However, the hybrid drive is far from perfect and just like most products, has its drawbacks. When the fusion drive was first announced they were significantly cheaper than a full SSD device and gave you faster boot time and plenty of storage space. You can catch up on all the news from today’s Apple event in our recap, which looks at the iMac, iPad Pro, Apple TV, Air Tags, and more. First announced in 2012, fusion drives are available in select Mac and iMac models. The design of the iMacs is also more modern, with flashy new colors, a thinner profile, a brighter display, and more. Apple is promising that the new M1-based iMacs can be up to 85% faster than before, while graphics performance is now up to twice as fast.

That means Fusion Drives are finally nowhere to be found on the modern iMac lineup, roughly nine years after its late 2012 introduction in the iMac and Mac mini.Ĭombined with Apple’s new M1 chips, these new solid-state drives offer big updates to the iMac.

The Fusion Drive was always dubbed as one to avoid in modern times.īut now, the new M1-based 24-inch iMacs come with SSD options configurable from 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or even 2TB of storage. With the $2,000-plus cost of an iMac, the Fusion Drive received tough reviews in performance, with low cache speeds, low read and write speeds, and poor optimization when moving large files. Before this recent announcement, you could configure the 21.5-inch iMac with a 256GB SSD, but if you wanted more storage, you’d have to jump to the 1TB Fusion Drive. Fitbit Versa 3īut as the years went on, the lack of larger-capacity SSDs for the iMac became a sticking point.

Imac fusion drive vs ssd photo editing