Should I get standard hard drive or fusion drive on a new 21.5" iMac?

I'm thinking about getting a new 21.5" iMac.  How do I decide whether to get the standard hard drive (5400 rpm) or the Fusion Drive?  Besides Web surfing and email, I would be using it to play flash games, listen to Internet radio, and stream movies occasionally on Netflix. 

@TmanW:
Technically you cannot control where data goes on the Fusion drive 100% of the time as in the case of a two drive setup (SSD + HDD), but you can tilt where the data goes by watching disk usage and also partioning. My understanding how the Fusion drive works from MacPerformanceGuide.com (where they tested the Fusion on a late 2012 27" iMac) is that as long as you do not have more the 112GB filled on the Fusion, the drive won't kick data to the HDD when peforming tasks that use more than the 4GB buffer. I interpret this to mean as long as I keep the capacity below this 112GB threshold, I am more likely to get SSD performance. And to keep things under this threshold, one could just use the Fusion drive for system and apps only and perhaps targeted file usage (working Photoshop files that would be transferred back to non-SSD storage afterwards).
MPG also tested the Fusion drive with a partition method that biases the first partition to be 2/3 SSD and in this scenario a user can effectively (though once again not 100%) target SSD usage most of the time.
Once I get my new iMac, prior to cloning my existing system on to the Fusion drive, I will see firsthand if these tests are true to form with their results.

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  • Upgrade my fusion drive

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       0:                  Apple_HFS Mayfly                 *884.0 GB   disk2
    $ diskutil cs list
    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group 63DC419F-1A09-4C5B-977A-F59F79502CA1
       =========================================================
       Name:         FusionDrive
       Size:         888087773184 B (888.1 GB)
       Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
       |
       +-< Physical Volume B1B14251-2DB3-491C-9E7A-5C2FD11881BA
       |   ----------------------------------------------------
       |   Index:    0
       |   Disk:     disk0s2
       |   Status:   Online
       |   Size:     239713435648 B (239.7 GB)
       |
       +-< Physical Volume D0BA2837-514D-4620-8E1D-26D18137CA94
       |   ----------------------------------------------------
       |   Index:    1
       |   Disk:     disk1s2
       |   Status:   Online
       |   Size:     648374337536 B (648.4 GB)
       |
       +-> Logical Volume Family 736A8900-FE9C-4342-A932-EDC35444774C
           Encryption Status:       Unlocked
           Encryption Type:         None
           Conversion Status:       NoConversion
           Conversion Direction:    -none-
           Has Encrypted Extents:   No
           Fully Secure:            No
           Passphrase Required:     No
           |
           +-> Logical Volume B4997853-59F8-4480-BB48-3481B2F2A123
               Disk:               disk2
               Status:             Online
               Size (Total):       884000030720 B (884.0 GB)
               Size (Converted):   -none-
               Revertible:         No
               LV Name:            Mayfly
               Volume Name:        Mayfly
               Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
    $  sudo gpt -r -vv show disk1
    Password:
    gpt show: disk1: mediasize=750156374016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1465149168
    gpt show: disk1: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
    gpt show: disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
    gpt show: disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1465149167
          start        size  index  contents
              0           1         MBR
              1           1         Pri GPT header
              2          32         Pri GPT table
             34           6        
             40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
         409640  1266356128      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    1266765768     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    1268035304         280        
    1268035584   197111808      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
    1465147392        1743        
    1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
    1465149167           1         Sec GPT header
    $ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1
    Disk: /dev/disk1     geometry: 91201/255/63 [1465149168 sectors]
    Signature: 0xAA55
             Starting       Ending
    #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
    1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 254  63 [         1 - 1268035583]     *2: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1268035584 -  197111808] HPFS/QNX/AUX
    3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     
    4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

    My setup is very similar to your's, Ryan, on a Mac Mini5,2 and the ordering is different and Winclone was not used.
    1. New Mini with internal 500GB with Mountain Lion(ML), put into an external FW enclosure, so the Mini can/could be booted using an external drive for contigency.
    2. Replaced internal stock HDD (500Gb/5400rpm) with SSD/HDD (256Gb SSD/1TB 5400rpm).
    3. Installed W7 x64 on 64GB partition on HDD, which was a single-partition drive to begin with.
    4. The remaining HDD partition and the entire SSD was put into a Fusion drive.
    5. Using Command-R, new ML installed on Fusion HD.
    Here is what I currently have...(Disk0 - SSD, Disk1- 1TB HDD, Disk2 - Fusion, Disk3 - External FW).
    diskutil list
    /dev/disk0
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         255.7 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                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
       2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         934.5 GB   disk1s2
       3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               650.0 MB   disk1s3
       4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                64.9 GB    disk1s4
    /dev/disk2
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:                  Apple_HFS Fusion HD              *1.2 TB     disk2
    /dev/disk3
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk3
       1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk3s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS Rescue HD               371.8 GB   disk3s2
       3:                  Apple_HFS Leopard HD              31.9 GB    disk3s3
       4:                  Apple_HFS Snow Leopard HD         31.9 GB    disk3s4
       5:                  Apple_HFS Lion HD                 31.3 GB    disk3s5
       6:                 Apple_Boot Lion Recovery HD        650.0 MB   disk3s6
       7:                  Apple_HFS Mountain Lion HD        31.3 GB    disk3s7
       8:                 Apple_Boot Mountain Lion Recove... 650.0 MB   disk3s8
    diskutil cs list
    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group A8C00490-0E14-401F-AB69-59F37724E8C4
        =========================================================
        Name:         Fusion
        Size:         1190201270272 B (1.2 TB)
        Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 4772013B-5520-4801-9BE5-BCAEF4AEDAB3
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    0
        |   Disk:     disk0s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     255716540416 B (255.7 GB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume A679A101-3C78-4A59-B5EE-A4339210CFAD
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    1
        |   Disk:     disk1s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     934484729856 B (934.5 GB)
        |
        +-> Logical Volume Family 5EF5C7CA-0B9C-4169-82A1-41C84F206672
            Encryption Status:       Unlocked
            Encryption Type:         None
            Conversion Status:       NoConversion
            Conversion Direction:    -none-
            Has Encrypted Extents:   No
            Fully Secure:            No
            Passphrase Required:     No
            |
            +-> Logical Volume 1512657C-ED13-4B31-82C6-7AECBBCA7F98
                Disk:               disk2
                Status:             Online
                Size (Total):       1185508581376 B (1.2 TB)
                Size (Converted):   -none-
                Revertible:         No
                LV Name:            Fusion HD
                Volume Name:        Fusion HD
                Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
    sudo gpt -r -vv show disk1
    gpt show: disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168
    gpt show: disk1: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
    gpt show: disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
    gpt show: disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167
           start        size  index  contents
               0           1         MBR
               1           1         Pri GPT header
               2          32         Pri GPT table
              34           6        
              40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
          409640  1825165488      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
      1825575128     1269544      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
      1826844672   126679040      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
      1953523712        1423        
      1953525135          32         Sec GPT table
      1953525167           1         Sec GPT header

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