Volume or Partition for iMac Fusion Drive

[steveroberts]

Hi Folks,

I've got a new-to-me 2017 iMac in the house. As with my previous iMac, I'll be booting from an external Thunderbolt SSD.

The Mac has a 2TB fusion drive, which I was thinking of partitioning and using for storage of different types of media files.

When I opened DiskUtility under Catalina, I was offered the choice of partitioning or creating a "volume."

Once functional, both partitions or "volumes" will be backed up to external devices.

At this point, I'm not sure which way to go partition or volume...

Advice greatly appreciated.

SR

[jdc]

Leader!

Not really an answer, but why? I dont see any advantage?

Wouldnt folders work? "Stuff" "More Stuff" "Even More Stuff"

Out of curosity, what kind of TBolt boot drive are you running?

[Filliam H. Muffman]

You can goof up how a fusion drive works if you use the wrong format. It will end up as a small SSD and a hard drive.

Edit: Someone did this here a while ago. I don't remember the solution but I am pretty sure all the data on the drive had to be erased.

[PeterW]

Here’s a discussion on partitioning a fusion drive - https://macperformanceguide.com/Fusion-p...oning.html
Included is a method of recreating a single partition fusion if something goes wrong

[steveroberts]

Well, the reason for partitioning was mainly for backup purposes, since 1TB would mirror my current backup drive configuration. I'm reevaluating how I'm using all of my drives and hope to come up with a solution that makes sense.

Here's the TB boot drive I'm using. Contains two 512 GB SSDs, one being a backup clone of the other.
https://www.amazon.com/Neutrino-Thunder-Enclosure-Thunderbolt-Transfer/dp/B00LLR2OG4/

SR

jdc wrote:
Leader!

Not really an answer, but why? I dont see any advantage?

Wouldnt folders work? "Stuff" "More Stuff" "Even More Stuff"

Out of curosity, what kind of TBolt boot drive are you running?

[C(-)ris]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
You can goof up how a fusion drive works if you use the wrong format. It will end up as a small SSD and a hard drive.

Edit: Someone did this here a while ago. I don't remember the solution but I am pretty sure all the data on the drive had to be erased.

When those Fusion drives get broken up it can be a bear to get it back together. Terminal commands, voodoo rituals, etc.

[jdc]

Not to throw a wrench into things, but for most all uses, the Fusion drive is faster than your 2.5" SSD, by a quite a bit.

if you really want to speed things up... with your new USB C ports its time to upgrade your SSDs to flash drives... assuming you connecting it to the USB C and not USB A port... of course that would requrie also getting drive adapters.

Scratch that -- looks like all the adapters are limited to slower SATA speeds.