Hybrid ssd drive for laptop review. Hybrid hard drives

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Two-in-one devices have always attracted buyers because combining technologies in one device often improves the performance of the devices. Naturally, the price for the set will be decent. Take, for example, a video dual device, a laptop-tablet or an MFP. Manufacturers of hard drives also decided to resort to crossing the two technologies, introducing inexpensive SSHD drives to the market. The article focuses on the hybrid hard drive, the pros and cons of the device, as well as reviews from happy owners.

A holy place is never empty

Expensive technology of very fast SSD drives and affordable but very slow magnetic HDDs, have created a huge gap in the hard storage media market, both in the price and speed categories. There was an urgent need for a golden mean that could satisfy the user not only with characteristics, but also at an affordable price. This is how a symbiosis appeared - SSHD disks. Nothing depends on the user in the operation of the device. Everything works automatically. In fact, for the owner the process of operation of the hybrid drive will be invisible in terms of installation and installation. No drivers need to be installed, the controller is detected and managed Computer BIOS. You can only see the result - a significant increase in performance, which is noticeable when loading the system and launching resource-intensive applications, including games.

How it works

The principle of operation is quite simple and is somewhat reminiscent of the operation of a central processor. Magnetic hard drives have long used caching technology, where frequently used information is read from a magnetic disk and written to the memory of the built-in chip on the hard drive. The chip size is disproportionately small (8-128 MB), but this is quite enough for the system to operate. Naturally, the chip is able to communicate with the processor at enormous speed. The technology used by hybrid hard drives involves the presence of another chip created using SSD technology, but with a larger capacity. As a result, the processor turns to the hard drive for information.

1. If the information is in the level 1 cache, it is provided instantly.
2. If the information is not in the 1st level, the access is transferred to the 2nd level cache. Since the second level uses an SSD, information is also quickly provided to the processor.
3. Information is read from the surface of the magnetic disk, which slows down the operation of the entire system.

Feasibility of installation

At first glance, it may seem that the main consumers in the market for these drives are owners of personal computers. After all, for a laptop, devices without rotating components are preferable for safety and shock resistance reasons. However, judging by numerous reviews from owners, hybrid hard drives are purchased specifically for laptops. Portable devices require volume first and then performance. And if for personal computer While it is not problematic to install several storage devices of different form factors, the laptop has a serious limitation. In addition, installing an SSD is impractical due to limited capacity and high price.

Reasons to buy a new drive

For most laptop owners, the main problem in their work is the failure of the hard drive with the loss of important information for the user. As an alternative solution, the seller offers three options.

1. Install the same HDD drive, for example a 500 GB hard drive, but with increased shock resistance of 1000 G. In this case, the purchase costs will be minimal, as will the performance.
2. Install an SSD, losing capacity, spending a lot of money, but gaining in performance.
3. Install a hybrid SSHD drive, getting high performance, affordable cost, and large capacity.

Naturally, thanks to this approach of sellers, judging by the numerous reviews from happy customers, hybrid drives have conquered the portable device market.

Two hard drives in a laptop?

It is not necessary to install a hybrid hard drive for a laptop instead of a standard device. Due to the presence of a mass of various adapters on the market, it is possible to install an additional hard drive in the system. There are many options. Beginning with USB interface and eSATA, ending with soldering unused SATA ports to motherboard portable device. And only one option deserves special attention from users. We are talking about a device called Second HDD Caddy, which resembles a pocket for connecting hard drives to a running personal computer.

Due to its size and interfaces, this pocket should be installed instead of a standard DVD optical device. Naturally, it can only be installed in laptops where this drive is preinstalled. As a result, the user receives a second hard drive, which, in addition to a huge amount of storage capacity, provides excellent performance at an affordable price.

Priorities for PC

A hybrid hard drive for a computer will be more useful for game lovers. After all, most synthetic tests on office computers show that the weak link is the processor or video adapter, but not the magnetic disk. And only in gaming systems, when there is a powerful video card, a strong central processor and a fast RAM, the hard drive becomes the culprit of all problems.

Installing an SSD can solve performance problems, but the high price and small amount of memory do not suit half of potential buyers. Judging by numerous reviews, the hybrid device is also used under the system. 8 GB Level 2 cache allows you to accommodate working system Windows with all its services and drivers, including the page file. This offload will not only allow games to run faster on the processor and memory, but will also significantly speed up the work of applications related to video encoding and working with flash.

How to see performance

Hybrid hard drives are the only drives that allow you to see first-hand system performance, as well as measure and compare the results before and after improvements. It sounds fantastic, but it's a fact. Everything is very simple. After installation and installation operating system The controller on the drive needs time to capture frequently used files, which it places in the second level cache. Sometimes you have to perform 5-7 system reboots for the drive to start working in the desired mode, providing high performance. If the SSHD disk was purchased as an additional drive, for games, for example, then you need to launch the game, play, exit, and restart the computer. The result of the controller's operation will be noticed immediately when the operating system or favorite game loads several times faster.

What's on the market for PC

When choosing, the user may encounter the problem of selecting the required device. We are talking about the assortment - it is too small for the huge market of computer components. Market leaders Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba introduced the world to devices with SSHD technology. But only Seagate provided the buyer with a choice; the rest were limited to a couple of models. Judging by numerous expert reviews, all developed countries have long replaced magnetic drives with SSDs. And only in third world countries, where not every buyer can afford a device at a high price, are such hybrid miracle devices sold. The manufacturer Seagate offers customers SSHD drives in all sorts of variations, ranging from memory capacity and cache sizes of the 1st and 2nd levels, ending with spindle speed.

Decent model

Hard drives with a capacity of several terabytes will not surprise anyone today. In pursuit of volumes, the user loses sight of many other factors.

1. Speed ​​of chaotic reading from disk. The larger the volume, the more difficult it is for the read head to find information. Even though this parameter is measured in milliseconds, the result is quite noticeable in a synthetic test.
2. Rationality of purchase. Reading reviews from many buyers, we can conclude that there is no point in purchasing a drive larger than 1 TB. Having spent a large amount for excess space, the user is not able to fill it with data.

Apparently, the manufacturer Seagate also came to the same conclusions, focusing on a 500 GB SSHD hard drive with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm. It is the ST500LM000 model that participates in all synthetic tests to compare performance with other hard drives; judging by the results, it has few competitors in terms of operating speed.

To take or not to take?

In any case, the rhetorical question will concern the buyer when choosing a hard drive. After all, SSHD technology is not the best hard drive for PC and laptop owners. The goal of producing a hybrid drive, first of all, was to saturate the market with devices that combine large capacity and fast NAND memory at a low price. You need to stop here and make decisions based on the needs of use.

1. A high-capacity drive that was always full to capacity failed - an SSHD drive will be an excellent replacement. With a difference of 300-500 rubles, the buyer will receive increased productivity.
2. You need an ultra-fast computer for games, and the information on the hard drive rarely exceeded 100 GB - you can’t find a better SSD. It may be more expensive, but it's worth it.
3. There is a need for additional storage media for documents and multimedia - a regular, cheapest HDD drive will be the best purchase.

Finally

By summarizing the information, it is possible to draw conclusions, thanks to which any user will make his own decision, as did specialists from popular computer publications. And judging by numerous reviews, these findings are quite interesting.

• For users who have a gaming computer with high-performance components, buying one or two SSD drives will not hurt their pockets, because for them the FPS (frames per second) in the game is more expensive than any banknotes.
• In search of an inexpensive magnetic drive, very often the buyer resorts to buying it on the secondary market. In our country this is a fairly common option.
• Only a handful of people who are looking for compromises, eager to get maximum performance and know how to count their money will look at hybrid hard drives.

Well, it's time to sum up. The Laptop Thin SSHD line didn't show anything special. Using a spindle rotating at 5400 rpm significantly reduced the speed of the drive. The drive demonstrates good results when reading and writing sequentially, although they are far from even budget models of solid-state drives. But with random reading/writing, as well as working with small files, the SSHD from Seagate literally fails.

In my opinion, SSHD TOSHIBA look much more interesting. The presence of a Marvell controller makes itself felt. Random read/write, small data - in these conditions, both MQ01AF050H and MQ01ABD100H demonstrate excellent performance. Yes, the 1000 GB model (depending on the reseller) is 500-1000 rubles more expensive than the ST1000LM014, but it’s worth it. I think so.

Another interesting model is Seagate ST2000DX001. The drive demonstrated impressive speed capabilities for sequential reading and writing. Although working with random data, as well as small files, in comparison with the same SSHD TOSHIBA leaves much to be desired. However, if you need a large storage drive, but there is no way to install an SSD in your desktop, then the ST2000DX001 will be a good choice.

The Seagate ST4000DX001 model is, for obvious reasons, inferior to the ST2000DX001, and is also quite expensive.

To summarize, I would like to note the following:

• hybrid solid state hard disks have every right to exist: despite the fact that they are more or less comparable in price to classic HDDs, this type devices really speeds up the system. Of course, you shouldn’t expect the speed and efficiency of an SSD from an SSHD, but the most frequently used programs will run faster;
• Still, nowadays volume decides a lot. There is a category of users (far from small, I must admit) who are not satisfied with 120-256 GB as a disk subsystem implemented in the form of an SSD. The realities of the market are such that a 1000 GB solid-state drive will cost the user, at best, 17-18 thousand rubles, and an SSHD costs between 3000-5000 rubles. And this is a strong argument in favor of hybrid hard drives.

Man doesn't know what it is hybrid hard disk. The fashion for combining several fundamentally different technologies in a single device is not new.

For example, cars that selectively use a traditional internal combustion engine or electric drive for propulsion have become quite common. This solution allows you to get by with “little blood” while gradually transferring technology to a new alternative. Hybrid hard drives are fully compliant this rule. Let's take a closer look at this issue.

Retired... or more alive than anyone else alive?

Currently in the field computer technology main device for long-term storage information is a hard drive or hard drive (English HDD - hard drive disk). Its design and operating principle are quite simple: several non-conductive disks are housed in a small metal case. electricity material. On all sides, the surface of each of them is covered with a sprayed magnetic layer. The disks are strung on a common spindle axis, rotated by an electric motor at a constant speed (in some models it can change stepwise, depending on the intensity of use). A special mechanism moves the frame with the write/read heads over each side.

When writing, areas of the surface are magnetized, and when reading, the reverse process occurs - a current is induced by the magnetic field and converted by the controller into a data stream. Over the decades, the technology has been tested, and “childhood diseases” have been eliminated.

A dark horse

However, with the creation of solid-state memory, alternative solutions appeared on the market in which there are no rotating parts, and recording is carried out by changing the position of the floating gate in the transistor. Such drives are called SSDs (from English. Many believe that based on solid-state memory cells, the performance of which is significantly higher than that of HDDs, they will gradually replace classic hard drives. It is too early to talk about a global transition (despite the fact that there are hybrid HDDs). And here’s why :

Cost of one gigabyte disk space an SSD is several times higher than this parameter for an HDD (the coefficient can be obtained by dividing the price by the capacity);

With reliability, not everything is so simple. Each solid-state drive is characterized by an acceptable number of write/read cycles;

The technology is too new, it is constantly being improved, so a device purchased yesterday may be hopelessly outdated today (take, for example, the support of the TRIM team).

Hybrid hard drive

Realizing that at present it is premature to talk about a complete change in technology, manufacturers have proposed a compromise option that combines HDD and SDD. The basis of the design of such a device is magnetic disks(hard drive with its low cost and... not very impressive performance). The peculiarity is that the hybrid hard drive also contains chips and an SSD controller. Of course, we can’t talk about hundreds of gigabytes; usually the volume is limited to ten. That is, the main volume is made up of magnetic disks (for example, 750 GB), the capacity of the SSD is 8 GB, and, of course, the cache (32-64 MB). During operation, hybrid copies the most needed data into fast solid-state memory, then works with it. In other words, the SSD in this solution is a second-level cache.