Making a Fusion Drive on my MacMini, it a bad idea?

[valkeriefire]

I know this isn't a hackintosh question, but there is a lot of knowledge here, so why not.

I've got a 2012 Mac Mini, and I bought a new 512gb Crucial MX100 SSD ($200 right now BTW). I was going to link it with a 500gb Seagate Hybrid HDD and create a 1TB fusion drive. The reason I want to do this is because I am tired of manually sorting files between my SSDs and HDDs, and fusion would let me merge it all. 512gb of SSD space is more than enough for my most used files, so merging it will actually be a benefit since I will probably use more of the SSD than I would under normal circumstances.

Is there any reason not to do this? I know fusion drive only leaves 4GB of empty space, but I rarely write large files, so it shouldn't be an issue. My only concern is if manually created fusion drives have problems vs the real ones. OS X lets you create the fusion drive when you install on a real mac, so I won't have any terminal or hacking work to do.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[clipper99]

Don't you think you'd get even more knowledge over on Apple's own user support forums?

 

[valkeriefire]

Don't you think you'd get even more knowledge over on Apple's own user support forums?

I actually already did and there is surprisingly little information. Many people have made fusion drives using 128gb SSDs and their original 1TB HDDs, this in essence recreates an identical system to the factory Apple Fusion Drive. I have yet to find an example of someone using a 256gb or 512gb SSD with a HDD to create a fusion drive. I know it can be done, and with many users here having made custom fusion solutions, I was hoping to see if anyone had problems or recommendations against it.

 

[clipper99]

Alrighty. To me it seems a bit overkill to pair a 512GB SSD to a 500GB mechanical HD. I hear your point about letting the fusion drive take care of the sorting of the files but for me the possibility of one drive failing thus rendering the whole system inoperable is too much of a risk and a real pain to deal with in general.

I would rather have the OS and all the apps running from the SSD (at 512GB that's one sweet setup!) and use the 500GB HD for media files like movies and music where the SSD is not really that much of an advantage. I would put my photos on the SSD as my library is almost 300GB and iPhoto is a bit of a pain to load.