I don't get SSHDs

[_JP_]

...not as in "how they work" or "what's the purpose", rather why only Seagate actually moved to slap proper 32GBs of SLC NAND in one 2.5'' drive at one point and see the performance actually two-fold the usual 8GB SSHDs and then discontinue them, Toshiba and WD doing nothing different.
Considering PCB real-estate, the 3.5'' drives make even less sense.
I would consider it would be a standard for non-RAID oriented HDDs by now to just be SSHDs, caches primary and secondary growing accordingly, besides the capacity.
Realistically, I would expect a 2TB+64GB+1GB 2.5'' drive to exist by now, for the same price of a 1TB TLC SSD, caching supplanting spin speed to match SSD burst transfers, then capacity to cover the price-point vs. SSD's raw speed.
A FireCuda is 2TB+8GB+128MB.

Economically, does it make it that noncompetitive or unfeasible to manufacture and sell?
Is there someone in this forum from the industry that can answer me that?

I just keep seeing them being sold as FireCudas and, honestly, besides making great external drives, or just plain cheap high capacity storage to add to any machine, I don't get why it's tech that doesn't evolve.

 

[Rei]

Realistically, I would expect a 2TB+64GB+1GB 2.5'' drive to exist by now,
A FireCuda is 2TB+8GB+128MB.

Just to clarify, the "1GB" & "128MB" is the disk cache; is what you mean, right?

I would say that I have better performance on my desktop PC with FireCuda 2.5" SSHD compared to an my other ordinary mechanical 3.5" HDD. It's not greater performance, but still bit better, surprisingly. Then again, my both mechanical HDD is over a decade old so maybe that could be why would two 7200 RPM drive loses to a 5400 RPM drive in sequential speed. Honestly, the performance gain can sometimes be felt while other times are unnoticeable.

Realistically, I would expect a 2TB+64GB+1GB 2.5'' drive to exist by now, for the same price of a 1TB TLC SSD, caching supplanting spin speed to match SSD burst transfers, then capacity to cover the price-point vs. SSD's raw speed.

I like this. This is a viable strategy. Wish it came true or would've happened by now.

 

[John Naylor]

1. The SSHD / SSHD / HD quandry throughout recent history has been mostly about price per GB. We haven't used a HD in about 10 years ... in that time had 3 SSD failures (early models) and 0 SSHD failures. We put SSDs and SSHDs in just about every build, most desktops get 2 of each. In the last 1.5 years or so SSD pricing has allowed for those with sufficient budgets to just go w/ SSDs.

2. basically have 5 of these @ Office 5 at home ... the office boxes:

SSD1 (500 GB) - OS and Programs
SSD2 (500 GB) - Most demanding games
SSHD1(25% / 75%)* - Clone of OS Programs / Data
SSHD2 (2 GB) - Other games

Windows Startup from SSD - 15.6 seconds
Windows Startup from SSHD - 16.5 seconds

With 5 boxes at home and 5 at the office set up mostly like this (some have just 1 SSD and SSHD), I took the opportunity to change the boot order w/o the user's knowing every cupla weeks ... no one has ever noticed.

2. I think if ya stop focusing on the tech, and consider just how fast it gets things done, it's easier to understand. Does a 0.9 second advantage in Windows load time do anything for me ? How about $200 back in my pocket ?

3. The 2 TB SSHD is 2.57 times faster in THGs gaming benchmark than a HD ... along with the price per GB

4. One tech aspect you're not including is the user ....if you load a large presentation file w/ lots of graphics and pictures so you can edit ya bosses comments, how would you approach this task ?

a) Stare at the screen and see how long it takes too load, then start flipping the pages to see what and where the edits are name making sure you can read bosses chicken scratch.
b) Click to open the filed, then while its loading, start flipping the pages to see what and where the edits are name making sure you can read bosses chicken scratch. By the time you have finished, the file is sitting there.

5. The must be a reason why the SSD side has not increased ... I suspect it is because testing has shown that it provides little performance advantage at considerable increased costs. We noticr the changes as typical production office workflow is that we work on a project for a couple of weeks ... the files being used by team mebers are used frequently and therefore are sitting on the SSD poortion of the drive. Then as that project is finished and a new one started, the ild project's files are swapped out to the mechanical portion and the new project's files are on the SSD portion. Even with gaming, the same story follows.... When you finish Fallout 4, those files are swapped out for Fallout 5.

Technical advancement follows market necessity ... i can only conclude, bigger SSD portions don't exist because the marketplace doesn't have many users that would benefit from it.

 

[newtekie1]

This is exactly why I stopped buying SSHDs years ago. This size of the SSD cache just never got bigger and 8GB became too small. Now I buy regular cheap HDDs and a smallish SSD and use Primocache. Right now I have a very cheap WD 8TB 5400RPM drive paired with a 512GB SATA SSD Cache that I use for my games. Most of the time it feels like I'm loading games off an SSD, because I am.

 

[_JP_]

Thanks for your inputs, fellas!

To match your experiences, I actually have an ST1000LX001 that I got new thinking that those would be around for many years to come. When it came out, it was really expensive, that much I remember, so when I bought it, must have been when it was about to be discontinued as the price had dropped enough to be an interesting option. Right now, finding one is about as easy as a jewel.
In my line of work, the most common were the ST500LM001 and ST1000LM014 and later LM015. And while they would beat 7k2rpm 32MB "regular" cached drives, there was a noticeable difference still from the likes of SSDs, once workloads got though or changed at some point. Before the 8GB cache would actually be put to work right, it would be apparent.

Mine has worked in a laptop for over a year and right now is used to put the One S's internal drive to shame. To be honest, on regular usage I can vouch that it will be indistinguishable in experience from TLC SSDs. So I can tell those 32GB of cache make a considerable difference.
My query originated from this. The LX001 and LX003 are not being made anymore, there is no actual successor to those, but ST1000LM015 and ST2000LX001 are still sold, for the 2.5'' factor.
Right now, one would think a bit of evolution in the meantime would have actually yielded higher capacity caches, considering 32GB and 64GB SSDs are pretty much gone, and we would have SSHDs rivaling some solid state offers for price/performance/capacity.

Just to clarify, the "1GB" & "128MB" is the disk cache; is what you mean, right?

Yep!

(...)I took the opportunity to change the boot order w/o the user's knowing every cupla weeks ... no one has ever noticed.

That would be outcome I've always expected of the SSHDs with bigger caches and for the most part, the 32GB ones do accomplish it.

2. I think if ya stop focusing on the tech, and consider just how fast it gets things done, it's easier to understand. Does a 0.9 second advantage in Windows load time do anything for me ? How about $200 back in my pocket ?

3. The 2 TB SSHD is 2.57 times faster in THGs gaming benchmark than a HD ... along with the price per GB

4. One tech aspect you're not including is the user ....if you load a large presentation file w/ lots of graphics and pictures so you can edit ya bosses comments, how would you approach this task ?

a) Stare at the screen and see how long it takes too load, then start flipping the pages to see what and where the edits are name making sure you can read bosses chicken scratch.
b) Click to open the filed, then while its loading, start flipping the pages to see what and where the edits are name making sure you can read bosses chicken scratch. By the time you have finished, the file is sitting there.

5. The must be a reason why the SSD side has not increased ... I suspect it is because testing has shown that it provides little performance advantage at considerable increased costs. We noticr the changes as typical production office workflow is that we work on a project for a couple of weeks ... the files being used by team mebers are used frequently and therefore are sitting on the SSD poortion of the drive. Then as that project is finished and a new one started, the ild project's files are swapped out to the mechanical portion and the new project's files are on the SSD portion. Even with gaming, the same story follows.... When you finish Fallout 4, those files are swapped out for Fallout 5.

Technical advancement follows market necessity ... i can only conclude, bigger SSD portions don't exist because the marketplace doesn't have many users that would benefit from it.

Reading it all, user experience would be a crucial factor to have the products changing, of course, as that would create demand, but regarding your last sentence, the conclusion I take is that users that want more just sacrifice space for speed and get an SSD. As it is the reality for the majority today, actually. After all there would be users that could benefit from it, the product just doesn't exist.
I'm good for boot on an NVMe and have games on a SSHD, if that SSHD also accompanied game install sizes to a certain extent. I'd save money and have the capacity.

This is exactly why I stopped buying SSHDs years ago. This size of the SSD cache just never got bigger and 8GB became too small. Now I buy regular cheap HDDs and a smallish SSD and use Primocache. Right now I have a very cheap WD 8TB 5400RPM drive paired with a 512GB SATA SSD Cache that I use for my games. Most of the time it feels like I'm loading games off an SSD, because I am.

Ya see, I like that approach (besides agreeing with you), but the option of having a single 2.5'' drive doing the trick would be more appealing for a number of cases.

 

[Kapone33]

About 2 or 3 years ago Newegg had 2.5 2TB SSHDs for $75 Canadian. I bought 2. I tried RAID 0 but SSHDS are not made for that. I used one as extra storage and stored the other one. I have a laptop that started feeling like molasses. It was a 1 TB 2,5 HDD and I replaced that with the other one and wow. Which brings me to what SSHDs are great for, as boot drives.

 

[_JP_]

However event as boot drives, the drives that exist right sort of fall short easily as soon as you need an extra bit of software you use regularly.
The increase in BOM to have slightly larger disc cache and SSD cage certainly wouldn't put that 2TB drive close to $200 and people would benefit for a versatile alternative, at the expense of some overall average bit higher energy consumption.

I remembered that there was a Seagate rep in this forum at some point. His/her input would be interesting to have.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

...not as in "how they work" or "what's the purpose", rather why only Seagate actually moved to slap proper 32GBs of SLC NAND in one 2.5'' drive at one point and see the performance actually two-fold the usual 8GB SSHDs and then discontinue them, Toshiba and WD doing nothing different.
Considering PCB real-estate, the 3.5'' drives make even less sense.
I would consider it would be a standard for non-RAID oriented HDDs by now to just be SSHDs, caches primary and secondary growing accordingly, besides the capacity.
Realistically, I would expect a 2TB+64GB+1GB 2.5'' drive to exist by now, for the same price of a 1TB TLC SSD, caching supplanting spin speed to match SSD burst transfers, then capacity to cover the price-point vs. SSD's raw speed.
A FireCuda is 2TB+8GB+128MB.

Economically, does it make it that noncompetitive or unfeasible to manufacture and sell?
Is there someone in this forum from the industry that can answer me that?

I just keep seeing them being sold as FireCudas and, honestly, besides making great external drives, or just plain cheap high capacity storage to add to any machine, I don't get why it's tech that doesn't evolve.

That's a possibility for the future, in storage processing is fairly new and maintaining a cache system requires it.
I don't think the tech was quite there , but then the cost of ssds might make it unfeasible.

 

[newtekie1]

Ya see, I like that approach (besides agreeing with you), but the option of having a single 2.5'' drive doing the trick would be more appealing for a number of cases.

I definitely agree. In those rare cases, an SSHD would be my choice.

The increase in BOM to have slightly larger disc cache and SSD cage certainly wouldn't put that 2TB drive close to $200 and people would benefit for a versatile alternative, at the expense of some overall average bit higher energy consumption.

I don't think the tech was quite there , but then the cost of ssds might make it unfeasible.

The cost would not be outrageous. If you figure a complete 240GB SSD costs under $30, that gives you an idea of about what the extra cost would be at add that SSD to an HDD.

If we look at the 1TB laptop drives for example. A 5400RPM Barracuda drive is $50. The current Firecuda is $60. The 7200RPM WD Black is $70. If Seagate took the Barracuda, slapped a 240GB cache SSD on it, and sold it for $80, I'd buy it over the WD Black every single time. And I don't even think they would have to sell it for $80, the could probably do $70 since they aren't buying entire retail SSDs.

 

[Deleted member 193596]

SSHDs are just a trick to make people buy their shitty old hard drives.

i had two of them (for two PS4 consoles)
they were MUCH slower than the normal Samsung Spinpoint that was already inside.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I definitely agree. In those rare cases, an SSHD would be my choice.





The cost would not be outrageous. If you figure a complete 240GB SSD costs under $30, that gives you an idea of about what the extra cost would be at add that SSD to an HDD.

If we look at the 1TB laptop drives for example. A 5400RPM Barracuda drive is $50. The current Firecuda is $60. The 7200RPM WD Black is $70. If Seagate took the Barracuda, slapped a 240GB cache SSD on it, and sold it for $80, I'd buy it over the WD Black every single time. And I don't even think they would have to sell it for $80, the could probably do $70 since they aren't buying entire retail SSDs.

You can get 1Tb nvme drive for £100 , competitively it's a fail sshd.

 

[claes]

I appreciate the novelty of SSHDs but, for manufacturers, they are exactly that — a novelty.

Manufacturers have had a hell of a time producing reliable HDDs while increasing capacities, and then had to adopt to building controllers for a new medium of storage. Given how many broken controllers we’ve seen for HDDs (Seagate 7200.11, WD SMR), and how many broken controllers for SSDs (too many to count), it’s no wonder that manufacturers aren’t excited about integrating two emerging technologies that perform very differently into a single product, especially given the current market (race to $/tb, with SSDs and HDDs competing in entirely different market segments). It’s also no wonder that the leaders of SSD controller technologies are those that focused on RAM and other technologies that have only recently become “storage,” as opposed to those who established themselves in the sacred art of manufacturing disk platters.

HDDs, which mostly function really well, are useless for most consumers that are not prosumers/gamers or people looking for storage. Most consumers need 1tb (these days) and are set for the duration of the life of their machine. SSDs, an emergent technology that comes with hiccups, are going to totally eliminate the need for HDDs (eventually). We are too small of a market to invest in that risk.

 

[CheapMeat]

I wish SSHDs would have at least progressed one more generation because I still find them interesting. Others made good points already. But I wish just a little bit more of it was available to satisfy my interest. The 2.5" stop at a quite low capacity as mentioned.

 

[yotano211]

SSHDs are just a trick to make people buy their shitty old hard drives.

i had two of them (for two PS4 consoles)
they were MUCH slower than the normal Samsung Spinpoint that was already inside.

I tested the 2tb samsung spinpoint vs a firecuda 2tb 2.5 SSHD's, the firecuda was about 14% faster than the spinpoint. The overall average speed was higher on hdtune with the firecuda.

 

[Rei]

SSHDs are just a trick to make people buy their shitty old hard drives.

i had two of them (for two PS4 consoles)
they were MUCH slower than the normal Samsung Spinpoint that was already inside.

That is not how SSHD works. Naturally, if you pop it into a console, you'd have to use it for a bit longer periods of time compared to a regular PC to reap the full benefit of an SSHD. As such, SSHD was never really meant to be used well on consoles.

 

[_JP_]

The cost would not be outrageous. If you figure a complete 240GB SSD costs under $30, that gives you an idea of about what the extra cost would be at add that SSD to an HDD.

If we look at the 1TB laptop drives for example. A 5400RPM Barracuda drive is $50. The current Firecuda is $60. The 7200RPM WD Black is $70. If Seagate took the Barracuda, slapped a 240GB cache SSD on it, and sold it for $80, I'd buy it over the WD Black every single time. And I don't even think they would have to sell it for $80, the could probably do $70 since they aren't buying entire retail SSDs.

THANK YOU! I didn't put it into words that well, but that was my logic, yes!! 4TB+240GB 2.5'' Barracuda for $90, GO!

SSHDs are just a trick to make people buy their shitty old hard drives.

i had two of them (for two PS4 consoles)
they were MUCH slower than the normal Samsung Spinpoint that was already inside.

The SpinPoint was an HDD in a class of its own (had an MP4 that was amazing for 10 years). However, I have my SSHD loading the usual games on the xbox way faster than the internal drive, a regular 5k4rpm drive, which I'm sure I would still notice that difference it if I were to hack the console and replace it inside. Games that aren't played that often sure don't start as fast for a few times, but they are still faster by a few noticeable seconds.
It's not like the xbox OS is that big to load and an SSHD is still feasible for SATA2/3, given most metrics put the cache reading above SATA1 speeds.

I appreciate the novelty of SSHDs but, for manufacturers, they are exactly that — a novelty.

Manufacturers have had a hell of a time producing reliable HDDs while increasing capacities, and then had to adopt to building controllers for a new medium of storage. Given how many broken controllers we’ve seen for HDDs (Seagate 7200.11, WD SMR), and how many broken controllers for SSDs (too many to count), it’s no wonder that manufacturers aren’t excited about integrating two emerging technologies that perform very differently into a single product, especially given the current market (race to $/tb, with SSDs and HDDs competing in entirely different market segments). It’s also no wonder that the leaders of SSD controller technologies are those that focused on RAM and other technologies that have only recently become “storage,” as opposed to those who established themselves in the sacred art of manufacturing disk platters.

HDDs, which mostly function really well, are useless for most consumers that are not prosumers/gamers or people looking for storage. Most consumers need 1tb (these days) and are set for the duration of the life of their machine. SSDs, an emergent technology that comes with hiccups, are going to totally eliminate the need for HDDs (eventually). We are too small of a market to invest in that risk.

Though I understand your argument, I do agree their mainstay right now is around a novelty factor in the market (for OEMs, they are the bottom choice for storage in laptops), but I do think if the drives did evolve and products like the WD Blue/Black, SG Barracuda, SpinPoints, HGST DeskStars and whatever Toshiba named theirs just started being SSHDs, those would be common place for anything that wasn't RAID-focused, me thinks.

I wish SSHDs would have at least progressed one more generation because I still find them interesting. Others made good points already. But I wish just a little bit more of it was available to satisfy my interest. The 2.5" stop at a quite low capacity as mentioned.

3.5'' hybrids also top at 2TB, but for 2.5'' SG actually makes a 4TB, it's just not easy to find them...and it's not a SSHD

 

[newtekie1]

You can get 1Tb nvme drive for £100 , competitively it's a fail sshd.

I was using the 1TB drive just to show how the pricing would work. The real fit for SSHDs would be large drives. If all I wanted was 1TB, I'd buy a $100 SSD.

 

[Kapone33]

I wish SSHDs would have at least progressed one more generation because I still find them interesting. Others made good points already. But I wish just a little bit more of it was available to satisfy my interest. The 2.5" stop at a quite low capacity as mentioned.

Seagate dropped the ball because they cheaped out. They never increased the size of the SSD Cache as prices fell. The only reason I got the 2 TB Firecuda was it was $75 Canadian. They are good as boot drives but for what you get it sucks as though Games do load faster, as the size of assets loaded in Games can now overcome that 8 GB of SSD NAND. They are obsolete though because you can buy a 2TB HDD and a 120 or 256 GB NVME and combine then to give you way more performance for about the same price.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I was using the 1TB drive just to show how the pricing would work. The real fit for SSHDs would be large drives. If all I wanted was 1TB, I'd buy a $100 SSD.

Ok but to be fair I already mentioned this would need more processing power on it to manage the cache, especially if 3 tiered increasing costs , I can't see it holding out against the present decline in SSD costs but I'm not saying it's a bad idea just hard to market effectively.

 

[newtekie1]

Ok but to be fair I already mentioned this would need more processing power on it to manage the cache, especially if 3 tiered increasing costs , I can't see it holding out against the present decline in SSD costs but I'm not saying it's a bad idea just hard to market effectively.

More processing power than a full SSD? I think the micro-controllers that already exist would do just fine.

 

[_JP_]

I can't see it holding out against the present decline in SSD costs but I'm not saying it's a bad idea just hard to market effectively.

The thing is that the rapid decline in SSD's price are being now led by DRAM-less and QLC drives which are proving themselves to be on-par with HDD's performance for sustained writes and/or multiple small files. The only thing going for them is still read speed...but hey, give an SSHD enough cache and we could talk.

 

[Kapone33]

There are some Intel Optane drives that are like 256 or 512GB of QLC with 16 or 32GB of Optane flash. Are they any good or can you even tell the difference?

 

[_JP_]

The thing with Optane is the price and that you need a whole platform around it.
SSHD's requirement is a SATA port.

 

[Kapone33]

The thing with Optane is the price and that you need a whole platform around it.
SSHD's requirement is a SATA port.

What I am talking about are PCIe M2 drives that have OPtane cache much the same way as an SSHD. You don't need a whole platform (just a lot of money) for Optane just a spare PCIe x8 slot it looks like for the 905P.

Amazon.ca

 

[xrror]

Also as an aside, SSHD's really DO NOT like it if you boot multiple OS's from them.
If you get really unlucky, you can actually brick the drive.

But I've never seen this discussed anywhere online - I guess it was a very extreme minority of SSHD users who also dual-boot linux apparently?