Hybrid or not?

I posted a similar thread under Hardware Components ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=131149) but will risk a double post because no one seems to really have an answer and I believe this will be of interest to others too.

Essentially, I'm buying a 3415W and need advice on whether to go for the Hybrid hard disk from Samsung or a normal spin-all-the-time one.

DIGev put it better than me: "will the (Hybrid) constantly spin when I'm running a game, or will it load data to the flash stop spinning and once I need data again it will empty start spin etc? If it does it seems like you would get nice 20 seconds pauses when gaming, plus it would really wear down the HDD since it has to spin up and down so much."

Neither Samsung, Zepto nor Windows or any other forum I've seen has any info on this. Far as I gather the Hybrid's main advantage is to speed up boot times but I'm not too concerned about this or power consumption. What I am concerned about is that the Hybrid, in having to spin up frequently (every 20mins or so even running normal windows apps) will wear itself out a lot sooner than a normal hard drive, especially when gaming, video-editing etc, which I intend to use the lovely 8600M GT for.

Am I better off without the Hybrid in terms of longevity of my hard drive?
Thank you

 

No body knows. No one has one yet. No one has tested it. The hybrid drive is the same as the Intel Turbo Memory (ITM). Intel Turbo Memory has gotten some bad reviews and it is still buggy. So it is too ealry to tell if it works.

The use of hybrid drives will be more limited then the Turbo Memory because the samsung hybrid disk only has 256MB flash and the ITM 1GB.

I recommend you get a faster 7200RPM disk. Next week or 2 the 160GB 7200RPM disk is expected to be available from Zepto. It will be faster then the hybrid disk and if flash turns out to be a good battery saver then you can buy and install the ITM after market.

 

Depending how you set it up from your power options it might not ever have to spin up/down - so I guess one question answered.
As for the performance I haven't seen myself any benchmarks but I would expect they would be speedier in specific tasks.

 

I think, from what I have been told, is that you can disable the flash memory if you want, and if something larger than a specified size the HDD will constantly spin. Still I'm not 100% on this, but it seems like it could work out nicely, if not I will just replace the HDD with a faster one later.

If you are willing to wait till late June I can give you a review how the hybrid HDD performs during gaming and otherwise.

 

Mate, I'd appreciate that. However, I'm in a tight spot and need this blasted thing a.s.a.p- I will place the order sometime next week. I guess that does mean late June

Also, from what I read it does seem like the system is smart enough (or you can tell it to) to spin the hard drive up and keep it spinning if required. If so, that is all I need to know, as apart from games the programs I run are ultra light and so I will probably benefit from hybrid for these tasks.

Curious how it is so hard to find info on how the hybrid operates and how it will be integrated into the power-options on the machine. Admittedly it is a new technology, but that is all the more reason to publish what it actually is and how it works so that the consumer for lack of ability to test it can make a reasonably informed choice. meh.

 

I have not seen any hybrid reviews. There was one from a german site. I will try to find it. But they only tested a beta version.

Here is the llink with google translate:
http://www.google.com/translate?u=h...est-31060-1.html&langpair=de|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8