Meet Apple’s New Fusion Drive, Hybrid Flash And Hard Drive System

The Fusion Drive for the new iMac and Mac mini was launched at the Apple event on Tuesday. Now it’s time to get to know it a little bit better. Apple has posted more in-depth information about this new storage technology.

Combining flash and traditional hard drive technology, the hybrid system “combines the performance of Flash storage with the capacity of a hard drive.” Oh, you fancy huh?

For a more in-depth explanation, here’s how Dave Hamilton from the Mac Observer breaks it down:

In a nutshell, Fusion Drive combines TWO drives, a solid state drive (SSD) and a mechanical drive. Apple’s initial incarnation puts a 128GB SSD in with either a 1TB or a 3TB mechanical drive. This is not a simple RAID, however, as 100% of the “magic” is done within OS X itself. What Fusion Drive does is it watches what files and applications you run most regularly and it moves them to the SSD. It will also take stuff that you aren’t using all that often and moves it to the mechanical drive.

Basically, as the system learns more about you, you’ll see shorter startup times, faster application launches and quicker file access. All of this is done automatically, all behind the scenes. Sounds pretty cool.

A dedicated Apple enthusiast since 2007, Suzy is the co-host of Macgasm TV and features editor for Macgasm. Got a cool story idea, hot news tip or just want a stay up-to-date with the latest tech gossip? You can find her on Twitter.