NGC: iMac question: Fusion or Flash drive?

[willowstreetguzziguy]

Going to buy my first Apple computer, an iMac. Does anyone have experience and advice on which drive to get... The 1TB Fusion drive or the 256GB Flash drive?

[mjptexas]

Flash - hands down.  If you find you need a ton of storage buy an external disk - which you should do anyway.  Run Time Machine Backup to the external drive.  Automagically backs up your system every hour.  Has saved my butt more than once.

[rob-mg]

Going to buy my first Apple computer, an iMac. Does anyone have experience and advice on which drive to get... The 1TB Fusion drive or the 256GB Flash drive?

Here's my view as the owner of a 2015 27" iMac.

I was only interested in how much space I needed for applications (as distinct from data), whether I wanted that space to be solid state, and how much RAM and processing power I needed to run those applications.

For my needs, I have a 512GB flash drive, 32GB of RAM and the mid-level processor. This is much more than what most people need. Unless you are processing very large, complex files, a 256GB drive, and 16GB RAM is plenty.

With this caveat. I don't keep data on my computer. I use a Thunderbolt port and hard disk external drive to store all of my original data, and a USB port and hard disk external drive to back up that data. While there alternatives, like mjptexas above I use Time Machine to take care of the backups.

[GearheadGrrrl]

Have you looked at a Mac Mini? Much lower price, and you can use your current monitor. And if a monitor dies, it ain't married to your computer.

[fotoguzzi]

I have a 1TB Imac but I boot from external SSD use imac for files and the SSD  for fast processing..

[Don Ivey]

Flash - hands down.  If you find you need a ton of storage buy an external disk - which you should do anyway.  Run Time Machine Backup to the external drive.  Automagically backs up your system every hour.  Has saved my butt more than once.

Does it just back up changes since last back up, or do the whole thing every hour?  Thanks,

[charlie b]

I'd vote for flash drive.  If you need more space than that then an external drive or cards (don't know if Mac's take cards or not, they are handy). 

Unless you do a lot of picture/film type stuff then 256GB is way more than enough.  I have that on my little PC and it is enough to hold all my CAD files as well as the normal stuff.

[sib]

It depends on how deep your pockets are, of course.  I opted for a late 2014 15" Retina MacBook Pro with 1 TB of flash, no HD.  I take it everywhere I go, including almost all motorcycle rides.  Hard drives are pretty rugged these days, but with flash there are no moving parts to get jarred loose.  I have about 750 GB of music on the computer, as well as all my other data going back to about 1986(!).  All encrypted, of course.  It's the best computer I've ever had and I think it will go quite a few more years before it's obsolete.  I use a 2 TB HD for backup at home, but another option would have been backing up everything to iCloud.  I realize that the OP asked about iMacs, but I use my laptop instead of a desktop for everything.  One less computer needed. There's money to be saved, in the long run, by getting something that's versatile and won't need to be replaced soon.  The same logic applies to motorcycles (Guzzi V7II content).

[mjptexas]

Does it just back up changes since last back up, or do the whole thing every hour?  Thanks,

After Time Machine does the first backup it makes incremental backups.  lt manages the number of backups retained to the amount of space allocated. As the backups age it will delete all but the last one taken in a day and retain daily backups.

[PeteS]

Have you looked at a Mac Mini? Much lower price, and you can use your current monitor. And if a monitor dies, it ain't married to your computer.

 :1: Just replaced my Macbook pro with the mid level Mac Mini. 8 Gigs of ram and 1 TB Hard drive. Lighting fast. About half the price of an iMac.
If you are currently running a Windows computer format your drive for Boot Camp and you can move a lot of your Windows software to whatever current Windows OS you prefer. I am using Win8. Forget about Fusion or Parallels. They slow the computer considerably and you rarely need to run Windows on the Mac side.

Pete