How's this for an idea for SSD's and Hard Drives?

To get the best of both worlds, wouldn't it be nice to have a hard drive that came with say 16GB of reasonably fast SSD space in the same enclosure so you could do an OS install in the 16GB SSD and everything else in the hard drive. This way you could get a snappy OS with the capacity for everything else.

This would be great for a laptop that typically has only a single hard drive bay.

Just a thought.

 

*runs to patent the idea before anyone else* {add evil laughter here while character runs away}

 

Not for laptops, but similar to what you are talking about:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_spec.php?pno=HDDBOOST&area=usa

Years ago there were "hybrid HDDs" with ~256MB flash on them but those died out fast.

 

D'oh! You beat me to it!

 

Interesting, I never would have guessed something like this would have existed...

 

Kind of, yeah. Except 256MB flash wouldn't be enough to store an OS, even a reduced XP. Wasn't that 256MB more of a cache than anything else?

These days I think a major HDD vendor could get 16GB SSD cheap, and maybe even compact enough to fit inside an existing 2.5" HDD enclosure with an HDD. 16GB could install an OS plus your common apps like Office, PhotoShop, whatever. It would just show up as a partitioned hard drive.

Most laptops people use have a single drive bay, and many people just can't justify the cost of a larger SSD. Sure the drive would cost more than a traditional hard drive, but a lot less than most SSD's of a decent capacity.

 

Are you familiar with Silverstone products?

 

I guess I'm just thinking of an actual separate SSD and HDD, not one to boost the performance of the other (like a write-cache). Just trying to get some benefit of a super fast SSD for OS tasks, but the storage of a hard drive in a single 2.5" spec enclosure to fit in a laptop.

 

eh, I think it will be somewhat impractical to implement.

But it doesn't matter as the entire HDD market will be slowly but surely switching to full SSDs. There are already 500GB SSDs out for desktops and a 1TB version is coming in a couple months. Of course the cost is still stratospheric. Hopefully within the next 10 years SSDs will become as widely accepted and cheap as HDD are now.

 

i really want an SSD for my boot drive

 

How is it impractical. Come on people work with me here!

Ten years is a LONG time in the computer industry. It doesn't matter how big they are if they are too expensive nobody will buy them. I don't see SSD's becoming widely implemented until prices get under control. I bet it will take a two times cost of an SSD over a same size hard drive for the market to bear it on a grand scale. Would I pay $200 for a 500GB SSD? Absoutely. Will I pay $1500? Absolutley not.

 

it's not just the memory that cost money, there's the controller as well, which is arguably more important.
this could work in a laptop. but no way i'm buying this for a desktop. where i would have the space, and redundancy is always good.

 

See, that's what I'm talking about. Laptops are crippled by having only a single hard drive bay. But give people the chance to have a boot drive with a 16GB partition and have storage on the hard drive, and you have a winner.

 

I agree, that's primarily what I was thinking, as stated before, because most laptops only contain a single hard drive bay.

For a desktop you could get by with even a 32GB SSD for a boot drive and have as much storage as you wanted with multiple drives in your desktop.

Obviously yes there would be some development needed for a controller to manage this, but that would be part of the package. I think it would fill the void until SSD costs are more reasonable. And even as SSD prices drop you could add larger SSD's in this new hybrid drive until it got to the point that it would make more sense to go strictly SSD.

 

ssd prices are dropping fast though, i think capcity is set to double this year, for roughly the same price.

 

If that's the case, then forget it. If they can get the prices reasonable in two years then no need, of course nobody can predict that.

 

What we really need is more notebooks to support mini-pcie SSD cards....and for notebooks to come equipped with more than the standard 2 mini pcie expansions slots.

 

intel will have 600GB SSD at the end of the year, with the 80GB being there "v" drive. so 80GB intel SSD should be no more than 120$ in a year.

 

Well, that's not promising. 80GB for $120? When you can get a 500GB for under $100, and probably under $50 in a year.

Good point. I would be nice to have an extra expansion slot for something like this.

 

I'm with you on that SSD's are just to expensive, $120 for 80gb is a joke, if some company were to produce your idea I bet it would be huge.

 

I'll buy a SSD when its like $80-$100 for 200GB+ lol

 

This has been sitting in my mind for awhile now, lol. I'm not sure why it hasn't caught on. Must be the cost of implementation or something.

 

Dell's Precision M6500 is one such example:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456417
It's a nice feature. You can get a 64GB mini-PCIe SSD and use it for the OS/programs, and use the two hard drive bays for storage.

I think another nice feature is the Latitude ON feature - allows the computer to run off the mini-PCIe module without powering up most of the other components (= insane battery life vs. normal operation).

 

That's the problem though. There's niche laptops that could accommodate something like this, but a drive that would work with a normal SATA connection would be compatible with ALL SATA laptops.

Time to do a patent search (dibs!)

 

Sounds like an awesome idea for laptops! It would be really nice for netbooks (amusing it's affordable).

Desktops can just get a SSD for the OS/programs and a HDD for the files since you get like 6 bays.

 

Ha, me too! Prices atm are ridiculous!

 

Didn't someone say this was going to be an option on Dell Precisions?

16Gb is a bit small though, given how large Windows + detritus can get. 32 would be more sensible.

 

Why not just grab a 32Gb ssd for under a hundred bucks, pull the DVD out, buy an adapter and throw the hard drive in place of the DVD...

My 1810T does not have a DVD and I don't miss it a bit.

 

First of all, where would you find such an adapter, and secondly aren't most optical drives still IDE? Plus you wouldn't have the appropriate cover to the outside of the laptop.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4936086

 

Too many caveats, room for error, and seems to be machine specific. In other words, too much work, too restrictive, and too complicated for your average consumer. I wouldn't even want to mess with it, judging from the number of posts based on these. I couldn't find anything that would work with my Sager for example.

 

I thought of this hybrid concept myself, and so has the SSD manufactures

They don't want to do it, or do it yet... because They wanna make money !!!!

Why make a cheap hybrid SSD/HDD when you can charge ridiculous prices for SSD, and try to justify it by saying it's a new technology

 

Ridiculous. The price gap is too huge to say they're going to lose customers.

When a laptop 500GB hard drive costs less than $100 and a 512GB SSD costs $1700 or a 250GB hard drive costs $60 and 256GB SSD costs $700 there's such a huge gap there that you're not going to make less money, but more.

They could grab a large number of "average" laptop consumers with something like this. People could justify a $100 to maybe $150 price premium for something like this. I mean even a decent gaming rig like an Asus costs only $1000 to $1200. Do you really think someone is going to spend 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of their machine for their storage drive, and still have less storage than they'd probably like? That's outrageous.

 

120 to 160 GB SSD will be around $100 within 18-24 months. I almost guarntee it

 

MLC SSD's which are the cheaper form of flash used instead of SLC are getting better and better. Used to be massive gap between the two the MLC lasting less long, creating more heat and being generally slower. Now however the performance gap has practically closed and prices are dropping quickly. I think by 2015 SSD's will easily be mainstream.

 

I hope so too... i really need an SSD... my OS boots too slowly

 

LOL. Yeah, most likely. And then a 1TB notebook hard drive will cost $120.

 

have yet to see one of those

 

In 18 - 24 months? I bet you will.

 

I think there might be a couple of reasons why mfg don't do this.

The SSD controller is far more difficult to implement than a HDD controller (at this point). The controller costs the same whether it is a 16GB drive or a 160GB drive.

The hybrid drive would have to have all the costs of a SSD controller plus the costs of a HDD controller. All the costs of a rotating platter plus the cost of NAND.

The energy consumption would be higher than a HDD. I don't recall that SSDs use less power if they are smaller, so most of the power must go to the controller. HDD + SSD power draw.

It would be easier for someone to buy an existing SSD in 32GB size and add an efficient 5400 rpm HDD in the extra drive bay.

 

SSD boot drive in express card slot. Mechanical HDD in the main storage bay.

 

i understand how you think the idea is sound. but it isn't. you lose most gains of an ssd including the fast performance of the whole system.

i understand how it's a cost/benefit ratio you try to do, here. and i can understand it from that point. other than that, there are more simple solutions for your needs.

and you do one thing in that thread very often, that is completely wrong: you measure the worth of an ssd by it's cost per gb. you measure it's worth as a storage device. don't. measure it's worth by gain/$ over a hdd. then it's worth every cent, did so even a year ago.

 

I think the idea doesn't work, otherwise intel will make 16GB turbo memory already.

 

But it isn't gain/$ over an HDD exactly. It does come down to cost, period. I understand that SSD's have a significant read/write advantage, but that most users can't justify that cost over capacity. Again, just because you can justify spending $500 for a 160GB drive, most people own laptops that cost less than roughly twice that amount before the SSD. Some people require capacity. So why not make something that can accommodate both?

Someone mentioned SSD in ExpressCard slot. I don't see many SSD's that are high speed that would work in an ExpressCard slot.

 

i know your arguments. but you fail to notice two things:
a) spending that money on an ssd, but REDUCING the amount spent on the laptop will mean more bang for the buck (a bit slower cpu, a bit less ram, both won't be missed, they're much overrated)

b) buying an ssd for an existing laptop instead of getting a new laptop is more cheap, and gives you more bang for the buck, too. much more

c) most people DON'T require half a tera of storage in their laptop. esp. if they get sit back one day, and clean up what they don't need. yesterday i got asked how one can fix that winamp takes half an hour to start up just because his music library of 250000 songs is a bit big.

the solution: get RID OF IT. you can't listen to all that, get the music you like, and the problem is solved.


c) is about changing habits, and thus, VERY hard. not so hard with a home server, so not so hard for you


and yes, everyone can justify spending 500$ on a high end gpu, so everyone can justify spending 500$ on a high end ssd, that gains you more.



disclaimer: i KNOW there ARE situations where it really would be useful. i just argue that they're not that common than people think.

 

daveperman, you're just one of those people I refuse to make a point to because you are 100% one sided always. If it fits you it fits everyone.

Think about a gaming laptop where games required 10,12,15 or more GB of storage each. Think about videos and photos and music. Home Server is great for BACKING UP everything, but do you really want to download a GB of photos or video files, or whatever over your spotty 3G connection or crappy wi-fi wherever you seem to be sittting, not to mention your own home ISP limited upstream speeds?

320GB and 500GB hard drives wouldn't be so cheap and so much used if they weren't "common" as you so speak.

And why would I buy a new laptop just for an SSD? That's absurd. SSD's are interchangable, CPU's and GPU's very frequently are not, that is why you buy a new laptop.

You speak specifically for you you you, not considering people have different habits, wants, and needs than you do. Open your mind and maybe try stepping out of your basement for once. Away from your home server.

 

no. i'm just bringing other ideas, giving thoughts. i know your points and they're valid.

we manage here gaming desktops with tons of games. they have 300gb hdds. works without an issue. if you would restrict yourself to focus on the games you actually play, you would NOT need much storage for them. steam is great for that

uhm.. how often do i have to do that? how often you? how much of your terabytes of storage do you actively, daily use? most you don't. that fits all on the home server. the rest, you have locally. and that rest is some mere gb.
it's a matter on focussing on the important part. then, 160gb is much more than enough. i have all my important pictures with me, i have all of my music with me. about anything i need often. i have 40gb full. i could install 4 games or such if i want with ease.

not everyone needs terabytes ACTIVE RIGHT TO USE.

they're that common because there was no option ever. and change is hard.

why would you build a new laptop that is suboptimal, paying money for stuff that doesn't give you speed in the end?

i'm away from home about any day, always out in the clubs with friends, organizing events and such. i've left the basement ago for something called reallive.

yet home server still solved all of my storage problems.