Quote:
Originally Posted by jim1960
There are a couple of workarounds to getting a larger internal ssd in the iMac...
1. You can get an external Thunderbolt 3 drive.
2. You can buy a Thunderbolt 3 ssd bay and add ssd drives as you need them.
I went with the smallest internal ssd available on my new iMac this summer. I then went with option 2 and bought an Akitio Thunder3 Quad Mini. It will hold 4 ssd drives. I currently have 3 1TB drives installed. One is my sessions drive and the other two are set up in a raid 5 array for VST samples.
|
That's the sort of creative work-around I was hoping to see in a thread like this, and it offers real direction for new users. A 3.4GB 27" iMac upgraded to 16GB RAM and a small, 256GB SSD is a relatively reasonable $2099. A Thunder3 adds another $350, but storage after that can be purchased on an as needed basis. On the other hand, if you can live with a 1TB fusion drive (which has an SSD component), the same iMac upgraded to 16GB is $1999, and you're done (until you want some extra external storage).
FWIW - Last I looked, the SSD component of the iMac 1TB Fusion drive is only 24GB, whereas the SSD component of the 2-3TB fusions is 128GB. The smallest internal SSD they sell is 256GB. So, there are a lot of possible configurations. Personally, if I had a bottomless checkbook, I'd get get as big an SSD as they'd sell me. Regrettably, I don't don't have a bottomless checkbook. Hence, trade-offs must be considered.