Seagate Continues Bet on Hybrid HDDs With Flash Cache

[Darkerson]

I wish they made a larger 3½" version with a bit more capacity of both the flash and the traditional platter based storage. A 2TB version with 8GB of flash would be nice.

 

[azgard]

[citation][nom]bennaye[/nom][citation][nom]2. as for having 24GB's of cache..... why such an odd number? i'd more prefer the traditional numbering scheme of 2,4,8,16,32,64, ect.... make sense to me as computers love multiples of two's.[/citation]Bro, 24 is an even number XD.And I think you mean powers of 2. 24 is a multiple of 2 as well so your argument doesn't hold. Other than that, +1.[/citation]

He meant power's of 2, so it hold's.

 

[johnsmithhatesVLC]

Seagate drives have a high failure rate already, they're decreasing the warranties and NOW THEY'RE ADDING SSDs TO THEIR HDDs?

Seagate you so crazy.

 

[jared-ldwsolutions]

When I first started doing research on purchasing a momentus, I came upon a ton of horror stories of failures and bsods. I chalked it up to people not knowing that they needed to or how to update their firmware. Bought and 250gb, updated the firmware and viola! Significantly faster start up, wake up, shut down, and launching of my most frequently used programs. So I bought a 500gb which came with the latest firmware. BSOD and reliability issues city. I have a couple friends with the same issues. I have a computer repair shop and I have installed a couple of these in my clients computers. One client had the same issues = bad for my business. I love the concept but seagate really needs to get the quality control under control.

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]johnsmithhatesVLC[/nom]Seagate drives have a high failure rate already, they're decreasing the warranties and NOW THEY'RE ADDING SSDs TO THEIR HDDs?Seagate you so crazy.[/citation]

were you been? under a rock?

 

[hetneo]

Any comparation of them and traditional 7200RPM drives? Is performance upgrade worth of price upgrade?

 

[shqtth]

A lot of laptops use 5400rpm drive still due to poor cooling on the laptop and/or battery issues. And netbooks use 5400rpm drives.

I cannot put a 7200rpm hard drive in my dads laptop (get too hot), and I cannot put it into my sisters iCrapBook as the laptop has no fans and will overheat.

 

[shqtth]

Would be nice if they made 5400rpm hybrid HDDs for low power consumption/low heat applications.

 

[shqtth]

Oh ya I tested the 500GB version in two computers. Its fast, and has a good data throughput around ~100MB drops off to 80M then to 65 toward 75% of the hard drive. So this hard drive exceeded my expectations.

 

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]A lot of laptops use 5400rpm drive still due to poor cooling on the laptop and/or battery issues. And netbooks use 5400rpm drives.I cannot put a 7200rpm hard drive in my dads laptop (get too hot), and I cannot put it into my sisters iCrapBook as the laptop has no fans and will overheat.[/citation]

If you look at the spec sheets of 2.5" hard drives, going from a 5400RPM drive to a 7200RPM one does not use that much more power. Maybe 1/2 watt more when idle.
Modern hard drives are usually spec'ed for 60 degrees celsius so I wouldn't worry about it running a bit hotter than a slow laptop drive.

I've ordered a 750GB Scorpio Black for my EEE PC 1005HA. Should be a big improvement over the stock Hitachi 160GB 5400RPM drive.

 

[mikem_90]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]ABut in 24 GB worth of Flash Cache with a controller that is fast and that can distinguish data files from the OS and regularly used applications. The flash should act as nothing more than a CACHE, and during idle, all information on the flash needs to be 'backed up' on the mechanical HDD, so that even if the flash component fails, the HDD should still run.[/citation]

From what I was able to understand about this drive is that it's flash cache doesn't store files, but sectors. Since it is OS Agnostic, it can be used on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc... and many many different drive and partition types (try listing out all the possible settings for partitions on a Linux computer inside fdisk).

Its much easier to just store sector chunks that way you don't worry about file types or file structure. How is the drive supposed to pick out individual files when the OS only requests sectors from the drive?

Since its only an advanced read only cache, there is no possible problem with data being stored on flash vs the HDD. The data is not backed up on the HDD, its a copy of what is on the HDD. The only problem you would have would be with the 32mb of volatile cache and powering down in the middle of flushing that. It might be a bit more susceptible to that kind of failure due to being a larger cache depending on the OS and how it does journaling.

 

[verbalizer]

there has been no mentioning of the now 'infamous' WD VelociRaptor, aren't they still a force in the HDD market.?
or are they too way overpriced kind of like SSD, I'm on the fence about them.
eBay, re-certified/manufacturers can be of regular HDD price; buying used is on you..

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

Not good enough for me though,too small...They should stay with SSD's...