“Apple has added new storage options to its iMac lineup, allowing users to choose either a 256 GB or 512 GB flash storage drive as part of the order customization process,” Eric Slivka reports for MacRumors. “The new options are available as $300 and $600 surcharges respectively to replace the 1 TB traditional hard drive that is standard across all iMac models.”
“Previously, the 21.5-inch iMac had not been available with dedicated flash storage options, only offering the standard 1 TB traditional hard drive and a $250 Fusion Drive option,” Slivka reports. “Those options remain available, but for those looking for an all-flash storage solution, Apple is now offering that in 256 and 512 GB capacities.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once you go flash, you’ll never go back.
Related articles:
New 27-inch iMac benchmarks: Fusion Drive vs SSD vs HDD – January 15, 2013
Apple’s new iMac’s Fusion Drive a turning point for hybrid drives – December 13, 2012
Please stop the madness: Apple Mac’s Fusion Drive is not about caching – November 29, 2012
Apple’s new Fusion Drive technology also works on older Macs – October 31, 2012
Apple’s new patented Fusion Drive is more advanced than you might think – October 24, 2012
Don’t buy a new Mac without an SSD or you’ll regret it – April 9, 2012
Elgato’s external Thunderbolt SSD drives are lightning-fast – March 26, 2012
Benchmark porn star: OWC’s scorchingly fast Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G 480GB SSD – March 26, 2012
SSD Shootout: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD vs. the rest – April 13, 2011
Spot on, MDN!
“Once you go flash, you’ll never go back.”
Unless you went with the Adobe POS.
I would have purchased an iMac earlier had I had the option of a 500 GB flash drive. Now, with Haswell just around the corner, I will chose my next Mac from the next round of Apple MacBook Pros, iMacs, and Mac minis.
It’ll be cheaper to go for the Fusion Drive option. You get 1TB of space and sacrifice very little in drive access and read speed.
But, if you are like me (Filemaker Pro v12 and Excel power user) you can get your life on 256 GB with room to spare for 3000 songs and a few hundred photos (games on the iPad).
Now let’s talk read/write speeds.
It’s not just speed. Flash drives have no moving parts to fail, consume less energy, and take up less volume. I’m willing to pay a premium price for internal storage.
I am not flushed with cash!
Get it? flash? cash? flashed with cash?? 🙂
I know its a gross statement to make, but the moon is almost full and that heralds the silly season or is it Werewolf season?
Any how, I am not flushed with cash! 🙂 He! he!!
You must have flushed your sense of humor there flash apple.
How right you are silverhawk1 right after I zuned a flash mob!
I really hope apple will continue to bring down the price as the ssds get cheaper, I hope it won’t be like ram.
What ssd does the 3tb fusion drive include?
Doesn’t seem like that long ago when Apple used to make products that the end user could easily open up & add/swap hard drives, RAM, GPUs, PCI cards, and so forth.
The fact that it is “newsworthy” for Apple to offer configuration options for commodity components in a DESKTOP machine is saddening. Even more sad will be the usual over-inflated Apple price tag for the privilege of letting someone else attach a simple subcomponent before locking and sealing the case from any end-user upgrades or modifications.
I am not saying that Apple needs to be exactly like cheap computer box assemblers, nor does Apple need to maximize tinkerability [http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/designing-for-tinkerability.pdf]. It would be nice, however, for Apple to rediscover the DIY Mac community (now, sadly, increasing forced to become the “Hackintosh” community” simply because Apple no longer supports them).
Cook: pay attention to your long-term base instead of focusing solely on Wall Street and iOS software tinkering.
I put a 256 SSD in my macbookpro a few months ago for about $200. $300 for Apple? I guess someone there needs a nicer executive suite.
Flash is still way too expensive and the speed is only needed for a few operations. I don’t need to store all my pictures and movies on flash when I don’t access them that often. I’m not really interested in flash until it becomes as expensive as normal HDDs. I think the Hybriddrives that finally starting to come to market is a much more interesting solution. I don’t know why it have taken so long. Seafarers promised us Hunridsrives years ago. Nothing happened. I thought they forgot about it. Flash has advanced allot but we still got problems with life time. I’m not going to buy a flash drive from one if these smaller brands. The big brands like Seagare will in time overtake the smaller brands that will be bought or going out if business.
“Seafarers”…
That should be Seagate.