News - Western Digital and Sandisk team up to create hybrid SSHDs

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We already saw one of the fruits of this partnership; the WD Black 5mm Hybrid.

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Read more.

OK, someone make an ultra-slim Temash 13" laptop with one of these drives in it *NOW* - then TAKE MY MONEY!!!

The thing I don't get is why the SSD has to be paired with a top end HDD? Surely if the hybrid is doing it's job properly the HDD performance is barely relevant?

Wish they'd release a SSD and HDD hybrid with separately addressable drives.
OS on SSD, data on HDD.

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Originally Posted by Willzzz

The thing I don't get is why the SSD has to be paired with a top end HDD? Surely if the hybrid is doing it's job properly the HDD performance is barely relevant?

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The SSD cache would speed up any mechanical drive, but as soon as you hit anything out of the cache, that bit of data is going to go pretty slow. If you have a dog slow HDD in there, the difference is going to be unacceptable and no one would buy it. With a top end HDD you are at least going to get the best performance possible, whether the data you want is in cache or not.

And most of the cost will be a combination of the materials and the SSD portion. Swapping the WD Black HDD portion for a WD Green wouldn't make much difference in price, meaning that people willing to pay that bit extra for the hybrid drive are getting a bag of crap instead.

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Originally Posted by mikerr

Wish they'd release a SSD and HDD hybrid with separately addressable drives.
OS on SSD, data on HDD.

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I actually think this makes much more sense. 24GB is barely enough for an OS and apps, but it will be more than enough for the parts of the OS and apps you load regularly as well as page file. And when your usage changes, for instance you end up spending a lot of time in Photophop which hadn't been used for months, then that then benefits from being inside the cache.

Since when has a WD Green HDD been "dog slow"?

For bulky files like videos performance just isn't an issue.

You get the idea though. A hybrid drive is a performance component, so should have high speed SSD and HDD portions.

Surely the whole point is if the files are accessed frequently (i.e. OS loading files) then they'll get put onto the SSD by default so is it really needed to make it a manual operation and fragment the space provided?

Personally I'd rather save a little on the HDD and add a bit more NAND, especially if this cuts power consumption at all.

I don't see the purpose of these, is it that they're just cheaper than SSDs?
Because in every other way, I think I'd much rather an SSD!

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Originally Posted by Roobubba

I don't see the purpose of these, is it that they're just cheaper than SSDs?
Because in every other way, I think I'd much rather an SSD!

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It contains the best of both worlds - rapid access speeds where most needed and decent storage space. A 500GB SSD costs... lots.

For a desktop and many larger laptops you'd have a decent, larger SSD and a separate hard drive for data and media, but this isn't intended for those devices—I assume the market for these are Windows 8 Pro tablets and ultrabooks.

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Originally Posted by Roobubba

I don't see the purpose of these, is it that they're just cheaper than SSDs?
Because in every other way, I think I'd much rather an SSD!

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It's all well and good if you have a desktop, with a 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, or a laptop with an 128GB SSD connected to a home server with all your media on it.

Typical usage scenario for most people is one laptop, with everything they have on it. And, they'll keep installing junk, downloading video files, and so on. A 128GB SSD alone simply won't be big enough. So then, either you get a USB hard drive (which is likely to be USB2, since they won't know the difference between USB2 and 3), and forget to take it with you, lose it, wait an eternity to get files on and off it... so on and so forth.

I agree that now, tech-inclined people can get away with just an SSD on all their devices if they plan accordingly, but it's not going to work for everyone.

I was a bit sceptic about hybrid drives until I got one. I have the latest Mac with a 'Fusion' drive in it. It's implemented as a 3TB mechanical drive and 128GB SSD drive. It's VERY fast.

128GB is pretty decent, 24GB is a bit naff.

Well it all depends on how it's implemented I guess. By definition not all of a Windows install is going to be used all the time or even ever. How many people use iSCSI at home for example etc. Assuming that it's transparent to the OS, there's no reason to assume that the capacities won't go up in any case, and a 1GB mechanical with 64/128mb SSD component would probably represent the current top end for most mobile users.