB.

What would be ideal:

Leave 512 GB Fusion Drive (128 GB SSD + 384 GB HDD) and 1.6 TB of hard drive space for files.

512 GB is more than enough for seamless system operation and running heavy programs and projects. There will be no problems with lack of space.

For less demanding users - 256 GB Fusion Drive (128 GB + 128 GB), the rest for HDD. New Macs in a configuration with 1 TB Fusion Drive comes with only a 32 GB SSD. In this case, it is better to leave 256 GB for Fusion Drive and use the rest of the HDD space for files.

Currently, all new Mac models with the 1TB Fusion Drive come with a 32GB SSD. For a 128 GB SSD you need a 2 TB or 3 TB Fusion Drive. But some older models with 1 TB Fusion Drive have built-in 128 GB SSD brackets.

Is there a need to do all this?

Not always. If the speed Mac work completely satisfied, you don’t have to bother. But this is an additional order in the operation of the computer, and it will not be superfluous. Only benefit. Especially for models with 32 GB SSD.

Yes, the geek soul wanted to completely separate the disks and distribute files manually. But the 512 GB Fusion Drive + HDD turned out to be an ideal option both in terms of operating speed and the amount of free space. I don’t see any urgent need to wait and overpay for a custom iMac assembly just for the sake of a capacious SSD. Moreover, in 2017 models its read speed is identical to the SSD on Fusion Drive.