
Apple SSDs and the fusion drive ripoff - kgarten
http://www.mactrast.com/2012/11/apple-ssds-and-the-fusion-drive-ripoff/
======
fleitz
Fusion Drive is just one of many options available. You could get even better
performance from a RAID array of SSDs.

Most of what people pay Apple for is sorting all this stuff out, while many of
us are capable of creating all sorts of hardware stacks most people just want
something fast that they can store lots of stuff on, fusion drive delivers
that.

To consumers it's a tradeoff between price and management, and to be fair for
most people an extra $250 is probably well worth it to them vs. how complex
managing that storage is to them. Fusion Drive is sold on consumer surplus not
commodity.

Consumer surplus is the same reason programmers are so valuable to the
economy, industry would rather pay someone else to figure out all this complex
technology than invest the time in learning it themselves and saving
themselves the cost of a programmer.

------
Camillo
This article is a piece of shit.

1) It explains nothing about how Fusion Drive works. In fact, it muddles the
waters by likening it to SSD cache technologies, while it's simply not a cache
at all.

2) The sources it links are speculation posted right after the announcement,
when no technical details were available. Of course, the details have since
come out and have been analyzed in detail, but the writer ignores that.

3) The custom SSD connector on laptops has absolutely nothing to do with
Fusion Drive, since FD _is offered on desktop machines only_. The Apple
laptops that have the custom connector come with pure SSD storage: there is no
spinning HD to use for FD.

4) But at least that gives the writer an opportunity to claim that the custom
connector makes it impossible to buy upgrades from third parties... only to
then mention a third-party that makes compatible upgrades in the very next
sentence. What?

5) You can use Fusion Drive on your entry-level Mac mini or iMac, actually. In
fact, you don't even need a new Mac at all, and there are no hacks to do: it's
all right there in OS X.

~~~
bitcartel
On point 4, the writer is correct.

You can buy mSATA SSDs from many different manufacturers and they will work in
any computer with a standard mSATA interface. By changing the shape of the
connector, you can't use any of those drives in your Apple laptop. Only one
company, OWC MacSales, has come up with a solution, but these only work with
Apple laptops.

------
mercurial
Interesting, but I'd like a second opinion on this. Not that I don't believe
Apple isn't fully capable of ripping off its customers, but the general tone
of the article ( _That’s OK, though – those repair costs and inflated hardware
upgrades go directly to feeding hungry Apple technicians, and buying Jony
Ive’s next custom-designed Italian sports car._ , really?) makes me question
its objectivity.

~~~
_lex
This article is completely accurate - there's nothing new or innotivative
about fusion drive when compared to what was in the market years ago- it's
pure marketing. I know the anti apple tone of the article made it seem
unfairly biased, but it's totally correct in this case.

~~~
lloeki
> _This article is completely accurate - there's nothing new or innotivative
> about fusion drive when compared to what was in the market years ago- it's
> pure marketing._

Pardon me but it's the first time ever I heard about tiered storage ( _not_
caching hybrids which is handled by the drives themselves) being available
outside of datacenters. Doesn't explain the +250$ price.

Besides, the whole tone of the article is full of useless hatred. The point
could have been made without such aggressiveness.

What's more, the proposed solution is ludicrous:

\- buy an external SSD

\- install OSX on it

\- wipe the internal disk

\- manually manage files/applications/whatnot to be stored on the SSD _or_ the
disk.

I can't even begin to describe how such a scheme is brittle and contrived.

Can we stop pretending everyone out there is technically inclined? To us
technical folks who know how to actually build the CoreStorage tiered array,
250$ may look like a steep price, but to the huge amount of real people out
there, the convenience is well worth 250$, and for those it's not worth, well
they'd stay with a spinner anyway.

~~~
Leynos
Motherboards with a slot for a cache SSD have been available for quite some
time. See, for example, [http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Intel-Smart-
Response-Te...](http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Intel-Smart-Response-
Technology-SSD-Caching-Z68-Tested/Boot-Option-ROM-Boot-Performa)

~~~
weiran
Did you completely ignore the comment you replied to? Fusion drive aka tiered
storage is _not_ a cache.

~~~
Leynos
Truth be told, I wasn't aware of the difference. I am now.

------
pooriaazimi
I'm not sure I agree with his premises (so, I also don't agree with his
conclusions).

A cheap, slow, bottom-of-the-line 128GB SSD (with lots of negative reviews on
Amazon[1]) is $85, and Apple is charging $250 (the author _lies_ at the end by
calling it $450 to make it more sensational!) for it, so that's evil? And
anti-consumer?! How about Fusion Drive's seamless integration with OS X? How
about the fact that it works as a "single" logical drive (which is preferred
over multiple logical drives if you were to purchase HDD/SSD separately)? How
about "you don't have to worry about putting _which_ file, _where_ "? That's
not worthy of putting in your BOM - only hardware is worth paying money for?

If it's just a minor software tweak, then I (in good heart) suggest the author
to quit his job and create an equivalent for Linux/Windows and sell it for
half what Apple sells FusionDrives and make a huge amount of money.

I've been wanting to buy one of those shiny Seagate Momentus XT ($180 for
768GB version) for almost two years I think, but apparently it's not good. The
firmware is buggy as hell, especially for Mac. I remember there was a thread
on Seagate's support forums with like a thousand angry messages, and after 2
months someone from Seagate told that "they're reaching out to some select
customers to iron out minor problems that some people were having" and it took
them months (again) to fix them. So it's not like "fusing" HDD and SSD is a
solved problem...

Bottom line: We pay Apple, Google (well, indirectly), Intel and others to make
decisions for us. I can buy a (slower) $85 SSD, put it in my Mac Pro and try
to make it work like a fusion drive (which, contrary to what the author said,
is _not_ a caching mechanism!), or I can give Apple $250 for something that's
better than that and be sure that my data wouldn't be removed because of some
stupid configuration (and save hours of maintenance). I prefer paying for the
service.

Edit: I love this comment from the article: _OMG… The parts in a Ford, and the
parts in a Mercedes cost almost the same, but Mercedes is RIPPING OFF
customers by over-charging!_

Edit 2: I forgot: The author clearly doesn't understand what FusionDrive is,
and still thinks it's a caching system! _(despite apparently reading the Ars
article (that gets the facts right)_ and* the ExtremeTect link-baity article
(that got the fact terribly wrong, but later corrected the article at the
end)*.

[1]: <http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00826WE9Y>

~~~
allerratio
> If it's just a minor software tweak, then I (in good heart) suggest the
> author to quit his job and create an equivalent for Linux/Windows and sell
> it for half what Apple sells FusionDrives and make a huge amount of money.

<http://bcache.evilpiepirate.org> for Linux

<https://blogs.oracle.com/brendan/entry/test> for ZFS

And yes, Fusion drive is effectively a caching system.

~~~
pooriaazimi
I can't view the oracle link
(<http://www.oracle.com/splash/rpls/embargoed.html>) - it's something
enterprisy I'm sure, so it's even more expensive than FusionDrive (with much
better support and more features), but the Linux thing you linked is a caching
system, which FusionDrive is _not_.

> _Fusion drive is effectively a caching system._

Oh... No, it's not. It's a block-level tiering solution which (mostly)
promotes important "blocks" automatically and intelligently when computer is
idle (so as not to slow things down when the user is working).

 _Very_ , very different from caching, very different technology (Apple has
been working on CoreStorage, Apple's logical volume manager for years).

Ars article[1] has more info.

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-
ho...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-
and-how-to-roll-your-own/)

~~~
mercurial
Thanks for the Ars link, very informative. Based on this article, it looks
more like a kind of intelligent, dynamic RAID0 than a cache, which makes me
dubitative with regards to its reliability (talk about multiplying SPOFs...).
I'd rather go for a smaller SSD holding the system in this case.

------
rb2k_
Does it make things faster: yes

Do you have to buy it: no

I don't understand how people write long articles about Apple's pricing
strategy. They can charge whatever they want and people will pay whatever it's
worth to them.

From the technical point of view:

There is a nice Ars Technica post on how Intels SRT differs from fusion drive:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-
ho...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-
and-how-to-roll-your-own/)

An excerpt:

> Intel SRT does not handle writes this way—whether it's operating as write-
> back or write-through cache, SRT mirrors writes (immediately or within a
> short amount of time) down to the hard disk, which is not the observed
> behavior. Plus, as has been noted, SRT currently doesn't work with SSDs
> larger than 64GB. It is absolutely clear that Fusion Drive does not use SRT.

As you can see, Apple does what it's best at:

1\. Take existing technology

2\. Improve it

3\. Polish it

4\. Sell it.

It's this final touch, attention to detail and hassle free operation that
people seem to be willing to pay premium for.

------
Tonyflo
Disagree. It's not that overpriced to have a native SSD pre-installed for
$250. Sure, it's more than buying it alone, but most other companies would
charge similar prices for Apple is doing here.

------
aroman
Huh, I thought we established that the fusion drive didn't use the same basic
cache idea as Intel SRT? There was an Ars article[1] that came out shortly
after the new FDs did that did a lot of actual digging and came to the
conclusion that, as I understood it, the SSD is ALWAYS written to, and then
those storage blocks are, when needed, relocated to the HDD.

In other words, I call bullshit on this whole article's technological
assessment. (Though I can't disagree that it's kind of pricey, but not so much
as to be called a "ripoff", at least objectively)

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-
ho...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-
and-how-to-roll-your-own/)

------
neya
We need more writers like this, to show the world what such evil companies are
capable of doing to their consumers - They take your money, then they rip you
off and ask you for more. Well done Apple.

~~~
_lex
That's not evil; that's capitalism. Apple is literally doing it's job: they
are extracting maximum rents.

~~~
neya
Claiming something to be revolutionary while it's not, modifying standard
connectors to remove your choices and charging you more for that _is_ evil.

~~~
anthonycerra
"Claiming something to be revolutionary while it's not" - This is simple
marketing. A business needs to say _something_ to differentiate itself from
its competitors.

"modifying standard connectors to remove your choices" - I'd argue they did it
for performance issues, not some conspiracy to get you to buy their adapters.
Modifying things to suit a different purpose is engineering.

"charging you more for that is evil." - You charge what your customers will
pay, not what it costs you to produce. It's a business, not a charity.

Take emotion out of it and just look at the facts.

~~~
viraptor
The article mentioned that the pin layout is the same, only the shape is
different, so I don't buy the performance explanation. It's a change so that
they're different and not the first one.

Claiming something vaguely true may be marketing. Claiming something incorrect
and calling it marketing is at least dodgy.

~~~
anthonycerra
Shape may not be directly related to performance, but I'd guess it's similar
to the argument for the iPhone not having a removable battery (i.e. the
housings and connectors required would restrict the size of the battery itself
thus resulting in shorter battery life.) I'm not saying it's the same case
here, but knowing Apple's preference towards a compact and efficient use of
space, I wouldn't rule it out.

Definitely agree with you on your marketing point. If it can be proven
incorrect then it's not ok (nor is it legal). I think they use the word
"revolutionary" in place of the old go-to "best". Everyone can say they're the
best because it can't be proven wrong. It's subjective. Take, for example, a
smartphone screen. Objective observations can be made about the screen size,
but personal preference makes "best" subjective.

------
dantiberian
I am writing this on a Mid 2012 Macbook Pro using a Fusion Drive. How am I
using a Fusion Drive on this? I made it myself with three terminal commands.
Apple has always charged a premium for their products, this is no different
but if you want it for cheaper on a machine where you can install a second
hard drive then do it yourself.

[http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-
own...](http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-
drive.html)

------
hayksaakian
Fusion seems kind of half assed. If I want a fast drive, I'll get the largest
ssd I'm willing to afford. If I want a cheap drive I'll get the smallest HDD I
need.

If you're buying an apple product, pricing is low on your list.

~~~
viraptor
Actually they seem to give you more ssd space than need. Compare it with
lenovo which throws in a 16gb ssd drive _for free_. I've got it set up as a
writeback cache (using flashcache) and honestly don't see a performance
difference compared to the whole system being on the ssd. (of course the
difference is there, just not noticeable anymore)

That doesn't really match apple's $200+ - lenovo can do it for free to some
extent.

------
shimsham
So much anger.

