Seagate Ships New Hybrid Hard Drives

[btarunr]

Building on the momentum of its current line of solid state hybrid drives (SSHD), Seagate Technology plc today announced it will begin shipping its third-generation of SSHD products. Featuring the Seagate Laptop SSHD, 7 mm-high Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD designed for the thinnest and lightest laptops in the industry, and the all-new Seagate Desktop SSHD, the line of drives will deliver blazing-fast performance and high-capacity at an affordable price.

Boasting solid state drive (SSD) like speed and hard disk drive capacity, the new Seagate Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs are the most affordable way to increase your laptop performance. With storage performance up to 40 percent faster than previous generations, the Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs can add as much as 30 percent to total system performance – regardless of the processor inside the system. These products also enable system builders to build high-performance, high-capacity systems, including new thin and light laptops, at mass-market price points.



Seagate SSHD technology is up to 5 times faster than a standard 5400RPM notebook hard drive. Boot a laptop in less than 10 seconds with the powerful combination of Windows 8 and SSHD technology. In fact according to PC Mark Vantage tests every action related to getting information from storage is faster— booting, loading files and applications, and running computer-based tasks.

With a massive 1TB of capacity available, the Laptop SSHD provides the space needed to download, store and stream rich media content such as gaming or high-definition video without sacrificing performance or responsiveness. And with a 500GB option measuring only 7mm-high, the Laptop Thin SSHD can be incorporated into most ultra-thin, ultra-sleek laptop systems.

"Seagate's engineers have really out done themselves this time. Our new SSHDs serve up your favorite content with the lightning-fast performance you have to experience to believe. With these new drives it's like adding a turbo-charge to your PC, without having to sacrifice capacity, at a price that's easy on your wallet," said Scott Horn, Seagate's vice president of marketing. "Now consumers can create, store and consume digital content like a pro without having to spend like one."

"Seagate's SSHD technology reinforces our focus on delivering the most reliable PC solutions in the industry," said Kirk Schell, vice president, commercial PC group, Dell. "Dell plans to incorporate Seagate technology across an array of our next-generation products so our customers can benefit from the quality, performance, responsiveness and increased capacity these SSHD's can provide."

"By incorporating Seagate's SSHD technology into our product offerings we are able to address customer demand for greater speed, shorter boot up and response times, optimum storage capacity and better battery life, all at a lower price point," said Jerry Gross, vice president, Lenovo global procurement. "As we continue to drive PC innovation in today's markets we look forward to integrating this SSHD technology into a number of our PC families, providing an excellent blend of value and performance for our customers."

New Seagate Desktop SSHD— Ultrafast Performance in a Desktop
With the Seagate Desktop SSHD, users can now experience SSD-like performance while enjoying the capacity of a desktop hard drive— all at a fraction of what a similar size SSD costs. The Desktop SSHD enables a desktop system to boot in seconds not minutes for an "instant on" experience, run favorite applications faster or simply breathe new life into an aging desktop PC. The Desktop SSHD will perform up to 4 times faster than other desktop HDD-based storage alternatives, as measured by PC Mark Vantage benchmark software, regardless of the CPU inside.

Using Seagate's own breakthrough Adaptive Memory technology, to identify and store only the most critical data a system needs to go fast, the Desktop SSHD serves up high-performance without a high price tag. As a result, the Seagate Desktop SSHD will cost you just slightly more than a standard hard drive while delivering dramatically faster performance.

The Seagate Desktop SSHD features up to 2TB of massive capacity and 8GB of NAND Flash making it ideal for accelerating the most commonly used PC applications and delivering extreme desktop performance with all the storage capacity needed for any computing scenario.

"Our customers want the highest storage capacity with the ability to access their data easily and quickly," said Fredrik Hamberger, vice president, consumer PC business, HP. "Integrating Seagate's SSHD solution into our rapidly growing portfolio of industry leading PCs will offer our customers a superior experience while running multiple applications."

"Whether you're into video editing, music or gaming, with Seagate's new Desktop SSHD you can now have your cake and eat it too," said Kevin Wasielewski, CEO and co-founder of Origin PC. "With SSHD technology you don't have to sacrifice massive capacity when you choose faster performance. SSD-like speed, hard drive capacity—all at an affordable price—makes the Seagate Desktop SSHD a perfect choice for gaming enthusiasts like me."

For more information on Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drives please visit this page.

[TheLostSwede]

Well, let's see what these things will cost first and foremost...

[Geofrancis]

when will they do it properly and put a decent amount of flash on the drive instead of 8gb? i mean that wont even fit a windows install so what use is it for programs? unless you run your laptop for the sole purpose of internet explorer.

something with atleast 16 or 32gb of flash would allow it to keep the OS and all your programs on flash and allow the hard drive disk to power down to save power.

[ironwolf]

This is very spooky... I was talking with some friends yesterday about Seagate killing off 7200 RPM laptop pure mechanical drives and we agreed that Seagate was probably fixing to announce 1 TB hybrid laptop drives and maybe a hybrid desktop drive.

Very interested in seeing how these initially price out. Guess: jacked up pricing from the sellers.

[SeventhReign]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

when will they do it properly and put a decent amount of flash on the drive instead of 8gb? i mean that wont even fit a windows install so what use is it for programs? unless you run your laptop for the sole purpose of internet explorer.

something with atleast 16 or 32gb of flash would allow it to keep the OS and all your programs on flash and allow the hard drive disk to power down to save power.

Wow ... you dont pay attention, or actually read the articles do you? The 8GB of flash is not to install too. It is a cache used to increase the transfer (read/write) speeds of your HDD. It is basically identical to the 32gb and 64gb caches used by standard HDD's. The difference is, it is capable of much much much faster transfer rates. Think of it like 8Gigs of RAM inside your HardDrive.

[Prima.Vera]

Will this work on SATA I laptops? I would prefer buying something like this, since SATA I speeds are crap anyways and no worth investing into an SSD...

[EzioAs]

Originally Posted by SeventhReign

Wow ... you dont pay attention, or actually read the articles do you? The 8GB of flash is not to install too. It is a cache used to increase the transfer (read/write) speeds of your HDD. It is basically identical to the 32gb and 64gb caches used by standard HDD's. The difference is, it is capable of much much much faster transfer rates. Think of it like 8Gigs of RAM inside your HardDrive.

+1 although I think you meant 32MB and 64MB.

[malyleo]

On my desktop machine I do have a Raid 0 with 2x 512GB Hardrives and that's cached through 50Gb Crucial Adrenaline SSD CACHE. Works perfectly, amazingly fast. Cheap way to speed up without the need to reinstall the system.

So finally they are bringing these two together. 8GB should be enough for speedy booting and the most often used applications.

[Geofrancis]

Yes I know how it works. What I mean is that with 32gb of flash to buffer it should never have to power up the hard drive expept for some occasionally used files and it would be able to keep the entire OS and all your software on the cache so it would perform like a pure ssd.

like the 1Tb OCZ Revo hybrid. it has 128gb of flash and a 1tb hard drive but on a Pci express card. Seagate could so the same but all internal built into the drive via sata III instead of pcie

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

Yes I know how it works. What I mean is that with 32gb of flash to buffer it should never have to power up the hard drive expept for some occasionally used files and it would be able to keep the entire OS and all your software on the cache so it would perform like a pure ssd.

like the 1Tb OCZ Revo hybrid. it has 128gb of flash and a 1tb hard drive but on a Pci express card. Seagate could so the same but all internal built into the drive via sata III instead of pcie

If that is what you want you might as well just buy a 32GB SSD. However, that isn't the point of these drives. The 8GB is to cache the most used files. Pretty much all of the files Windows actually uses fits in about 4GB of the cache, and the rest is for your most commonly used programs. It is actually pretty pointless to install all of Windows to an SSD, it is a pretty large waste of space actually.

The point of these drives is to use a smaller amount of SSD space as a cache to keep the drives at basically the same price as a traditional hard drive.

The the 1TB 2.5" is $150. Those are extremely competitive prices for that amount of space in 2.5" drives especially considering they are also 7mm as well.

I will say I'm a little bummed they didn't up the amount of space in the desktop version to 16GB though. I was kind of hoping for that.

And this also isn't a new product line, the first Seagate Hybrid drive came out back in May 2010. It was a 500GB drive with 4GB of cache. Then I believe they released the 750GB with 8GB cache about a year later.

[NC37]

Got a 64GB Synapse with about 30GB usable for caching and I'll just say...you can use up that space with modern games. I've noticed it. It says is cached the most used titles but switching between SWTOR and BF3 I noticed when going back to SWTOR the load times would all reset. Even after I used them multiple days in a row, it would always reset. Like it had to clear out the data to load more.

So yeah for system files 8GB or so is fine but if your expecting quick loads in gaming...I kinda wished I went for the 128GB model.

[malyleo]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

Yes I know how it works. What I mean is that with 32gb of flash to buffer it should never have to power up the hard drive expept for some occasionally used files and it would be able to keep the entire OS and all your software on the cache so it would perform like a pure ssd.

like the 1Tb OCZ Revo hybrid. it has 128gb of flash and a 1tb hard drive but on a Pci express card. Seagate could so the same but all internal built into the drive via sata III instead of pcie

Before I went to buy the Crucial Adrenaline, I was looking at the Revo Hybrid drive, the speeds are amazing, but they do come at a steep cost. I can imagine that solution in a professional workstation, that would benefit from the capacity and speed best. If they say that this 2.5'' hybrid drive is about $150, that's a very competitive price. I can see more of these drives in all shapes and sizes coming in near future. The SSD cache helped my system a lot, the boot time got down to around 15-20 seconds until it's fully loaded. I mostly play Civilization V, and the loading times in the game are amazingly fast now. So far, in 8 months, the cache failed just once. But it didn't cause any problems nor did I lose any data.

[Melvis]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

And this also isn't a new product line, the first Seagate Hybrid drive came out back in May 2010. It was a 500GB drive with 4GB of cache. Then I believe they released the 750GB with 8GB cache about a year later.

The real question is are they any good? are they faster then a standard HDD and are they more reliable?

If so im interested, if not then ill pass.

[NeoXF]

I think the desktop parts aren't 7200RPM either, I think they are 5900RPM, like their new 4TB Barracuda.15... (notice how it isn't called 7200.15 instead?). However they promise up to 40% more performance then the former generation... tho on desktop, there is not such thing. Either way, I'm kind of interested in the 2TB Hybrid, apparently $149... so about 160E in my country... Oh well.

[EpicShweetness]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I will say I'm a little bummed they didn't up the amount of space in the desktop version to 16GB though. I was kind of hoping for that.

As am I, I use a 20GB cache and I feel it is sufficient for my needs. However, I also feel that some larger games with large maps/areas that I play often (MMORPG's), 8GB of cache would choke, so WTF Seagate if your gonna make a 3.5 variant why not through some more NAND chips in.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Melvis

The real question is are they any good? are they faster then a standard HDD and are they more reliable?

If so im interested, if not then ill pass.

Faster, yes, depending on what you are doing. If you are the kind of person that only plays one or two games at a time, and only switches to a new game once you are done playing the old. Yeah it will be faster than a mechanical drive once it learns that you've switch games. When you first start playing the new game it will be the same as a standard drive, but as you play it it will get faster until the cache is filled.

Originally Posted by NeoXF

I think the desktop parts aren't 7200RPM either, I think they are 5900RPM, like their new 4TB Barracuda.15... (notice how it isn't called 7200.15 instead?). However they promise up to 40% more performance then the former generation... tho on desktop, there is not such thing. Either way, I'm kind of interested in the 2TB Hybrid, apparently $149... so about 160E in my country... Oh well.

I'm sure the desktop parts are 7200RPM, the laptop parts are so it would be stupid for the desktop parts not to be. Plus, Seagate said they are moving away from 5900RPM drives a while ago. They only reason the 4TB drive is 5900RPM is because every time a new larger drive is released they release it in a slower RPM first to test the technology, then they release a 7200RPM version a few months later.

[Baum]

As a day 1 user of seagate 320GB momentus xt with 4GB SSD onboard, single platter Sata-1 150 accordingly to my laptop i have to say just buy them!

The drive had some serious issues in the first days but firmware updates got them, just take into account that these take more power than they safe, yet you get some good benefit like no software is needed and the caching works good

in my case the drive made some chirping noise when parking heads, and the first firmware was unstable as hell but then it was fixed

[NeoXF]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

They only reason the 4TB drive is 5900RPM is because every time a new larger drive is released they release it in a slower RPM first to test the technology, then they release a 7200RPM version a few months later.

Come to think of it, there's also word of a 7200RPM version with 128MB cache that has the same model code as for the 5900RPM/64MB except for a letter... So you very much might be right. Oh well, we'll see.

[SirMango]

I hope these will be affordable. When on sale, the Momentus XT 750GB could go for $90 and at that price it was was quite tempting.

It's too bad these new hybrid drives still only come with 8GB of NAND flash. I would think going to 16GB or 32GB would be better on the long run performance-wise, but I could be wrong.

[NeoXF]

Someone needs to do a RAID 0 review of the desktop parts ASAP.