How do I access the SSD portion of a hybrid drive

[bachir0321]

I recently bought a new computer, the lenovo ideapad u530 which has a:

"Hybrid hard drive and solid state drive for best-of-both storage A high-capacity 500GB hard drive at 5400 rpm, plus an 8GB NAND Flash SSD for rapid data access, less heat production and reduced power draw on the battery."

Now unless I'm mistaken I thought this meant I have a 500gb hard drive paired with an 8gb ssd that I can store whatever I would like on it. If this is the case, how do I store things on the ssd portion? Wouldn't it be most beneficial to put my operating system on it, if it will fit? Finally, if I am wrong in my analysis of what this means, what exactly does this hard drive combination mean? Thank you

 

[Dereck47]

Now unless I'm mistaken I thought this meant I have a 500gb hard drive paired with an 8gb ssd that I can store whatever I would like on it.

Sorry, but you're mistaken. The SSD portion of the drive is used as cache, and can't be accessed by the end user. Just like with HDDs that have 16MB or 32MB or 64MB cache.

 

[k1114]

It's automatically set as a cache. 8gb is far too small for the os or really any type of software or storage beside being used as cache. It's also a hybrid drive so you can't even access it at all.

 

[bachir0321]

Thank you guys! So is my hard drive automatically taking advantage of the 8gb or do I need to do something?

 

[k1114]

You don't have to do anything.

 

[krotos1970]

Now unless I'm mistaken I thought this meant I have a 500gb hard drive paired with an 8gb ssd that I can store whatever I would like on it.

Sorry, but you're mistaken. The SSD portion of the drive is used as cache, and can't be accessed by the end user. Just like with HDDs that have 16MB or 32MB or 64MB cache.

Yes this might be right but this hybrid also still has the 64MB of cache on top the nand SSD, so I wondered if it would be even faster with the 20GB SSD Msata with the Intel rapid storage technology, and it seams that it is, it is just a couple of seconds behind a main drive SSD.