#Fusion drive compared to ssd software#

CoreStorage serves as an extra layer of abstraction between macOS and Mac's drives/partitions which are arranged into Logical Volume Groups instead of being directly handed over to the operating system.

#Fusion drive compared to ssd software#

The only software component it relies on is a logical volume manager called CoreStorage. In essence, the technology is based on the concept of automated storage tiering which implies data migration between different connected storage devices in compliance with performance and capacity requirements and is its pure software-based implementation. As a result, the system can boot faster and the launch time of regularly employed applications is also reduced. Similarly to RAID 0, in which data is split across the drives of the array, data on such a storage is spanned across the two constituents of the system with one key difference: storage space can be dynamically reallocated according to the data usage frequency to achieve maximum performance – most frequently accessed files together with system files reside on the faster flash drive while rarely used ones are moved to the capacious HDD part. First seen in the Mountain Lion operating system released in late 2012, it is now supported by two Apple's desktop computers – iMac and Mac Mini running macOS 10.8 and later.įusion Drive is Apple's intelligent automatic data management system which integrates two different digital media – a traditional rotating HDD and a nonvolatile storage based on the SSD technology which function as a single logical unit and are presented as a single volume to the end-user in Finder.