SSD + Hybrid Hard drive or regular drive

[narpuppy]

Hello, I have a simple question. I'm helping my friend pick parts, and he is probably going to get this ssd (if you can find a better 256 gb ssd on newegg.ca for about the same price let me know):
Crucial MX100 CT256MX100SSD1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.ca

He is also getting a hard drive but I'm not sure if he should get this one:
WD BLACK SERIES WD1003FZEX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.ca

Or this one:
Seagate Hybrid Drive ST1000DX001 1TB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s NCQ 3.5" Desktop SSHD - Newegg.ca

Please let me know what you guys think. I appreciate your help.

 

[Dauntae]

Hybrid drives are good for cases you can't fit extra drives in, also it would be wasted in as they are actually 2 hard drives in one case, It has a 8 gig partition for the SSD and the rest is a standard HD. IMHO the only good use for them is in laptops that doesn't have room for two HD's and you need the storage on the HD High capacity SSD's are still really high priced so the hybrid lets it run windows fast and still have storage space for a lower price.

 

[narpuppy]

Thanks for the reply. I researched hybrid drives before I posted this but I guess I should have stated my question differently. My question is that is there a good reason to not spend literally one dollar more to get a hybrid drive instead of a regular hard drive? Will a hybrid drive as a game storage drive actaully have worse performance than a standard hard drive?

 

[Dauntae]

It shouldn't but won't give any gains either, It will have a extra partition for the SSD that's only 8 GB and newer games use a lot more than that so you'll just be adding a extra drive letter with little use being so small. All they are is a HD with a SSD added to the case to fit in smaller cases and laptops.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Hybrid drives are a waste, enough said about that. Most them are NOT JUST an HDD with an SSD added, most of them combine the two and store the most commonly accessed data on the SSD.

Go with one or the other, don't waste time with a Hybrid drive, they really are a waste of money.

 

[narpuppy]

We are literally talking $1.00 Canadian Dollar here. If they really have worse performance then I get it. If they have even the slightest performance gain then I don't see $1.00 being a waste of money.

Also like I said, he is getting a 256 gb ssd and pairing it with a hard drive to store his games on.

"Hybrid drives are a waste, enough said about that." - c0rr0sive: Lord Techie
From the reviews I have read, they have significantly reduced many peoples boot times for an extra $1.00 - Although like I said the drive wont be his OS drive so thats why I am wondering which one would have better performance.

 

[narpuppy]

"It shouldn't but won't give any gains either, It will have a extra partition for the SSD that's only 8 GB and newer games use a lot more than that so you'll just be adding a extra drive letter with little use being so small. All they are is a HD with a SSD added to the case to fit in smaller cases and laptops."

Thanks for responding back. All I'm wondering is: In your opinion, is $1.00 worth it? Also, from my understanding of the hard drive I linked in the original post, it is impossible for the user to manually add files to the drive because the controller automatically puts some frequently used files on the ssd, so I'm not sure how it would add an extra drive letter.

 

[PP Mguire]

What was said previously. The SSD portion on the drive is used ONLY as a cache. Meaning it stores commonly accessed files from the platter part of the drive into cache just like Superfetch in Windows does except into RAM. If you have an OS SSD then there's no point in getting one.