Although the new iPad Mini got most of the attention, Apple also announced some new iMacs. Part of that announcement was the Fusion Drive, which combines an SSD (Solid State Drive) with a regular electromechanical drive. But it’s more than just a hybrid device, OS X has special routines that take advantage of the SSD part. Essentially, OS X keep track of what files and applications you use the most and moves them to the SSD so they load much faster, automatically. It also saves information written to the disk on the SSD and only moves it to the hard drive if it isn’t accessed for a while.
What this means in real-world terms is you’re going to find these new iMacs significantly faster at boot up and application start than previous iterations with the same speed CPU. And even if you spend most of your day in just one or two applications, the improvement in disk I/O should still be noticeable.
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