Looking at switching from a 2016 Macbook Pro to an iMac 27 3.7 6-core with 2TB fusion drive. Right now I really only use the macbook in desktop mode connected to a caldigit t3 hub and two 4k monitors. I have never used a iMac before and I can get a good deal on it, but I scared of going to a fusion drive. I primarily do photography with Lightroom and Photoshop. Now all of my photos are stored on a Synology NAS, so will I really see a difference with the Fusion drive from the SSD on my macbook pro?
Take a look at this post. It may be helpful.
FWIW I would take the smallest SSD over a 2TB Fusion drive. Just guessing, but I think even if there were no room on your internal SSD to host the Lightroom catalog, hosting it instead on an external SSD, even USB 3.1, would be a better experience than hosting it on a Fusion drive.
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I will never go back to fusion, or any kind of spinning disk after four years with SSD. I am though going back to iMac when my 2014 laptop finally wears out from the pounding I give it. I won’t have fusion though. My needs are small and I will maybe, to future proof myself, get the just over 500 GB solid state storage.
That said your storage needs will be far greater than my tiny ones. I just have pdfs and plain text and odds and ends, maybe 300 photos in total. I can’t advise as such but I really would not want to go back to a spinning drive again myself.
Avoid the Fusion drive!
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Don’t get a Fusion drive. My 2010 iMac went through 3 hard disks in its life, the last of which was a Fusion drive, and at the end it was beachballing all the time. If I had upgraded the drive I would still have had a machine with primitive Bluetooth, USB 2 and ethernet being the fastest I/O. I know it’s hard contemplating moving house to a smaller drive, but you can keep a bus powered SSD velcro’d to the back of the iMac.
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Or, get a backpack.
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Ended up going with a refurb 2019 iMac with the 8 core and 580x gpu. Got a 512GB hard drive and 8 gig of ram. Got a 32 GB ram kit from OWC so now have a total of 40 GB ram all for about $2500. So far loving the upgrade.
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Congratulations. You’ll love it!
I am almost sure now that I will go the exact same route as you did!