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    hard drive configuration question

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by paradoxguy, Jan 2, 2014.

  1. paradoxguy

    paradoxguy Notebook Evangelist

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    I am starting to shop for a used/refurbished notebook PC. I've seen a few listings in which the hard drive (HD) is described as "500GB HD + 32GB mSATA" (as an example). Is this a hybrid drive or two separate drives (standard and solid state)? If the latter, how do they work together? I've read comments that the solid state drive is not user-accessible (meaning the user cannot save files directly to it), only the standard drive is--if this is true, how does the PC determine which files are stored on the solid-state drive? Please pardon my ignorance, and thanks for reading and any information.

    PG
     
    paradoxguy, Jan 2, 2014
    #1
  2. ajkula66

    ajkula66 Courage and Consequence

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    Nothing is stored on the SSD. It's used as a cache drive to improve boot and response times.
     
    ajkula66, Jan 2, 2014
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  3. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    I can't think of any caching SSD that doesn't have accompanying software. The software takes anywhere from a couple days to a week to learn your usage pattern and then caches your most used things onto the SSD.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Jan 2, 2014
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  4. ajkula66

    ajkula66 Courage and Consequence

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    Correct, but that's not what I would call "storage". I guess I should've worded my previous post differently.
     
    ajkula66, Jan 2, 2014
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  5. paradoxguy

    paradoxguy Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for the responses. Admittedly I didn't understand the concept of cache well when I read your responses--this prompted me to read a few references on cache, which I now comprehend.
     
    paradoxguy, Jan 3, 2014
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