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Hello , iMac Intel 27" 5k late 2015 (2TB Fusion Drive)
Since upgrading from HDD to SSD is much work and at the end you would end up at max 500 or lower speed is it possible and better to use SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 2TB(USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gb/s), USB 3.0, USB 2.0 R/W speed 2000MB/s) for photo video edit work via usb 3 port or if there is adaptor(getting better performance USB 3 to TB2)? And what would happen to My fusion drive? Can I still use it as extra storage while using external hard drive as bootable HD? One last thing! If I just use the new fast External drive as my storage connected with usb 3 or TB2 ( Leave the heavy big video/photo files there)and while editing using the OS and Apps in my Fusion Drive do I still gain performance? Thanks Arash
Lets first talk about what a Fusion Drive set is. Your system has two drive ports a SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) your current 3.5” HDD drive and a PCIe/NVMe port which is hidden on the back side of the logic board (blade SSD). Both these drives are used in a Fusion Drive set the small blade SSD is leveraged as a cache drive for the HDD. You don’t see it as a discreet drive as its function is strictly cache. Its size is also too small for much of anything beyond a cache drive. So as a photographer my self I find Fusion Drives just too slow as they are just a way to boost a slow disk drive cheaply. At the time they made sense as the cost of a SSD was often three~four times as expensive for the same storage in a spinning rust drive (HDD). Today things are much different! SSD drive prices have fallen and while still not as cheap as HDD’s the price is well within reason! So What I recommend is breaking the Fusion Drive set and swapping out the Blade SSD with a much bigger size 480GB or better yet a 1TB iMac Intel 27" (Late 2013-Mid 2015) Blade SSD Upgrade Bundle and here’s the guide iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement Here we are going to use this much faster drive as your Boot drive and hosting your apps. Leaving the at least 1/3 of the drive empty! That way the OS and your photo editing apps have room for virtual RAM, caching and scratch space. At the I/O is significantly faster than your current Fusion Drive as well as most external drives including your SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 2TB (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gb/s), USB 3.0, USB 2.0 R/W speed 2000MB/s)
