What turns a Core Storage drive into a Fusion drive is the introduction of automated storage tiering to mix. Which makes the Fusion drive possible, but it isn’t the only aspect. The key factor to Core Storage is that it allows a single volume to span multiple physical disks. When Apple introduced Lion, they added a logical volume manager (Core Storage) to the OS. I’ve addressed a lot of this information in comments on the OWC Blog, but figure it would be a good idea to review and further explain what a Fusion drive actually is as opposed to a Core Storage volume. They are two similar, yet different drive configurations. There have been many tutorials on how to create a Core Storage volume that have been labeled as “how to create a Fusion drive”. Up until now, most of the reports you’ve read about creating your own DIY Fusion drive on a machine have been incomplete.

The Profusion Of Fusion Confusionīut before we get to showing you exactly how to setup your own DIY Fusion drive, I’d like to dispel some mis-information that has been floating around the web.

A little over a week ago, Apple released OS X version 10.8.3 and, with one small caveat, our hopes were fulfilled. We’ve been waiting and waiting for Apple to release the next version of OS X Mountain Lion in hopes that the next full version would have all the necessary components to setup a Fusion drive on any Mac capable of installing a hard drive and SSD together.

Trim for mac oc 10.7.5 lion