How to Recover Data from a Fusion Drive (with Pictures) - Tools

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Everything You Need to Know About macOS Fusion Drives

What is a Fusion Drive? How is it different from an SSD or HDD? A Fusion Drive is a hybrid drive. It contains both a hard disk drive and a solid-state drive. This is the way manufacturers do it. Apple places the SSD separate from the HDD on the computer's motherboard and relies on macOS to integrate the two. But your files aren't stored separately on the two drives. macOS intersperses the data so that it functions as one large drive. A Fusion Drive has the following advantages:

• The SSD and the hard drive appear to the system as a single block device. • A portion of the SSD is used as a write-back cache to absorb write traffic, hide latency, and boost write performance. • More frequently accessed data is stored on the SSD. Larger, less frequently accessed data is stored on the HDD. • If data that's stored on the HDD suddenly becomes more frequently accessed, the software that manages the Fusion Drive usually moves it to the SSD.

How to Get a Fusion Drive Not all Macs have the option to choose a Fusion Drive. You won't find it on a MacBook or Mac Pro. Most iMacs do, though. You can also check manually if your Mac has a Fusion Drive.

Click “About This Mac” > “Storage.” If you have a Fusion Drive, it will be labeled as “Hard Disk + Flash Storage” or “Fusion Drive.”

How to Check if You Have a Fusion Drive

Why Would You Lose Data on a Fusion Drive?

Fusion Drive is also subject to the same kinds of problems as any other storage device. Data can be lost from it:

Fusion Drive has split

How to Recover Data from Fusion Drive

There are three ways to recover data from a Fusion Drive: use data recovery software, a backup, or a data recovery service.

1 - Use Mac Data Recovery Software

Is there any way to recover data from a Mac Fusion Drive? Yes, the answer is to use a Mac Data Recovery Software! This DIY solution comes in very handy when you don't have a backup. The software supports all major document, photo, video, and audio files. With the Mac Data Recovery Wizard tool, lost data from a Fusion Drive can be recovered. Download the software and retrieve your data from the drive now.

Step 1: Scan for lost data on the Fusion Drive

Select the Fusion Drive partition from where you lost data and files, then click on the “Search Lost Files” button. If you are unsure which is the Fusion Drive partition, click on the “Search from Disk” link text to check the partition name.

Note: Before you recover data, it is recommended that you click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar and create a backup of the Fusion drive to prevent further data loss. After backing up the Fusion drive, the software can recover data from the Fusion drive backup and use it again.

Choose a location, then click “Search for lost files.”

Step 2: Look for the Lost Files

The “Data Recovery Wizard for Mac” tool will immediately scan your Fusion disk partition and display the scan results. You can filter files by file type and path.

Step 3: Recover files from Fusion Drive

From the scan results, select the files you want to preview. Then, click the “Recover” button to get them back.

Use a backup

If you have a backup of your Fusion Drive, you can recover your data from the backup drive — an proactive measure to prevent any data loss disasters.

Also read: How to Backup Mac Without Time Machine

3 - Utilize Data Recovery Services

This process can be expensive, and if you use a data recovery service, you'd need to send all of the storage media that makes up your Fusion Drive to the provider.

How to Fix a Split Fusion Drive (Bonus Tips)

If it appears as two separate disks in Finder, you can continue to use the drives independently, or follow these steps to repair the separated Fusion Drive.

1 - Look for a disk labeled “Fusion Drive.”

If it does, and you need not do anything.

2- Create another Fusion Drive.

Before you begin, make sure to back up your data. We'll be using macOS Mojave for this example.

Step 1: Turn on your Mac and press and hold “Command-R” to start up from macOS Recovery. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.

Step 2: From the menu bar, choose Utilities > Terminal.

Type diskutil resetFusion in the terminal window, then press "Enter."

Step 3: Type “Yes” and press “Enter.”

When you see the “Operation succeeded” message, exit Terminal to return to the macOS Utilities window. Choose “Reinstall macOS,” then follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall the macOS operating system.

You see that your Mac creates a Fusion drive containing the reinstalled macOS, and it starts up from that drive.