Creating a Fusion Drive Safely

Hello. I currently have a macbook pro mid 2012 13 inch with a 256 SSD start up and a 1T regular hard drive with 16GB RAM.
Even though the 1T hard drive is in the DVD drive it sort of just acts like an external hard drive as it shows up as a separate drive in finder and I am wondering if one of you amazing people can tell me how to make a fusion drive in a way that is safe and time machinable, so that for all functional purposes I just turn on my computer and it looks like I have a 1.256T system that flows perfectly.
Also if this is achieved and I can time machine back it up; in a few years when I upgrade to say the new 2T Macbook pro ssd will there be any issues importing directly from time machine if my previous computer, the one I am using now, had or has a fusion drive.
Thank you.

Oh, my solid stage 256 is where the original hard drive used to be and the 1terrabye regular hard drive is in where the dvd drive used to be. If the dvd drive is the optical drive then I should be having the correct hardware configuration.
If that is correct and I do have the correct configuration, can you please share with me a recommended link or procedure to follow for making me a DIY Fusion Drive.
I talked to one of the techie guys from Simply Computing yesterday (apple authorized dealers in canada) and he said that he has this setup and it works great and when I mentioned about performance, he said that there is a slight reduction in speed and described it as, "A normal solid state is 4 times as quick and with a fusion it is 3.5 times".
If all this info is correct I would just like to proceed with it and get a recommendation for how to do it or a suggested link that has been used and proven to work for such DIY Fusion Drives. Is the one that I shared good enough for it. Thanks everyone for your kind time and attention to this.

Similar Messages

Creating a Fusion Drive ?

Hi All,
I have a mid-2011 iMac which I plan to install a Samsung 840 Pro SSD to use as part of a Fusion Drive setup.
Typically I backup using Carbon Copy and wil be taking a backup prior to the mod.
Once the drive has been configured...... will I need to reinstall the OSX from scratch, or is it just a matter of bringing back the Backup ??
Pete

When you use CoreStorage to format the SSD and mechanical HD it will be a destructive format/paritioning so the new Fusion disk will look like one HD but in fact will be two under the hood. You should be able to use CC to restore your image as it will look like a single drive.
I'm not sure if that model iMac has a Fusion tool supplied by Apple or not. I think you have to use one of the many guides found online to manually configure the drives to be a single Fusion drive using diskutil at the command line. If I remember correctly, you'll need to boot with a thumb drive with 10.8.3 installation on it. Then go to the Terminal to configure the Fusion drive setup. Then you would have to find some way to run CC from a bootable thumbdrive, etc. I think you could boot the backup disk made with CC then run CC from it to clone to the new Fusion drive. That should work. Worse case scenario, you always could just re-install OS X on the Fusion drive and then use the Apple Migration Assistant to grab your data from the CC'd drive.
Either way, give yourself at least half a day in the event you run into issues and have to work around things.

Creating my own Fusion Drive: Do I need to buy Mountain Lion from the app store to reinstall the OS? Do I lose the iLife apps?

I just bought a Mac Mini (late 2012) with a 1TB HDD and I'm planning to install a second drive, an SSD (Samsung 840 evo) and create the Fusion Drive, and I have a couple of questions:
1- I've read lots of articles on how to do this but I'm not sure if I have to buy Mountain Lion from the app store (to reinstall the OS after I install the second drive) since I'm not able to see it on the "Purchased" list of apps, or if I can just reinstall OS X with OS X Utilities.
2- I read somewhere that if I make my own Fusion Drive when I reinstall OS X I will lose iLife, is this true? Or will I be able to redownload it from the store? I really don't want to lose iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand and I'm confused about it.
Thanks in advance for any help and information you can give me!

Thankyou very much lllaass, that's exactly what I wanted to be sure about!

DIY Fusion Drive Problem (8,2)

Hey,
I wanted to go a step further and create my own DIY Fusion Drive. I had no problems installing the new ssd (128gb Samsung 840 Pro) instead of the hdd (standard mac hdd) and moving the hdd to the place where the optical drive has been.
I then proceeded to boot from a recovery USB Stick runing the mountain lion recovery partition on it. I configured both of these drives without any problems and finally created my Fusion Drive (visible in disk utility).
But here are things getting worse. My original plan was to recover from a TimeMachine Backup i created right before I started working on the Fusion Drive. But no, it said an error occured and I should restart the PC. After googling this error a little bit (and trying the recovery over and over again, different attempts to repair the time machine, which doesn't seemed to be broken etc.), I came up with the idea that my TimeMachine data could be corrupted and a whole backup is not possible. No problem I thought to myself.
You just try to install Mountain Lion fresh with your Recovery USB Stick and then get one or two folder from your backup that you need. But nope, installing Mountain Lion aborted with an error too while checking if my MacBook would fit the installation or something.
Last try: Cmd+R to start internet recovery. Downloaded the whole thing. Now I was able to reinstall LION fresh on my system (which of course would be the basic installation since my macbook came with Lion). Problem is: Lion doesn't know anything about Fusion Drive and I couldn't select any drive to install it on.
Right now I'm really thinking about installing the os on the ssd alone, what I didn't want to do. But I'm not seeing a possiblilty to get the system back up and running they way I wanted it to.
Now it's on you guys. My last hope. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this problem? I read so many guides and neither of them came up with the problems I have. They just say "and after configurating your fusion drive, you just install moutain lion again and you're good" :|
Thank you very much,
MrMütze

I just tried what would happen if a delete the Fusion drive again. I was able to start the installation process of LION to my SSD, but Mountain Lion still aborted with an error while evaluating my system. So it shouldn't be a problem associated with the FusionDrive.

Fusion drive and external data drives

How does Fusion drive behave if you have data on an external device? I just odered a new Mini and I'm a Logic user with hundreds of GB worth of data on an external RAID 5 exclosure. Will files stored on the RAID be copied to the Fusion Drive when accessed frequently, or will that functionality be strictly for the boot volume?
Thanks!

You can definitely create a Fusion Drive using an external drive to add capacity, and in fact it can be a great thing to do as the SSD will eliminate most of the latency involved.
The SSD will contain whatever the most frequently used blocks are, and these will moved from your HDD(s) onto the SSD to provide the performance improvement. This means you could potentially end up with any number of your working files on the SSD depending upon how often you use them (or have been using them recently). This is important to keep in mind; the SSD in a Fusion Drive is not the cache as a cache-disk, meaning that if the SSD fails you will lose data and have to rebuild your Fusion Drive from backups.
This will essentially eliminate the redundancy advantage of RAID-5, as while you can replace any HDDs that fail as normal, an SSD failure will render the volume unusable.
I'm actually currently interested in whether a RAID-1 of SSDs can be used within a Fusion Drive, as it could allow the SSD part of the Fusion Drive to be given redundancy too, in which case the setup would be safe as it'd be 2x SSDs in RAID-1 + HDDs in RAID-5, giving you one to two disks worth of redundancy. However I suspect it won't work, as I believe Fusion Drive just queries each disk to determine if it is an SSD, and of course an Apple RAID won't identify itself as such.

Fusion Drive 4TB + SSD m4 512 Go DEAD can't reformat

Hello,
I have an iMac 27 late 2010 i5 3.6 with 16 Go of RAM running 10.8.3
For Christmas, I received a M4 SSD 512 Go and decided to replace the 2TB in my iMac with a 4TB and create a Fusion Drive.
The operation worked beautifully and my iMac became incredibly fast, which was the goal.
Yesterday, the iMac did not start and I got the white screen with the spinning wheel. After reading about zapping the pram and Vram, nothing worked.
I booted from an external hard drive with Mac os X 10.8.2 and ran Disk Util to check the drive. I got a lot of red lines in the report and got the error Disk Utility can't repair this disk. back , reformat and restore.
I was able to copy some of the files on the drive and decided to reformat the drive.
Everytime I try to reformat the drive (4.4tB Fusion Drive) the mac shuts down and restarts.
I tried to un fuse the fusion drive and I get the same result. the screen goes black, the computer restarts and displays that the mac encountered a problem and had to restart.
when I type the commande in terminal diskutil cs file, I see the logical volume group.
When I do a diskutil cs Delete Volume xxxxxx xxxx xxx x x x x x x x
started CoreStorage operation on disk 2 iMac
Unmounting disk2
Removing Logical Volume from Logical Volume Group
then the mac shuts down and restarts.
it took me 2 hours to crack the beast open to perform the disk implant last christmas and it was scary. I thought I would never manage to close it properly.
I understand that this operation voided the warranty (i have the Apple Care for 3 years).
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Phil

Thanks for your answers.
I still don't know if it was the SSD or the HD that was faulty but I found a solution via this post
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21492423#21492423
Jerome Tremblay
This solved my questionRe: Unable to reformat/repartition Fusion Drive
Mar 12, 2013 11:05 AM (in response to Topher Kessler)
@Topher : It did not work, and it failed with POSIX errors similar to the zeroDisk message I posted above.
However, While I was unable to "cleanly" solve my problem, I managed to reset everything by booting in single-user mode from an external hard drive (with cmd-S) and overwriting the disk directly with
cat /dev/random > /dev/disk0 cat /dev/random > /dev/disk1
Then I rebooted and I could reformat the drives (actually, I created another fusion drive using these directives).
I was able to reformat the drives as a Fusion Drive. My time Machine backup was only a week old but it worked perfectly. I was able to add the rest via my Backblaze subscription.
Don't know how long the Fusion drive will last but I am prepared with my backups in case it happens.
Phil

Mac Mini Fusion Drive or self built SSD / Fusion drive

Hi,
I am contemplating to buy a Mac Mini i7 2.6GHz but don't really know what I want to do with the Harddrive. One option would of course be to add a Fusion Drive for 200 bucks. However, apple doesn't say anything about the brand or model that they use for the SSD's which is a bit upsetting. Another option would be to go with the basic 1TB hard drive and replace it with a really good SSD (also around 200), or the third option would be to perhaps create your own Fusion Drive by going with the basic 1TB hard drive and simply add a SSD.
Any suggestions, recommendations, potential problems of eacht etc?
Thanks very much in advance

I have used a Fusion drive (120GB Intel SSD + 500GB HDD) which worked really well, handled all the file movement between the SSD and HDD and made a Mini fast. I added the SSD myself using a dual drive kit (with tools) from iFixit.com.
I would go with the idea of purchasing a 3rd party SSD (Samsung, Crucial, OWC), a dual drive kit from either iFixit.com or OWC (Macsales.com) then install it yourself. Both iFixit.com and Macsales.com have excellent guides on how to do this. With OS X Mavericks you'll be able to have the OS create a Fusion drive or you can manage the drives independently.

DIY Fusion Drive and RAID 5

Hi everyone!
I have spent several hours by reading various forums but haven’t found any definitive answers.
I have a 12 Core Mac Pro with the following setup: one 1TB SATA hard drive that carries the system and applications. For the files and storage there are three 2TB SATA drives in RAID 5 controlled by Apple RAID card. I am going to install a 512 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD drive in the optical bay and have initially planned to use it just for the system and applications, but am curious if the following is possible.
1) Is it possible to combine the RAID 5 array with the SSD and create a Fusion drive?
2) If yes, will it retain all the features of the RAID 5?
3) Should TRIM be enabled?
Thank you in advance!

TRIM directly addresses the shortcomings of having only garbage collection available. SSD controller manufacturers and designers (including SandForce, the controller manufacturer for OWC's SSDs), recommends that TRIM be used with their products. So does Samsung.
For example, here's a 2011 article from OWC describing how you don't need TRIM on their SSDs and how it can in fact hurt performance or reliability.
That article has been discussed here on MacInTouch before. In my opinion it's bad advice, and inaccurate in some of its assertions. It also ignores the recommendation made by SandForce to use TRIM with their SSD controllers. But even if one were to take that article at face value, applying that advice to SSDs other than OWC's makes little sense.
The reason I'm advising against TRIM is simply that it's yet another driver-level modification of the OS, and these always carry potential risk (as all the folks with WD hard drives who lost data can attest to).
Apples and oranges comparison, for a variety of reasons. The short of it is that TRIM is supported natively in all recent versions of OS X. The tools used to enable it for third party SSDs do not add a new kernel extension; they change the setting to allow Apple's native TRIM implementation to be used with SSDs other than those factory installed by Apple.
This shows that the 840s do work slightly better with TRIM than without, but the differences are (in my opinion) trivial, a 9% increase at best.
One of the major reasons for the skepticism that exists about TRIM is that so many people, the authors of both articles you linked to included, don't understand it.
TRIM is not, strictly speaking, a performance-enhancement technology -- though it is plainly obvious that most people think it is.
Though it can, in many circumstances, improve performance, there are also circumstances under which it will provide little or no noticeable benefit. Not coincidentally, a new SSD tested fresh out of the factory packaging is unlikely to show much (if any) benefit. Or rather, TRIM is providing a real benefit for new SSDs, but that benefit doesn't become measurable in terms of benchmark performance testing until every memory cell in the SSD -- including many gigabytes of cells hidden from visibility by the SSD controller -- have been written to at least once. Writing 128 GB of files to an SSD with a nominal capacity of 128 GB won't do it, as there are several gigabytes (exact number varies depending on the model) still unwritten.
Under real-world use conditions, having TRIM disabled means eventually having noticeable write performance degradation due to write amplification. It is far greater than "9%" -- it can be a 50% or greater drop in write performance, depending on various factors. Defining "eventually" is difficult because it depends on how the SSD is used. But given enough time and write cycles, it can happen to all SSDs used without TRIM, no matter how sophisticated their garbage collection algorithms are.
Under those same real-world use conditions, having TRIM enabled means that the SSD should almost never reach a state of having noticeable write performance degradation, as it should almost never get into a state where write amplification is happening.
I will concede that it is possible to design a lab test in such a way as to defeat the benefits provided by TRIM, but such tests do not reflect any real-world usage scenario I can imagine. Furthermore, those same contrived tests would put an un-TRIMmed drive into an equally-addled state even more quickly.
I would suggest reading through the rather lengthy previous discussions about TRIM. Here are a couple of my past posts that are most relevant to the current discussion:
A description of what TRIM is here.
I addressed some of OWC Larry's comments about TRIM use with OWC/SandForce SSDs here.
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/index.html#d09dec2013

DIY Fusion Drive...

So i've just installed a Crucial M4 128GB SSD and when i get home from work i'm putting the original HDD back in my MacBook Pro in the optical drive bay with a 'caddy' kit.
I'm considering creating a Fusion drive out of the 2 internal HDD's but before I go through with are there any risks with doing it myself? And, is it worth it?

In case you are not already aware of these resources here are some links
http://blog.macsales.com/15617-creating-your-own-fusion-drive
http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html
There are others, but the most salient point from the first link is that it alleges the 2012 Mini is the only Mac that uses a version of Disk Utility capable of creating a Fusion volume. This sounds dubious to me though since I find it hard to believe CoreStorage is dependent upon a version of Disk Utility that exists only for the Mini. The only reason I mention this is that I consider OWC knowledgeable about the subject.
Without further details of how you intend to accomplish this I am curious how you justify the following comment:
The OS handles where the files go so I can use the time to work instead of managing where the files go for best performance.
We know Apple's Fusion Drive accomplishes these actions in firmware or software that exists in their new iMacs, but what resource led you to conclude this ability exists in your MacBook Pro, or anything other than the current production 2012 iMacs for that matter?
If you are certain it does, I may do it also. I like challenges too.

Disk Utility error when verifying DIY fusion drive

Hi,
It has been a while since I had to post a problem, but I need others advice on this if you can help. When 10.8.3 came out I installed an M4 512gb ssd in my main drive bay of 2008 unibody aluminium macbook and put a 1tb spinner in the optibay. Created a fusion drive, migrated data and all has been great. Decided to run disk utility today to check for any errors as I had a sleep issue with the 10.8.4 update which I ended up solving by changing the sleep settings in terminal - the issue had caused a few forced shutdowns. I have Disk Utitliy Version 13 (450). The Fusion drive is shown as the logical volume group followed by the volume disk. When I run a verify disk on the volume itself it is all ok:
Verifying volume “Cybernet”
Checking storage systemChecking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 6 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Cybernet appears to be OK.
When I run it on the LVG it comes up as:
Verifying partition map for “M4-CT512M4SSD2 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 40 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
Verifying partition map for “WDC WD10JPVT-00A1YT0 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 43 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
I got the same when I did a safe boot and when rebooted from the recovery partition.y question is, do I repair or could it damage my setup? eg is Disk Utility being accurate and it can repair the error, or is it a phantom issue that should be ignored bearing in mind it's a DIY fusion drive and it could end up getting mashed?
Thanks!

Hi,
The computer's running fine since I sorted the sleep issue. No issues as far as I can tell, which is why I was surprised to see the error. What does the error actually mean - is it saying that the volume is a different size than the computer thinks it should be and therefore it'll just change a few values? In which case I suppose a repair is harmless? I just don't want to repair and then reboot to find the volume corrupted.

Is Disk Utility in OS X 10.8.2 the version of Disk utilit that controls the Fusion Drive on new Imacs?

is Disk Utility in OS X 10.8.2 the version of Disk utilit that controls the Fusion Drive on new Imacs?

No. Only those computers with a Fusion Drive installed will get the special version of Disk Utility. Do a Google search if you want to find out how to create a fusion drive with older systems, but I suggest it's a waste of time.

How to clean-install Mavericks to a fusion drive?

Because I cannot find a complete answer here or anywhere else, I seek information about reinstalling Mavericks on a 1TB fusion drive on my late 2013 iMac. I see discussions about reinstalling, backing up data, Boot Camp issues, rebuilding a fusion drive, making a fusion drive from scratch, and the like; but I do not find the level of detail I am seeking about starting over with a fusion drive. I upgraded to Mavericks from Mtn Lion and now see hints that I needed to do something special to take advantage of the properties of this drive.
That said, here are my questions:
(1) When I "Command-R" reboot to Recovery and get to the Disk Utility, I see a separate 1TB HD as an extended partition as well as a 125GB drive that is root (/), which I presume is the SSD. To accomplish the clean installation, do I format BOTH? Or will formatting only the 1TB HD suffice? Does formatting only the 1TB HD also take care of formatting the SSD? Maybe it's not advisable to format the SSD ...?
(2) Does the downloaded Mavericks installer loaded onto a USB stick using DiskMakerX have the capability to do this clean install properly? or is it necessary, in order to take advantage of the fusion drive properties (SSD+HD), to download Mavericks Installer after wiping the HD so that support for the fusion drive is maintained?
(3) Because I am curious, where does OS X (I mean the OS, not data) reside after the installation is done? on the SSD? on the HD? I ask this because I have read that "the OS remains on the SSD," but, seemingly in conflict, that the SSD is for quick access to frequently used programs and data. Both could be correct.
Sorry for the length of this. And thanks.

The screenshot of DU within the booted Mavericks, not Recovery.
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.3 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *1.1 TB     disk2
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS LaCie                   499.1 GB   disk3s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             784.2 MB   disk3s3
And you know what this is, per your request. It shows the OS on the SSD portion, the Recovery partition on the HD, etc. It's a little confusing because the disk reference numbers do not agree with those in the screenshot below, but that probably is because the shot below results from booting from a USB stick.
Now to your comments/answers/thoughts:
(1) Issue of number of drives. This is a fuzzy iPhone screenshot of DU after booting from a USB Mavericks installation stick:
Looks like I cannot format the SSD directly, if that is what disk5 really is. Below I mention another possibility for getting it formatted (third paragraph from the end).
(2) Which source for new installation of Mavericks
I agree that it's probably best not to use the USB stick I have but to use the Recovery method to download a fresh copy. I'm not sure about the reliability of the USB vs downloading, either, but there is some evidence out there (somewhere -- I've seen it but I don't recall where) suggesting it.
(3) Where OS X is installed -- fusion drive portion or HD portion of the Macintosh HD:
From the information given with "disk5" in the screen shot just above, it does appear that after a USB boot, DU sees items separately, including the main storage (Macintosh HD), the Recovery partition (disk4-used also for creating the USB stick installer), and OS (disk5). Some of this layout may hold true with a "Command-R" boot from the Recovery partition, and I know I've looked at it but for the moment cannot recall the information.
Further, it appears the OS is on the SSD. It also appears it cannot be formatted UNLESS such formatting occurs when the target for the formatting process is "Macintosh HD." I am inclined to believe now that when I make this clean reinstallation, the new copy of OS X will be put on the SSD portion, as you state. I am aware that the moving of data back and forth from SSD to HD is outside user control.
Lowluster, thank you for answering my questions in such an organized fashion (that I can follow!). I feel confident now about proceeding even though not all questions are answered definitively.
Allan, I'm glad to know about fusing separately an SSD with an HD. It will be useful should I run into another user's desire to create a fusion drive. Thank you again.
David

Fusion drive in MacBook Pro late 2011?

Hi!
I am about to install a SSD in my MBP Late 2011 in the superdrive slot. The size of my hdd is 750 gb and I am going to install 120 ssd.
My question is... Do you recommend me create a fusion drive or just manage the storage by myself?
I like the idea of fusion drive rather than any other thing. Everything in the same unid and the system manage it for itself.
However, I have read some insights here and there about fusion drive is not as good idea as it seems in the beginning. Problems with the system (rainbow ball randomly) and drop in the general performance after a while.... Additionally, the battery life decrease due to system moving the files from here to there to try to boost speed of the system. Besides the both disk will suffer more as a consequence of this extra work.
Right now I am more eager to keep it separate and manage the storage myself using a symbolic links.
Can anyone tell their own experience?
Thanks in advance!
PS/ by the way... I will in either case I will perform a fresh install of the last version of mavericks without bring any old configuration of my previous arrangement.

Since your system doesn't ship with an option for 2 drives, the obvious recommendation is to not attempt anything that requires 2 drives (like a Fusion Drive setup).
You you can place your HDD in a tray and replace the optical drive. Doing this is hit-or-miss on if the HDD in the optical bay will work right, especially if it is a 6.0Gb rated drive. They seem to work fairly reliably for 1.5 or 3.0Gb drives, but not always so with newer, faster drives.
IF you you decide to try this, keep in mind that you don't have a SMS on the optical bay, and you will want to disable the SMS on the bay with the SSD.

New fusion drive

The new fusion drive. I read here that you couldn't add an external hard drive to it. Maybe, I missunderstood it, but that dosn't make sense. Please clear this up for me. I want to get one along with a Time capsule and us my existing hard drives.

A computer with a Fusion drive has no issues with external drives. My new iMac has three connected to it. The warning you read about refers to something else.
A fusion drive doesn't have to be bought from Apple. If you have an SSD and a hard drive you can create your own. The warning you read about is that you should not pair an external drive and an internal drive to create a fusion drive because it would be too easy to disconnect the external drive accidentally which would be a minor - if not major - disaster.

My Fusion Drive was splited in two

Hi to everyone.
I bought a mac mini late 2014 with fusion drive last month. My brother did the initial configuration with his apple id. When I tried to change to my apple id I didn`t get it. Then, I use ˜Find my Mac~to erase the mac mini and start over. But, when I tried to install OS X again the Fusion drive appeared splited in two: 120GB of SSD and 1TB of SATA HDD. I did the installation but now, I have two drive units in mac.
How can I join/merge these partitions? Am I need to reinstall OS X?
Thanks

Allan Eckert wrote:
There are command line instructions to create a Fusion Drive available on the web.
No need for any command lines.
Before doing any of below steps, if there is anything on the Mac Mini that needs to be saved, make sure that you have a valid backup of it: Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support
Start your mac and boot to Internet Recovery - power ON Mac Mini and after releasing power button (before mac's chime) press and hold ALT+CMD+R: let go buttons when you see spinning globe or - if you are using WiFi connection - when on the screen appears prompt to select WiFi network.
OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
When Interent Recovery is loaded, after prompt with choosing prefered language, select Disk Utility app and choose continue.
Next, select on the Disk Utility sidbar one of the disks that should be combined as Fusion Drive: Disk Utility will recognized that there is a problem with Fusion Drive and will prompt with question if you want to fix it. Selecting "FIX" button will re-create Fusion Drive and most likely erase all data on both drives.
More info: Mac mini (Late 2012 and later), iMac (Late 2012 and later): About Fusion Drive - Apple Support - check section "Lern More - Troubleshooting".
EDIT:
Learn more
Troubleshooting
The version of Disk Utility that comes with Fusion Drive is unique. Earlier versions of Disk Utility can't be used with a Fusion Drive.
If your system will not start because you see a flashing question mark or another alert:
Press the Power button and hold it down to power off your system.
Press the Power button again. After you hear the startup chime, press and hold Command-Option-R to start up to the Internet version of OS X Recovery.
A globe should appear with a "Starting Internet Recovery" message. It is now OK to release Command-Option-R.
A progress bar should appear and Internet Recovery should start and ask you to select a language.
Once you select a language, click Disk Utility in the window that appears and then click Continue.
If your Fusion Drive can be fixed with Disk Utility, you'll see a Disk icon with red lettering. Click the disk icon.
A dialog box appears offering to fix the Fusion Drive (shown above). Caution: Clicking Fix will erase your Fusion Drive. If you have a Time Machine backup of your Fusion Drive Mac, see Mac 101: Time Machine for information on how to restore from a Time Machine backup once the drive has been erased.
After the process is complete, the volume will change color to black. Quit Disk Utility, click Install OS X, then click Continue.

Creating a Fusion Drive Safely

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