alyoshka :
Yes, the Hybrid will give you the best performance from the drives listed.
Now, we'll get to why.
The difference between the 2 drives, firstly the Hybrid is one generation newer, it's 2011 product and the X2 is a 2010 product.
The hybrid uses the SF2281 controllers and the X2 uses the SF1222 controllers
X2 is PCIe first gen the Hybrid is PCIe 2.0.
The performance for the Hybrid should be somewhere closer to the X2 if not a tad higher, mainly because of the advancement in technology. The lag or factor pulling it down would only be the platter drive.
The advantage of the Hybrid is the pure price/gb thing.
Logic:
If the first gen PCIe SSDs were fast enough for me, but, the price/gb was too much and continues to be too high, then, when the 3rd gen SSDs or Hybrid drives come out giving me the same performance, but greater value for money from the price/gb POV , then, I would go for it,but, only as my OS drive.
Data will continue to stay on the platters.
X2 Benchmark Reviews
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=635&Itemid=60
Hybrid Revo Benchmark Reviews
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=742&Itemid=60
alyoshka :
We do see the Revo X2 win over a lot of situations by quiet a margin sometimes nearly twice the hybrid but, these are after all synthetic benches. Once you get into using the disc the differences are visible quite differently.
There are some basic architectural principles behind all this:
For pure execution speed you want FAST for both the OS and the EXEs. Both of these are high I/O to get the part that needs to be processed to the - wait for it - processor. If a 4gb "SSD" front end were sufficient to really offset the real world execution, then a 4gb DDR3 would be both cheaper and faster. By design, the parts that need to be executed will be rolled into the available RAM on demand. I say this noting that I have a Momentus XT hybrid drive as my boot drive. I am maxed for my MoBo at 8gb of memory so I saw this as a cheap way of adding 4gb more or what we used to call "main storage" (I think I just gave my age away). In a single level storage model (what Microsoft would like to get to) whether the absolute memory address of anything that is needed in a RAM flavor is mapped to that physical location (the address of the object is rolled into physical RAM, the address stays the same, but it is no longer geographically on disk). The beauty of this model is that once something resolves to that address, it stays resolved and doesn't have to go through that traumatic process that is the substantial work of an execution startup. (When an exe calls a dll this is the resolution process. In the current model the OS has to figure out the physical address of both items and tie them together. In an SLS architecture this only has to be done once, demonstrating why JAVA is so incredibly fast in an SLS architecture).
For everything on my computer to run at maximum speed, it all would have to fit into the SSD space. After my install of Win 7 Ultimate x64 and the various applications I use, my "execution" parts required 48GB. Add the page file (8GB) and the medium I'm working with and I'm comfortable at about 64 GB. Waiting for any other media to roll into RAM is fairly trivial at this point, usually just a one time shot until I have the finished product that relocates to the spinning platters.
Most functions can't run all the parts needed to execute in 4GB of memory of any flavor. Therefore, our goal is get everything that is COMMONLY required to execute into a fast memory location. In a typical example we want the OS needed to perform the operation, the operation performed by the application and the object (medium) that is going to be processed in the fastest memory at all times. If we're re-indexing a a huge Word document we want all the parts needed to do this in fast memory
already when we run the indexing procedure. The same is true, but on a much larger scale when we're doing non-linear editing of a video. If we have reasonable RAM and are only doing one thing, the operation is only slowed down by the hunk of data (that's the professional term) that needs to roll through RAM (I'm using the term "RAM" to indicate the memory space where operations can take place. I realize RAM is really a what, not a where).
The most real estate hungry objects on the computer are media. A decent HD movie can easily eat up 10 gb of memory. Most of the time, we access that object sequentially and are only processing at about 10-40 mbps (a 320 kpbs MP3 files only needs 320 kpbs). This is why the best bang for buck for media storage is the "green" variable RPM drives. When you're working on a specific object, you move it to your SSD, then when you're done it's back to good ol' rotating platters.
So with way too many words what I've said is that solutions that say "OS here, programs there and data somewhere else" are not effective. If you're converting a video with Handbrake and a fast CPU you want the 23mb of Handbrake, the ??? mb of Windows needed to support Handbrake and a good chunk of your media that is being converted AND has been converted in fast memory. With a hybrid drive that is working correctly, all that should be in that 4gb SSD portion. Therefore, you keep your OS, Applications and Media Work Area on the hybrid drive. Everything else is fine living mechanically because at this moment we have nothing that needs to travel faster than 150 mpbs (the theoretical top speed of disc storage).
Now for the ultimate question PCIe SSD or SATA 6 SSD
you have the possibility of getting faster throughput with the PCIe flavor. This is fairly obvious as the SATA 6 SSD is traveling through a SATA 6 controller that is attached to the PCIe bus. Anything read has to travel through and be processed by this controller. One more bottleneck in the pipeline. Your performance will be decided by the level of technology in the electronics. A great interface on the PCIe SSD adapter should acheive maximum performance.
I hope this is helpful. I know I learned a little bit researching for it. Thanks for a good question and challenging solution. Now to budget a PCIe SSD!
K3v!n
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