Fusion Drive

Fusion Drive is a technology developed by Apple for computer technology, with a SSD and a mechanical hard drive will be connected to a logical drive.

Description and function

Fusion Drive called Apple a technique in which an SSD and a mechanical hard disk are transparently connected to a logical drive. The user sees the combination as a single drive. With Fusion Drive is also in large storage volume can be benefited at a moderate price on the speed of the SSD.

Fusion Drive not only connects two physical drives into one logical, but still applies beyond a particular technology, the tiering is called. When tiering, in German as " staggering ", data on frequently accessed, the fastest drive ( SSD here ) saved, the other to the slower here on the mechanical drive. What data is stored where, the operating system decides on the basis of a thorough analysis of the data access itself and can not be influenced by the user. If necessary, coated the operating system in the background to data. The operating system itself is always on the SSD. Tiering is used in mainframe computers for some time, with fusion Drive this technology now comes for the first time in a personal computer for use.

Fusion Drive must not be confused with conventional hybrid drives. While in the latter, the SSD portion serves only as a data buffer and all the data will ultimately be always stored on the mechanical plate in fusion drive, the SSD is itself a part of the logical drive (other than a small portion of 4 GB, which serves here also as a buffer ).

Fusion Drive is since November 2012 incorporated in all new Macs with SSD and mechanical hard drive. The first corresponding Macs were equipped with a 128 GB SSD and a 1 TB or 3 TB of mechanical disk. Currently ( April 2013 ), Apple provides no utility available with which fusion Drive install on older Macs could. However, this can be done through the terminal requirement for this is OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.