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Apple slims 1 TB Fusion Drive down to a measly 24 GB of flash storage

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If you’re one of the many excited buyers chomping at the bit to get one of Apple’s latest-gen Retina iMacs, you might want to take a second to consider the specs on the new models. According to Apple’s website, the 1 TB Fusion Drives used in the new all-in-ones have seen a significant decrease in the amount of included flash storage.

How significant? The new drives ship with less than one-fifth of the previous flash storage.

A Fusion Drive, as most readers will likely recall, combines the cheap, vast storage of a traditional hard drive with the speed and efficiency of flash storage, with OS X automatically and intelligently moving files from the hard drive to the flash storage as needed to make those files more easily accessible.

In previous versions of the Fusion Drive, Apple has included 128 GB of flash storage—enough to store a lot of large apps and files that you use frequently. In the new iMacs with 1 TB Fusion Drives, however, that number has been cut to an insanely small 24 GB.

See for yourself on this excerpt from Apple’s iMac spec page:

Apparently Apple somehow thinks this is acceptable. Thankfully, for users who actually care about putting that flash storage to good use, there are two options that include the full 128 GB of flash. You’ll just need to spend a little extra to buy the 2 TB or 3 TB variety if you want to get that—an extra $200 or $300, respectively.

Because of this change, Apple is recommending that all machines with 32 GB of RAM be configured with the 2 TB or 3 TB Fusion Drive, or an all-flash drive (which will cost even more) for increased performance.

One reason for this? The image that’s used to store your computer’s memory contents when it goes to sleep would be too big to fit on the flash storage. Waking the Mac from sleep would take longer because the contents of that image would have to be read from the slow hard drive rather than the flash storage.

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Comments

  1. After 9 years of being an Apple user, Windows and Android are looking pretty good. I looked at Apple’s lineup this morning and really couldn’t find a computer I would buy or recommend other than maybe a Macbook Pro if you can get it on sale. Same goes for their accessories or “hobbies.” I’d like to think they have something up their sleeve but with all the recent product releases and updates I’d be lying to myself. No a great time for Apple lovers (unless you wipe your ass with money).

    • stoplion22 - 8 years ago

      What computers are you thinking of when you say that? I’m not trying to flame, I’m genuinely curious. To me, the MacBooks are still the best made machines out there all factors considered. MacBook Air is the king “ultrabook” of the industry, the Pro’s are not much bigger but contain better displays, ports, and computational performance. The new MacBook is the smallest “full” computer out there, and unapologetically so.

      If you don’t need portability you have the iMac line, which are the protoptypical and best all-in-one setups out there with more performance per dollar than a MacBook at the cost of portability.

      No money for either? Still got the little Mac Mini kicking around.

      You probably don’t need more than one of these. One or the either usually will get the job done so it’s not surprising that if you like the MacBook Pro’s, this would seem unnecessary.

      If the problem is the “gaming machine” aspect. Well- that’s hardly new and not really a strength of OSX anyways and never has been. Hell you’ll need to Bootcamp the damn things to get anywhere anyways. For gaming purposes, yes, a custom built desktop tower is still the way to go- and it’s sooo not what a Mac is anyways.

      Personally, I have a MacBook Pro Retina myself for portable, reliable computing and I don’t see myself buying anything else for the next 5 or so years at least and Apple seems to get that. For gaming, I have a Windows tower I built 4-5 years ago for like $1200 and it still rips and I love it but is it built as nicely or as hassle free on a day to day business? Hell no.

      Anyways curious to hear back! :)

      • cjt3007 - 8 years ago

        errm….saying that macs are not for gaming is a very old argument and hardly as true these days. Also, no mention of the Mac Pro? And even if you have to bootcamp to play a game (due to lazy developers) the MacBook Pro still outperforms most other laptops in running Windows.

      • Andrew Curtis - 8 years ago

        The current Mac Mini is a shadow of its former self. No more user upgradable storage or RAM, no quad core processor.

        The new 21.5″ iMac now has no user upgradable parts at all. The RAM is now soldered in

        They have jacked up the price of 27″ iMacs by removing the non-retina 5K option. And then they have the nerve to as for an extra $300AU for a measly 24GB of flash storage for the Fusion drive. What the actual F#$%?!?

        The new Macbook is a crippled weakling with not a single functional ubiquitous USB port and no included adaptors to make it functional. They have the nerve to make you pay(a lot) extra to make it functional.

        Over the last ten years I have been using Apple devices, the bundled accessories are constantly being reduced. MacBooks used to come with remotes, iPhones used to come with docks and prices were trending down.

        Now, included accessories getting culled or are becoming less functional (e.g. iPhone chargers are no longer able to use the Apple travel adaptor pack) and we a expected to shell out top dollar for not-included accessories because Apple has put their logo on it and made a wanky 5 minute video with Jonny Ive gushing about how amazing he and his latest product is.

        Apple is deliberately positioning themselves as a luxury brand with lofty prices and a flash advertising and their products are failing to live up the hype. IF this keeps up, they are going to lose.

      • Daniel Goudie - 8 years ago

        I wouldn’t call the Macbook Air the “king ultrabook”. It’s outdated, and is destroyed by the likes of the XPS 13/HP Spectre x360 in EVERY area (besides the battery life being only the same on the Spectre, not better). Most popular ultrabook and “king” ultrabook are two different categories

      • damiensawyer - 8 years ago

        I’m not a fan boy by any means, but do like my Macs (iMac 27 and MBP Retina 15). Having said that the slim Dell XPS 13 and 15 are amazing. Side by side with my Macbook, I’m going to give the better build quality to Dell. Also, despite the Apple marketing, OSX is feeling very tired. Windows 10 is fantastic. The Apple / MS game has changed. Jobs is gone and MS is under apparently competent new management.

    • Whoa, slow down there. Apple is the only tech company with actually interesting lineup right now. 12-inch MacBook and 13″ MacBook Pro are still best in class, iMac 5K is simply outstanding and it will take long time for others to catch up, and Watch is perfect, best thing you could wear on your hand. And Apple’ computers are still cheaper and better than Windows machines with similar specs.

      Yes, Windows keeps getting better and better (can’t say same about Android), but it’s still not nearly close to OS X in terms of usability and features.

      There is no alternatives to Apple right now.

      • Nic Buhrman - 8 years ago

        Apple is the only tech company with an interesting lineup right now?

        You’re fooling yourself; and ignoring the excitement a lot of folks have towards Microsoft right now.

      • First off, I’m a huge apple fan. Bordering on fanboy sometimes. Love my 15″ mbp, my iphone, my ipad, os X is great, etc etc etc.

        You’re delusional on like…every point you made.

        The 12 inch macbook is awful. It is thin and light just for the sake of being thin and light, and throws away all power and features to achieve it. The 13″ macbook pro i would argue is best in class. They’re amazing. The iMac 5k is basically the only 5k display, which is nice, but the rest of the machine is underwhelming for the price. The apple watch is far from perfect. Its probably the best smart watch, but its still a smart watch. The battery life and performance still have a lot of room for improvement, as does just the general usefulness.

        Apple computers are never cheaper then similar windows computers. Some of the lines are competitively priced, or slightly more expensive, but none of them are cheaper.

        The macbook pros are generally competitively priced when you factor in build quality, build materials, size/weight/battery life, etc.
        The 12″ macbook is expensive with awful specs
        The iMacs are ungodly expensive with pretty low specs(end up spending 2000$+ for a computer with an i5?)
        The Mac Pro is priced competitively with enterprise level workstations, as it should be
        The Mac mini is 879$ with 16gb of ram(which you should max because you cannot upgrade it ever since its soldered on), and thats with a dual core i5 and no ssd. Its overpriced as all hell.

        Apples computer lineup right now is just weird. I have been wanting to buy an apple desktop for years and they just haven’t really been able to offer what im looking for at a price thats not unreasonable. I was ready to buy a new mac pro when they refreshed it, and put that god awful GPU config in it. So many of their computers are so close to being great, but are just missing a few things:

        They need to replace a mac pro with a single, non workstation GPU. A 2500$ price point would be fine. They just need something high end for everyday use.
        The 21.5″ imacs need to come standard with the old fusion drive, with 128gb ssd. dropping the flash on the fusion to 24gb is ridiculous. Keep the price points of the 21.5s the same, give them 128gb ssd of storage as the standard, and update them immediately to skylake cpu’s with the iris pro 7200 and you’re going to have great machines that will finally be worth the price.

      • Daniel Goudie - 8 years ago

        A. 12″ Macbook is a thin and light piece of garbage that is quite expensive (Asus zenbook has same exact specs, for literally half the price, and has ports)
        B. iMacs are badly overpriced for what you get (so are Windows All-in-Ones), and are NOT ahead of the competition, besides the display.
        C. Watch is overpriced. My Huawei Watch is build better, looks nicer, and is half the price of the comparable Apple Watch (although Android Wear could use some work, obviously).
        D. Windows destroys OS X in terms of both usability and features. I don’t know how you can make the opposite accusation.
        E. Apple’s devices are ABSOLUTELY not cheaper then similar products from other OEMs. Not even close. Do some research, please.

      • Amit (@amitabhishek) - 8 years ago

        What exactly Android needs to do to win your confidence? Last I checked iOS 6 onwards, Apple has been busy copying Android features. Android Lollipop blows iOS 8 out of water.

    • I understand your Windows comment. The iMacs are really underwhelming. Especially if you doing 3d stuff like me.
      But Android? Sorry nope. I’m a long time Android user and I can’t wait to switch to iPhone 6s Plus this year. Android devices has been giving me headaches for years now.

      • i can agree to android going downhill(personal rant on android incoming) ive been losing enthusiasm for Android since about 2013, but Funny thing is, its not for the reasons you`d expect. you`d probably guess its because it is choppier or buggier, both of which are true, but not as bad its reputation would have you believe seeing as my 2 year old Nexus 5 kept up pretty well with an iPhone 6, it was slower overall, but very few apps took more than 0.5s longer to load on the Nexus, with most only booting 0.2s or so behind the iPhone and a few with the same speed and 2(settings and app store) being faster on the Nexus. the only app with closer to 1s difference was camera.

        but back to Android, i used to prefer Android because i saw that it was an OS with potential , it ran on everything from AIO`s, laptop hybrids, phones, tablet and whatever else, you could do so much with Android that you couldnt do in iOS(and still dont, but thats another rant) and the list just kept growing and i expected Android to eventually become as much of a general purpose OS as desktop Windows, i was hoping that mobile devices would eventually get docking stations which would put them into a sort of desktop mode with proper Window management. i saw that the support was there, the momentum was there, there were already some devices like ASUS`s transformers prime that went for the Android pc concept and it was moderately successful, it integrated the keyboard and trackpad well and had a UI that blurred the gap between PC and Tablet. if only it had a bit more IO, some more juice and Android had a Windowing system and better file management, it would have been the mobile device of my dreams. imagine a device that could be a phone, desktop PC, laptop and a media center

        Android had all the opportunities to revolutionize the idea of what mobile devices were, and somehow they messed it up worse than i ever thought they could. instead of improving its strengths which was its versatility, hardware support, the fact that it has several manufacturers backing it. they instead played catch up with apple with flashy animations, basic UI`s, uniformity on every device. instead of making different, innovative devices and expanding android`s market, manufacturers began to compete on who could make the shiniest, most basic iPhone clone, same screen size everywhere, same design, same UI`s across all devices(what works in a phone doesnt necessarily work on a tablet google.), zero focus on widgets, no HDMI ports, no SD card slots, no removable battery. with the exception of Nvidia`s sorely underrated Shield lineup, the whole android market is stagnating, trying to copy Apple in areas there is just no point in even trying to compete. its not like its impossible to connect mice, keyboards and storage devices to android nowadays and a few devices still offer HDMI so Android is still full of potential, but i think its insane that Android`s functionally become worse now than 3 years ago

    • I disagree. For Mac vs. PC/Windows, I cannot find any reason to get a PC apart from gaming or modularity, but in my honest opinion Windows vs. Mac is at least a bit better than Android vs. iOS. For me, a person that has been an android user for 3 years, over the years Android became less interesting, less attractive and even Windows Phone started looking better than it. For example, during ”iPhone 5 era” Android simply exploded, for the first time of my life, I have seen 3-4 times more Android devices than iPhones and that’s the point actually ”Apple is doomed” argument started. People couldn’t imagine Apple without jobs and Android phones greatly improved, so more and more people bought it because ”they were more interesting and had more features”, but since the 5S, in the environment I live, I observed Androids are disappearing, I see more Android devices, exchanged for iPhones. Also typical ”Apple fanboy” stereotype started to wear-off since Android fans became a lot more annoying. So, in my opinion, it is a great time for Apple lovers.

    • Hayley Stevenson - 8 years ago

      The whole Mac range are luxury items for the technically incompetent, you can’t do anything with the things, once you could buy an entry model, when you had some bucks to spare, then upgrade ram and hdd/ssd when the prices became easier on the wallet. That is not taking into consideration the exorbitant amount of bucks Apple charge to upgrade those older systems, like memory, I can remember buying a 2012 MBP and Apple charging IIRC close to 200 bucks to give it 8GB ram, when I could by BETTER ram for less than half the price and install for nothing.

      Then of course we have the bizarre situation where Apple’s maximum ram was actually half that the darn machine could take, a 2012 MBP happily runs 16GB ram -I am typing on one right now- yet Apple would only offer 8GB. Why do I need 16GB ram? I use several virtual machines.

      The fusion drive SSD drop is just another Apple marketing ploy, they can claim to have an entry model, but the darn thing will be so crippled so as to peeve people into selling on eBay and wither getting a proper Mac or leaving Apple altogether (a good move). Look at the bottom-of-the-range crippled Mac Mini 1.4GHz and 4GB ram? LMAO Same with the bottom iMac and all the others, the entry models give the illusion of of an affordable Apple experience, when in fact they are not the Apple experience…unless you want crippled computers.

      WTF is happening at Apple?

      One of the greatest innovations -to me- for safety and convenience was the Magsafe adaptor, now the new Macbook doesn’t have one, I have heard of more than one company not adopting the thing just for that reason; it is a trip hazard.

      Apple notebooks are amongst the most expensive on the planet, yet, other than the still available 2012 MBP 13″, you don’t even get a Kensington lock! Really? An item that has ‘Steal Me’ written all over it, and you can’t secure it? Sure there are some solutions, some requiring GLUEING a device to your $2,500 computer, but should the security of your computer depend solely on after market suppliers? Now when you visit a client’s site and need a dump, you have to put the Mac to sleep and either put it in their safe or carry it to the John, whereas I used to just lock it to the desk.

      Apple do not listen to customers, they want you to do everything their way, we asked for more ports and they gave us the laughable new Retina Macbook…hopefully Apple will be gone in another generation.

  2. Mackenzie Criswell - 8 years ago

    The Fusion drive is constantly moving info in and out of this 24GB of flash storage to run the fastest. Seems like 24GB would be enough, how much flash memory was there before in this setup?

    • Mike Beasley - 8 years ago

      128 GB

    • Larry Towers - 8 years ago

      Flash memory is not really meant for lot’s of i/o read and writes. Sure it’s fast but it doesn’t last as long when used this way. Furthermore with the fusion drives they couple that with a crappy 5400 rpm drive, so the flash memory isn’t there so much to improvethings as to mask the crappiness of the slow spinning drive.

  3. joe smith (@joe815smith) - 8 years ago

    Can’t innovate anymore, my ass

  4. matthewr1990 - 8 years ago

    Disappointing, Apple really needs to pull something out the bag soon. 3D Touch is the only thing I’ve seen them do recently that’s made me want something. And imoressure sensitive screens are hardly revolutionary. iPhone/iPad/Mac need serious upgrades

    • Rupert Applin - 8 years ago

      Instead of having a whinge, what would you do? What innovations would you like to see?

      • lowtolerance - 8 years ago

        He specifically said that he’d like to see “something”. Do you people even read comments before responding?

    • matthewr1990 - 8 years ago

      Whilst i now realise my post was worded badly and had a horrible auto-correct fail (posting whilst tired is the reason), my point was over simplified so I will expand for no other reason than to prove I’m not an idiot.

      Apples products are brilliant. The best in their respective markets however it appears there is no longer any innovation. They also appear to be taking steps backwards, especially in light of this new information.

      I have the iPad Air 2 and a 6S Plus. I’m a fan boy. Though it doesn’t mean I can’t be disappointed by Apple this last year. And the only thing I’ve been impressed with is force touch/3D touch which has been implemented well and will take off with App developers but we can all be honest here, pressure sensitive input is hardly new or revolutionary. Apple have a history of taking idea’s or poor products and making them better (smart phone, tablets, mouse, watch). They innovated most of those markets. Showing what should be the standard in said technologies. But they’ve lost it. Updates are so incremental and predictable. Even the iPad Pro was the next “logical” step for Apples tablet. I think it’s about time the do something “unlogical” for lack of a better word. I can’t say what that should be, otherwise I’d be a rich engineer living out of apples HQ. I just know they need to throw the rope out a bit further and soon. There’s only so many times you can intice customers back to your products on incremental upgrades. The news that they’re even going backwards on tech in “new” models is a kick in the face for Apple Users.

      Apple need to sort themselves out. They need to give customers what they want and they also need more innovation. As mentioned in other comments. Simple things like getting rid of the 16GB model iPhone/iPad as we all know it’s just too small. $100 differences on memory upgrades is ridiculous. iOS needs a proper refresh. So much that customers want can be done by Apple. It allows them to throw a funky, brilliant and innovative piece of technology into the mix knowing that’s yes it may not work but the fact they’ve added what customers want first means they will still sell. Even Samsung added a curved edge screen to their phones. Is it a good idea? Does it work? Maybe but it’s irrelevant anyway, the point is we want apple to try doing stuff like this, not doing the bare minimum and definitely not going backwards like they have with the news on the fusion drives. It’s almost like Apple are testing the faithful. It’s horrible to see. And I can’t imagine it would of happened under Jobs.

      • Paul Van Obberghen - 8 years ago

        Apple _is_ innovating. It’s just not innovating as fast as you’d like or in the areas that are of interest to you, and they are several you did not mention. They can’t revolutionize a market every year, not even every other year, as that is what you seem to believe innovation is. Don’t forget it’s a commercial company: they need to please their customers AND please their stockholders AND make money AND invest in research and development, all at the same time. Apple is the only company in the world to be successful in that endeavour, all of this with a real environmental and labor conditions consciousness, backed with action. Both of which are in themselves true innovations, btw. Surely you don’t notice that when you use your Apple branded products, but these are genuine and important innovations, that more and more people are taking in consideration when buying a product. At least they should.
        Also, even with the billions they have in cash, Apple can’t afford to miss, not even a single time. They can’t shoot out various kinds of product with different supposedly new ideas just to see which one is gonna work or to please every single possible users. The one they bring out needs to be right the first time, and it usually is. One fail and they are down. They just can afford that.
        Putting a Fusion Drive with 24GB of SSD in the new iMac 24 is no technological regression, nor is keeping the 16GB iPhone. These are simply economical decisions. It says nothing about Apple capacity for innovation, which you should not measure over a single year anyway (which wasn’t bad at all).

  5. Dbvision Dbvision - 8 years ago

    “Enough to store important OSX files and Applications” Nope. I personally have 112.60 GB of apps on my computer, so….no.

  6. srgmac - 8 years ago

    What’s the deal with this? Flash memory is cheaper than it has ever been in the history of tech! Still shipping 16GB iPhones is a crime…this is just horrible.

    • Oh shut up. It’s not a crime. Don’t buy it then if you don’t like it. Geez.

      • No, it’s not a crime. But it wasn’t smart of Tim Cook to think that everyone will enter his build-to-order up-charge maze. Most Apple users will simply dismiss this line up entirely. And well they should…every standard configuration (SKU) sucks, with the more expensive ones merely “sucking less”. I’ve already warned all my nontechnical friends to steer clear of these road Apples.

  7. baussie - 8 years ago

    I just can’t believe how crazy that is.

    128GB was merely enough for some users and instead of increasing it to 256GB (SSD prices are much lower nowadays than three years ago when the fusion drive was introduced) they decided to go the opposite way.

  8. Apple does it again, a little nothing for something.

  9. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    The craziest thing is that with the crazy 24 GB fusion still isn’t standard and the damn 4K have slow 5400 hard drives.

    I’m debating between the 256 GB SSD or 2 GB fusion for the base 27″

  10. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    The flash drive in the 1TB fusion is one if the biggest reason Jermey was wrong on Apple moving the right direction.

    Also the crazy ram price. 16 GB update $200 32 GB $600. Why not $400 why triple the price four 4 8 GB sticks from 2 8 GB sticks.?

  11. macnificentseven48 - 8 years ago

    My question is… If no one was told Apple decreased the flash memory in the drive, would anyone know it in the real world. No doubt it would show up in some drive test, but would the average consumer feel the difference. I don’t have any clue as to why Apple continues to cut corners on certain hardware when the company is sitting on a mountain of cash and profits. Frugality?

  12. PMZanetti - 8 years ago

    Just one of those things that will cause unbridled hatred from people that don’t know nor care if it actually impacts the user experience. I’m sure it doesn’t. I use a 1 TB Fusion drive now, and love it. My next one will probably be a 1 TB SSD just so that Boot Camp and benefit from SSD speed, but OS X works just fine as it is now. If it doesn’t change the user experience negatively, this shouldn’t cause concern.

    • lowtolerance - 8 years ago

      How could reducing flash storage from 128GB on your existing Fusion Drive to a mere 24GB NOT negatively impact the user experience?

      • PMZanetti - 8 years ago

        Is this a serious question? Do you have any comprehension of how the Fusion Drive works now? If you did you would realize the exact amount of flash storage is irrelevant…all it needs is ENOUGH flash storage to keep your entire OS and most used Applications. All the other data is constantly shuffled back and forth.

        In other words, if the new Fusion Drives are not any slower to the user experience, then it doesn’t matter. If they are slower in general experience, then its a disappointing downgrade.

        Somehow I manage to have the foresight to think that Apple probably wouldn’t do this just to negatively impact the customer. Or maybe its an evil plot to push people toward buying their SSDs.

    • Thomas Yoon - 8 years ago

      You have a 1TB Fusion BEFORE the change occurred, which is why things are running buttery nice. Any standard user will eat through those 24GB in a mere second, and then they’ll notice it kicking to the spinning disk storage. It’s inevitable, physical disk drives are slower than SSDs.

      It’s not exactly something that’s going to impact OS X operations severely to the point where you suffer, but it’s a big middle finger to customers nonetheless. I’m adding this to the short list of stuff I disagree with Apple on.

      • Scott (@ScooterComputer) - 8 years ago

        It really is worse than that. On the 27″ 5K units with Fusion, the 128GB SSD are falling back to 7200rpm 3.5″ “desktop” drives. In the 21″ iMac, Apple has been cheaping out for a while using 5400rpm 2.5″ “laptop” drives, because the enclosure is designed for 2.5″ drives. So when on the 21″ Fusion set up the “hot” data goes out past 24GB (which won’t take long, take look at OS X’s size) and comes down on the spinning platter, it is going to be VERY SLOW. Consider, Apple was putting 5400rpm 2.5″ drives in MacBooks since…well…the beginning of the MacBook. That’s the level of performance you’re looking at. In the older 21″ models, the pricing for Fusion was a bit less expensive; and I don’t remember when they first started using 5400rpm 2.5″ drives, but I remember that performance wasn’t great on the entry-level model for sure. 7200rpm 2.5″ drives aren’t that much more expensive, and their higher power/heat requirements would be more than amply handled in the 21″ chassis. But the biggest issue is quite simply the lack of choice; Apple gives NONE. So once again, as you said, it is a big middle finger for customers. Just no way can anyone allow Apple to get away with the PR bs anymore that they design and build the best machine for their users, it just can’t be held as true in light of this. The 21″ iMac is a sucker’s buy.

      • Gaming Mason - 8 years ago

        It is because of retarded fanboys that they are able to roll out such configuration. There’s a huge difference between a fan and a retard. Just like those praising 5k screen for their average productivity and media consumption who kept the screen scaling at 2k.

      • PMZanetti - 8 years ago

        Those general assumptions that you make….that 24 must be worse than 128…. are not grounded in reality. I have a 1 TB Fusion Drive. Over 400 GB of are used. It makes no frigging difference at this stage how much Flash Storage I have….its still only to be for the OS and core Apps.

      • You don’t understand how a Fusion drive works. OS X manages what needs to stay on the SSD versus what doesn’t. There are tons of files that don’t need to load instantly. OS X optimizes what gets stored on the SSD for best performance. The amount of SSD is negligible depending on what Apple has done on the OS level to optimize this space. It would be better to have smaller, but faster SSD than a larger, but slower one.

        Engineering is all about compromises and I imagine given Apple’s track record that they picked the right combination for the best performance for the price.

    • Larry Towers - 8 years ago

      If the user doesn’t have many apps it won’t impact the experience. If they do it will, and it does. I have seen it first hand running aftereffects on a nw computer compared to a slightly older one with a 128 GB memory. I’ts fine for doing trivial stuff, but compositing 4k forget it! That is the real reason they crippled the iMac. To force people to upgrade to the MacPros (which have not been selling well)

  13. netputing (@netputing) - 8 years ago

    Wow, talk about a step backward!

  14. Frankly, if the entire operating system is on flash, you shouldn’t notice much difference in performance. I have a 5K iMac with 128GB flash, and I have no idea how much of it, or if all of it is being used.

  15. Graham J - 8 years ago

    It’s really disappointing how cheap the world’s richest company can be.

    Fuck shareholders; start showing some respect to your customers.

    • I think something is wrong in the headline or maybe this is meant to become a click bait. The 1TB hard drive drive was not replaced by a 24GB drive. The 1TB drive is “paired” with a 24GB flash drive. That is 1TB of storage plus 24GB of RAM. (I have commented this same line on the article but fortunately such comment is still awaiting moderation…)

    • Peter Rooke - 8 years ago

      Agreed…. the money they charge for upgrades and the cheap-ass things that they do knowing 99% of customers won’t notice are showing utter contempt for the people who pay their way.

      With the volume of drives that Apple buy, it’s gotta be what… 2 dollars extra to give the customer a 7200rpm drive?

      It was really interesting to see Microsoft NOT take this approach with their new products last week… they seem to think that paying for a premium product actually gets you a premium product. Running Hackintosh on a Surface Pro 4 or a Surface Book is a tempting proposition right now….. as is building a kick-ass PC desktop with a sexy 27″ display then Hackintoshing it.

  16. I think something is wrong in the headline or maybe this is meant to become a click bait. The 1TB hard drive drive was not replaced by a 24GB drive. The 1TB drive is “paired” with a 24GB flash drive. That is 1TB of storage plus 24GB of RAM.

  17. iali87 - 8 years ago

    Probably they did this because a couple of months ago they reduced the asking price of an iMac from 2500 to 2200 and then they regretted that move.

  18. Ilko Sarafski - 8 years ago

    A little bit of an offtopic here – is it possible the iPhone 7 to ship with 24GB base storage? 24/64/128 and maybe they’ll introduce 256? Or maybe 24/128/256? I don’t know, we’ll be rumoring about that in a couple of months… :)

  19. Robin Dhakal - 8 years ago

    after being a longtime apple fanboy, nowadays i am getting bad feelings about apple and started to hate them a little. The price for the apple watch and bands, the crappy apple music app, the buggy third party keyboard that never gets fixed, the 16gb iPhone 6s, and now this fusion drive. common apple, u can do a lot better then this..

  20. Oflife - 8 years ago

    Since TC took over, it has been one money driven decision after another – after all, his previous role (that he was good at) was supply chain management. And he’s also got a bean counter mentality, none of the clarity of vision and ability to ‘get it’ that SJ had. He is an angry man who projects his lack of any inherant creative or visionary skills through fury, as you can see during the keynotes when he machine guns through the presentations in a far more “My way or no way” manner than SJ, who was able to explain the reasoning behind decisions.

    Let’s start with the Mac Mini, one of Apple’s most reliable and useful products, that is a great way for small businesses to embrace OS X without much outlay. The most recent models are under powered over priced and impossibly difficult to upgrade. The iMac screen is outstanding, but if you play with one, there are performance issues because Apple has cut corners in the GPU department to get people to buy the Mac Pro for pro applications.
    I downgraded from a 2013 MacBook Pro 15″ Retina with 1TB of SSD to a 13″ 2015 i5 model as I needed something lighter and smaller. It was too slow, so I returned it and got the slightly faster model. Still too slow when doing 4K video or some graphics. I didn’t understand how a machine two years more recent than my last (15″) machine was much slower, even if the processor was an i5 and not an i7.
    I only found out when a friend told me Apple only put the decent Nvidia tech in the 15″! Why? Why is the 13″ called a pro if when playing back 4K video on it stutters and so on?
    This is not honest, even if the GPU specs are shown somewhere on their website. I feel very let down, but can do nothing because there is no 13″ MB Pro with a speedy GPU. So I’m selling it and getting a top spec Surface Pro 4, that will cost £500 more, but I get the stylus, a touch screen and a tablet mode, and can still run all my power user apps. And of course a decent GPU!
    Apple need to stop cutting corners and ripping unknowing customers off.

  21. The 1TB hard drive drive was not replaced by a 24GB drive as the headline implies. The 1TB drive is “paired” with a 24GB flash drive. That is 1TB of storage plus 24GB of RAM.

    • Not right, the flash portion of the drive is not RAM, its flash based, but its nowhere close to RAM speeds. im guessing the Fusion drive uses SATA which would limit the SSD portion to maximum 600MB`s, nowhere close to RAM bandwidth

  22. vkd108 - 8 years ago

    Its measly, Beasley > | <

  23. Joe (@realofficialjoe) - 8 years ago

    I think those people that are saying Windows is looking good right now have forgotten exactly what it’s like to use it!

    I use both Windows and OSX and the only problems I ever have are with Windows, never OSX.

  24. This is all about cost. Apple is trying desperately to get better technology into these machines at a reasonable cost. They’re still not in line to get Fusion Drives into the base models unfortunately. And they have reduced the amount of flash storage in the smaller Fusion drives to get them into iMacs without driving up cost. This will change in time as component costs continue to go down. Bottom line is if you can’t afford to upgrade the setup to include Fusion or SSD, then don’t get an iMac. Simple as that.

  25. Ryan Coleman - 8 years ago

    Technically it’s “champing at the bit” not “chomping at the bit”… :)

  26. sardonick - 8 years ago

    It’s funny to me that the first thing to fail on my iMac was the fusion drive, and at that, the flash portion of it. Even the Apple “geniuses” (term used very loosely) were at a loss. Nice to see Apple quality starting to match Microsoft. ,<—/s

  27. Phill Bogart - 8 years ago

    That’s got to be a typo. It’s probably supposed to read 240GB. That’s pretty much the new sweet spot on SSDs so it would make the most sense for a new iteration of Fusion drives. Otherwise, it would be a really dumb move for Apple… but then again, they still stick with 16GB as the minimum size for an iPhone before totally skipping over 32GB and forcing buyers to choose 64GB as the next step up so it’s not like Apple hasn’t set a precedent for dumb marketing moves.

  28. modeyabsolom - 8 years ago

    What! I’m sorry but this is disgraceful, the standard 1TB Fusion drive, goes from 128GB Flash to a measly 24GB! That pretty much defeats the purpose of this being a faster ‘Fusion drive’ all together, they should drop the moniker. This seems to be Apple policy now. Force customers to spend a couple of hundred Dollars more than they initially wanted to get decent performance. Same with the $600+ 16GB iPhone, they want customers to pay another hundred again to get decent storage with the 64GB versions. I wish they would stop doing this, its starting to tarnish their reputation, for me anyway. But of course there will be those Apple zealots coming to their defence to excuse and justify this behaviour…well it isn’t!

  29. All Apple are doing is make the complete Apple eco-system sadly more unattractive to people who don’t use Apple products. I though it was about making money. If you sell less of a product, even if the price is higher you make less money right? 24Gb flash storage, no interchangeable memory on the 21,5″ models to name but a few. I really had to scrape to purchase my last iMac 27″ & the way things are looking now, it may be my last!!

    • oblomov - 8 years ago

      I have been trying to like a 27 inch iMac, to replace my ancient 24, for an age now. In the past it was just an easy decision but the games with fusion drive sizes and memory costs added to the emasculating then dumping of a decent photographic program like Aperture has me at a complete loss as what to do.

      My love affair is over, my cash is in the bank but I just cannot hand it over knowing they have squeezed me again for something which has got a 1 out of 10 for repairability…

  30. Bao Yiyang - 8 years ago

    Consider purely from produce line up? Apple is still the best. They got the best eco system as well – as long as you don’t count in $ factor.
    But once you consider bang on the buck and don’t mind sacrifice a little bit on industrial design or user friendliness – bear in mind in the meantime you may gain in other area like a backlit desktop keyboard, touchscreen laptop, more USB ports etc, then some other devices really start to shine
    Apple products (at least for average consumer – excluding those graphical professionals who requires software only available on MacOS) are for lazy people who don’t read tech forums or do market research before making decisions. On this end Apple really does an amazing job by almost guarantee the quality no matter what you buy – but for geeks or people really understand their needs and do their homework, you probably will find better suitable product elsewhere (MS surface pro/book, XPS 13 to name a few)

  31. Michal Svatý - 8 years ago

    Till now only high end model have fusion drive not all 27 inch.Now All 27 inch imac have one (but with less memory), the high end model have 2TB with 124GB SSD. Where is the problem. I would be nice if apple could put more Fusion drives to mac mini 21 inch iMac….

  32. Gary Michael Ross - 8 years ago

    I agree that Apple just keeps trying to upgrade what they already have and really needs to come up with the next great world changing innovation here real soon…It seems that the switch from iOS8 to 9 has been frustrating. It also seems to be a glitchy version and I even wonder if they know about these issues.

    I LOVE APPLE PRODUCTS! My Macbook Pro is just flat awesome and have never had this experience with any windows pc or laptop. And I just don’t like Android at all (all the intense frustration over the years that I had one I will never miss). Yet, I find myself getting angry with Apple lately when it comes to the iPhone because it should never be how many versions of this product can we have out there, but how can we change the world with this product!

    Can they even see that these will eventually phase out even more to make way for truly hands free interactivity with our machines? They must see that don’
    t they? EVERYONE is distracted by looking at our screens…it has become a big issue from texting and driving to “text-neck” lol & shows no signs of slowing down at all. So what is the next great move? Could be many things but, here is what I see as the next great innovation….chime in on it too please everyone.

    Apple needs to blow Siri up so much that it is on a level that no one can even believe is possible in terms of power, intuitive response, predictive capabilities.
    And putting all of that “JARVIS” like experience into a pair of Oakley, RayBan, etc. shades and even prescription eye glasses.
    Totally possible with all the advances in micro-technology being developed. Taking that all too distracting screen and bringing seamless interaction into the real world.
    What do you all think?

  33. Maybe a little perspective is needed here. After over 20 years of using Apple products I see a pretty distinct pattern. A four year cycle. It basically goes like this:
    Year 1: Buy a new Mac, install all the apps and get back to work. Love the speed improvement over the last machine and get lots done.
    Year 2 & 3: The memory of the speed improvement fades. Work just seems to go at the same pace it always did.
    Year4: Mac begins to crawl. The spinning beachball is a regular visitor to the screen and by the end of the year I realize it’s time to pull out the credit card and pony up for a new computer.
    Luckily Macs hold their value so I’ll easily regain about 40% of the original purchase price selling the last machine used. Especially if I watch the market and sell at the right time.

    And so it goes. Moaning about this graphics card, that hard drive configuration etc… just sounds like out of touch whining. Computers are tools. They have a finite life and that’s just the way of things. If you’re working with them then it should be a business write off anyway.

    Personally I can’t wait for my 21.5″ Retina iMac to arrive at the end of the week. Sure I’m disappointed to hear that the flash portion of the fusion drive is paltry but I know that no matter what’s under the hood I can expect three good years of productivity out of it, a fourth year that I endure, and then I’ll cash it in on the used market and buy another one…. and more importantly live a happy life in between.

    The only suckas out there are the geeks that have no life past dissecting inanimate objects online… good luck with that.

    • Larry Towers - 8 years ago

      You are completely wriong about this. The used market placve for macs was only decent because the machines were decent. Even now older used top of the line mac pros and mac minis are holding their value better than equivalent newer models.