Skip to main content

Apple adds new 'fusion drive' to iMac and Mac mini, combines SSD and standard hard drive

Apple adds new 'fusion drive' to iMac and Mac mini, combines SSD and standard hard drive

Share this story

As part of its radically-redesigned new iMac, Apple announced a new hybrid "fusion drive" for both the iMac and Mac mini. This drive combines a 128GB flash storage drive with a 1TB or 3TB HDD, and Apple claims that performance is nearly equal that of a standard flash drive. It manages everything in the background — by default, all of your Mac's apps are stored on the SSD, but as you use the computer it learns what you use the most and moves those apps to the SSD to increase performance. Phil Schiller said that an Aperture photo import using the fusion drive was nearly as fast as that when using a standard flash drive. For anyone frustrated with the speed of their standard hard drive, this will hopefully provide a speedy but spacious alternative. Of course, this hybrid drive technology isn't new — in a lot of ways, Apple's new "fusion drive" sounds a lot like this OCZ hybrid drive (and other similar drives), which also has a 1TB HDD as well as 128GB of flash storage.

Check out the replay of our live coverage right here: