Is Fusion Drive really necessary?

[scoobyrox]

To me at least, it seems like fusion drive is about getting better performance without paying a lot, in comparison with a straight SSD setup. Is the fusion drive similar to the hybrid drive? Does the fusion drive's speed performance matches to that of a straight SSD setup? And what if the SSD portion of the fusion drive goes bad? Do you lose everything on your counterpart hard drive?
If you do lose everything, I rather have a SSD & HD setup that is not fused together. Just have the SSD run the OS and store the frequent Apps that you use.

[marv777]

[Bandit Bill]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11/achieving-fusion-with-a-service-training-doc-ars-tears-open-apples-fusion-drive/

[b0bb]

Reliability aside, I think the difference is a 250Gb SSD or a 1Tb Fusion drive at today's prices ($200-$250)

[Shane P]

I decided to install a standard Crucial SSD instead of the Fusion Drive. I'm not saying that the Fusion Drive is a bad product, but I can achieve better performance and use the stock 1TB hard drive for basic storage and backups in a USB 3 case for about the same amount of money. Actually less, because I was able to get the SSD and case for about $215 dollars. I will also have double the amount of solid-state storage on this drive for faster access to my apps from Adobe, Microsoft and Apple. I'm talking 256GB vs 128GB in the case of the Fusion Drive. So, that was my mindset about the Fusion Drive. I don't think it's a bad product or even expensive. I just happen to think that a traditional SSD offers more flexibly, solid-state based storage and safety. Let's not forget this is a first generation product and concept from Apple. Even though it's basically a beefed up hybrid drive.

Shane P

[marv777]