HHD or Hybrid Hard Drives

texasheat

Beta member
Messages
1
Location
USA
So I'm seeing a new trend of fusing a compact flash, or some other solid state to the old HDD or magnetic drives. I'd post links but as a new member I got a message saying that's probably not the wisest.

Regardless, I'm looking to see if anyone is currently using these types of drives and what their thoughts are.

It appears the design is to increase the read speed of an HDD all while maintaining the reliability not found in an SSD . On the surface that seems really awesome. But does the theory hold true in reality.

I'm also very curious about architecture, and how you access the various states. During an install would you choose where your OS is installed or would it be auto to the solid side while everything else defaults to the magnetic side.

I've been doing research on various sites but I can't seem to find a good aggregate of all the information.

Thanks in advance,
Heat
 
It appears the design is to increase the read speed of an HDD all while maintaining the reliability not found in an SSD . On the surface that seems really awesome. But does the theory hold true in reality.

SSD's within the past few years have made great progress in longevity, in a lot of cases being able to go past an HDD's lifespan. At this point, as long as you get a reputable brand, you shouldn't worry about longevity.
 
I don't use one but I've set up a PC for a family member that used one. Essentially, every time I've used it it feels mostly like using a PC with a normal HDD anyway. Anything that's actually commonly accessed ends up in RAM anyway, so I've never felt the idea to be good enough in practice.


I'm also very curious about architecture, and how you access the various states. During an install would you choose where your OS is installed or would it be auto to the solid side while everything else defaults to the magnetic side.
All data is initially written to the hard disk, and then commonly-accessed data is cached on the solid state storage.
When using one, there is no way to discern a difference between the HDD and SSD components; the process of caching to the SSD side is completely transparent to the user. There is no way to force data to be written to the SSD; the drive makes its mind up completely on its own regarding this.


It appears the design is to increase the read speed of an HDD all while maintaining the reliability not found in an SSD
SSDs are plenty reliable nowadays. I'd have faith that a new SSD will last longer than a new HDD, as the SSD market has reached maturity in terms of reliability and longevity. They're also faster in every way, so the only advantage to using a HDD now is capacity, and my forecast is that HDD and SSD will reach price-per-gigabyte parity sometime in 2018 barring any breakthroughs in HDD capacity.
 
Last edited:
SSHDs are a nice marketing gimmick, so please don't fall into the trap. The SSD is used as a cache, in other words ALL info is being stored on the platter like a normal drive. Access, read, and write times are all the same besides info the OS is taking off the flash.

On that note, SSDs are pretty much more reliable than HDDs now. Unless you need large storage there isn't a reason anymore to use a HDD.
 
I would only use an HDD in one event... Mass storage... Even then, at such capacities, due to reliability reasons, you are looking at multiple disks in raid, or having a backup disk somewhere else to store the data. Every computer I build now, even for customers contains an SSD... HDD has become optional if they need lots of storage on the cheap.
 
Last edited:
Samsung recently came out with a 2TB SSD. ain't cheap but never should expect that for a couple more years. Today (this AM.) I saw a 500gb SSD (samsung) on sale for $179. Prices are continuing to tumble every day
 
Samsung recently came out with a 2TB SSD. ain't cheap but never should expect that for a couple more years. Today (this AM.) I saw a 500gb SSD (samsung) on sale for $179. Prices are continuing to tumble every day

Yeah the 500GB 850 EVO has been around $180 for a couple months now - ordered one when I first saw it drop down to the $180 price mark. It's dipped down below that a few times even.
 
Yeah the 500GB 850 EVO has been around $180 for a couple months now - ordered one when I first saw it drop down to the $180 price mark. It's dipped down below that a few times even.

yup...was at $169 briefly
I want one
Skylake i5
I want one
DDR4 memory
I want them too
 
yup...was at $169 briefly
I want one
Skylake i5
I want one
DDR4 memory
I want them too

I think I even got a $10 credit back when I ordered my SSD, and day or 2 later it dropped down to the $170 mark.
 
The smaller memory area on the HHD drive will be less efficient because it has much less space to write on to. A larger SSD'd will have more area and can balance less load across the chips and makes for a better and longer life drive. HHD's are a feeble attempt by the platter manufactures to regain some loss from SSD sales
 
Back
Top Bottom