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    Any hybrid drives with large flash cache? Want to buy for 2nd drive.

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by mas5acre, Jul 13, 2008.

  1. mas5acre

    mas5acre Notebook Evangelist

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    I keep reading about hybrid drives with a paltry 256mb of flash cache. I want the largest cache I can get. By the way, this is for my 2nd drive, not my boot drive. Just want a lower power drive for more capacity. My boot drive will be a mlc Ocz 128gb ssd drive.
     
    mas5acre, Jul 13, 2008
    #1
  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    you have already asked this question, and the answer is that hybrid harddrives are not any better than a conventional drive. The extra cache does nothing for the harddrive and through pcmark and other benchmark utilities, the difference between a 160gb 5400rpm drive with and without the 256mb cache buffer is actually negative, with the drive with more cache being the slower of the two. The technology did not offer any benefits, which is why harddrive manufacturers do not make hybrid drives anymore.

    Just get any large capacity drive like a 320gb 5400rpm drive and that will be more than enough for your needs.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Jul 13, 2008
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  3. RasBastard

    RasBastard Notebook Consultant

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    Gotta agree with K-Tron here. It was a gimmick in the face of impending SSD drives but there were no performance gains. Also i believe there is an article on tom's hardware dispelling the myth of SSDs having lower power consumption as compared to conventional HDs. So that's something else to consider.
     
    RasBastard, Jul 14, 2008
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  4. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Tom's hardware's conclusion is false. Ask anyone with a SSD (aka Les).
     
    sgogeta4, Jul 14, 2008
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  5. Jamaicanyouth

    Jamaicanyouth Notebook Evangelist

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    Jamaicanyouth, Jul 14, 2008
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  6. Jamaicanyouth

    Jamaicanyouth Notebook Evangelist

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    Jamaicanyouth, Jul 14, 2008
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  7. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    That's about SSD's. Not hybrid drives. And even then, the conclusion was that not all SSD's are faster/more efficient/give better batterylife than mechanical harddrives.
     
    fabarati, Jul 14, 2008
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  8. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The conclusion is really nothing break through. I mean even between similar sized and speed mechanical hard drives, there are a lot of variation between figures. Of course one cannot generalize about SSDs since there are several different types (SLC vs. MLC, for example), different controllers/algorithms, different generations, etc. In the SSD thread, there is a link with the updated results.
     
    sgogeta4, Jul 14, 2008
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  9. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

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    Introducing a new place to store data between the HD and RAM is not only pointless, its actually detrimental to performance due to the extreme latency of this flash memory when compared to much faster RAM; consider a line of men passing buckets of water to each other to put out a fire. Why would you introduce another slow man (flash) next to the slowest guy (HD) in the line?
     
    Bog, Jul 14, 2008
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