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"Update: After poking at this more, it’s possible that Apple is using a simplified tier structure in which entire files are moved to the SSD and backed up the H
by headShrinker 14y ago
"Update: After poking at this more, it’s possible that Apple is using a simplified tier structure in which entire files are moved to the SSD and backed up the HDD, rather than a more sophisticated caching mechanism."
Sensational blog post. Extremetech couldn't be troubled to follow through with due diligence, it apparently doesn't have any journalistic integrity, or editorial review. They literally falsely accuse a company (right in the blog title) of releasing an overpriced commonly available product. Then, at the end of the article excuse their horrible research, by starting with the sentance "it’s possible that Apple". Shouldn't Extremetech know what Apple is doing since you just finished writing a scathing blog post about it??
In fact, they are not caching at all. Extremetech completely blew it on this article, either revealing their lack of professionalism, bias, and/or, both.
- codex 14y agoCompletely agree. I would also be surprised if this weren't done at the block level, as ZFS does SSD acceleration, rather than at the file level as the article claims. It's just so much more efficient than caching at the file layer, for not that much more RAM cost (for indexing).
- thereallurch 14y agoApple apparently abandoned ZFS to adopt specific subsets of the technology. Someone else mentioned 4 GB of the SSD is for write cache (log device). Guessing the other XGB is the traditional cache device. Should really improve daily usage performance. Makes sense their benchmarks only go to 4GB.
- wmf 14y agoApple's charging $250 for a $99 SSD plus some software. It's overpriced.
- jonknee 14y agoWelcome to Apple's SSD pricing. Want to upgrade from 128GB SSD on a laptop to 256? $300 for that please. How about from 128GB to 512GB? $800. All the way to an astounding $1,300 for a 768GB drive. It's insanity, but since you can't open up the laptops to add one of your own it's insanity that you have to pay for.
- fruchtose 14y agoI really hope you don't have to pay $1,300 to get a 768GB drive in your system. I ran into a situation a couple years ago when the 320GB drive in my MBP was running out of space. I didn't want to buy a whole new system, so I ordered a 640GB drive online, took it to a local certified Apple repair shop, and let them put the drive in. The cost of the work? $100. This was before the unibody models, but I'm sure the process will be the same for the new systems. Oh, and the best part of going to an Apple repair shop was that my warranty remained intact. I never had any issues getting the Apple Store to work on my laptop after the hard drive was replaced. If Apple prevents people from doing this with the new hardware, then this will be a disappointment. I haven't kept up with the specifics of their new laptops--I know that the RAM is soldered in, but I hope the hard drive will be replaceable.
- evilduck 14y agoAFAIK on the latest Apple models with SSDs, the SSDs are a proprietary form factor but not soldered on.
- bingaling 14y agoOWC sells an ssd upgrade for Retina MBP: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Retina_2012 http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Retina_2012
- aristidb 14y agoApple charging more than the stand-alone market price for storage upgrades... just like they have done forever? It's called bundling and price discrimination.
- 5teev 14y agoThat does seem high, but if you factor in the (non-trivial) installation process, and the fact that you won't be voiding your warranty with a DIY installation, it may be an acceptable tradeoff. Apple is probably counting on your reaching this conclusion as well.
- jonknee 14y agoYes, but to be fair no they shouldn't have known. Apple is infamous for not revealing any technical details (they won't even say how much memory their iOS devices have!) and the units have not shipped.
- majormajor 14y agoArs was able to figure out from Schiller's description that it was probably a tiered setup, not a caching system, by 1:25PM Pacific yesterday. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/apple-fusion-drive-wait-what-how-does-this-work/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/apple-...
- epistasis 14y agoThis is no excuse for Extremetech's folly, but in addition to the tiering Anandtech says that there's 4GB of the SSD reserved as a write cache.
- thereallurch 14y agoMy guess it's using some tech similar to ZFS. Creating a 4GB log drive for writing, and the rest as a cache drive. Sounds like they abandoned the adaption of ZFS to make their own interpretation.
- r00fus 14y agoGiven the patent-trolling that NetApp was waging against Sun for ZFS, perhaps Apple was wise to stay away (let's leave aside how depressing that is).
- rsanders 14y agoI wanted ZFS as much as anybody, but NetApp did push the state of the art in some areas of filesystem design and the first thing everybody who used NetApp said when they heard about ZFS was "cool, it's like a NetApp". Sometimes it's not trolling; it's just enforcing your rightful patents.
- rsanders 14y agoIt doesn't sound like a cache at all. Think of it like their old "hotfiles" relocation to the faster part of the disk, only now they're relocating the blocks from entire files to the faster volume in the corestorage group.