Hybrid Hard Drive

I apologize if this has already been posted, didn't see it anywhere...

SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Samsung Electronics Ltd., the worldwide digital consumer electronics and information technology leader, announces the shipment of its hybrid hard drive to the commercial marketplace. Samsung's MH80 Series hybrid hard drive is offered in 80GB, 120GB and 160GB capacities. Samsung is a leader in hybrid hard drive technology and is one of the first companies to offer a commercially available unit. The MH80 hybrid hard drive is currently shipping to select OEM customers and will soon be available in retail and commercial outlets.

Optimized to work in conjunction with Windows Vista capable notebook PCs, Samsung's MH80 is a 2.5-inch hybrid hard drive with 128 or 256 megabytes of flash memory. It combines a hard disk drive with a OneNAND Flash cache and Microsoft's ReadyDrive software, offering faster boot and resume times, increased battery life and greater reliability compared to traditional magnetic media technology.

"As a leader in both hard drive and flash memory technologies, Samsung brings to market a unique hybrid hard drive that is sure to revolutionize the notebook computing experience," Albert Kim, national sales manager, Storage Systems for Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "The MH80 hybrid hard drive provides the ideal solution for two major issues that notebook PC users continually face: faster boot and resume performance and extended battery life."

The MH80 hybrid hard drive preserves the high densities of magnetic storage technology, while the advanced NAND flash technology enhances the overall value with lowered power consumption, higher reliability and faster read/write access than traditional hard drives. The MH80 features Samsung's ReadyBoot technology that offers up to a 50 percent reduction in boot and resume times from traditional magnetic media technology. In addition, the drive consumes 70-90 percent less power than a traditional hard drive, which extends the battery life by 30 minutes before a recharge is needed.

The MH80 also offers up to five times the reliability of traditional notebook PC hard drives. As the drive's platters are idle 99 percent of the time, the MH80 eliminates the need for the hard disk to constantly spin whenever a computer is operating on battery power. As a result, the drive is much less susceptible to shock damage, resulting in less data loss and fewer needed repairs. Furthermore, the drive operates at a lower temperature than a regular hard drive, reducing the likelihood of damage and hard drive failure.

For more information about Samsung's hard disk drive products, visit http://www.samsung.com.

 

Seagate is also releasing a similar hybrid-hard drive pretty soon.

 

i wonder if these models support current sata/pata connections?

 

Supposedly there will also be models with 1GB to 2GB. These models are supposed to offer a very significant performance boost, though not as much as a true Solid State Drive.