Western Digital Ships Ultrabook-Compatible Hard Drives

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Why would anyone buy an ultrabook with an HDD instead of an SSD? This will help to keep the price down and provide more storage, but the whole point of an ultrabook is its supposed to be faster than a netbook and provide decent battery life. This goes against both of those points. I guess lowering the entry price is good though.
 
Its not about looking quality at low price, its about having a range of options for buyers.

Given the choice between a 'thin and light' laptop with 10 hour battery life, 20 second boot and 128 gb of ssd for $1100 and the same chasis with 8 hour battery life, 45 second boot and 500 gb of hdd for $700 and I'll take the second - it can fit my apps and all my files and I'll take that and a $400 price drop in exchange for two hours of life and double boot time.

Not to mention that Im still wary of ssd wear-leveling...despite having two pcs with ssds.
 
[citation][nom]Inanition02[/nom]Its not about looking quality at low price, its about having a range of options for buyers.Given the choice between a 'thin and light' laptop with 10 hour battery life, 20 second boot and 128 gb of ssd for $1100 and the same chasis with 8 hour battery life, 45 second boot and 500 gb of hdd for $700 and I'll take the second - it can fit my apps and all my files and I'll take that and a $400 price drop in exchange for two hours of life and double boot time.Not to mention that Im still wary of ssd wear-leveling...despite having two pcs with ssds.[/citation]

[citation][nom]esrever[/nom]^a lot of people really only care about looks so if you sell them something that looks high quality for low price, they will buy it.[/citation]

I agree with both points. Personally, I'm just going to wait it out and buy an "ultrabook" in a year or so when prices have dropped and the technology is all more in sync. While the ultrabook is technically not new (macbook air has been around for a while already), its still in its early stages and ssd tech is still getting better/cheaper, ivy bridge is right around the corner (and by summer 2013 we'll have the next gen cpu's), gpu's will be better, battery life will be better, and everything will be cheaper. Q2 2013 seems like a good time to cash in on all the waiting and jump into an "ultrabook", or whatever other comp you want to buy.
 
I don't think a 128 SSD is $400 more than a $100 hard drive is it? Performance worries me as well. Performance of those 2.5" compact single platter hard drives has not been good. My guess is it is 5400 rpm. Might get you an ultrabook for $700, but would rather pay a couple hundred more for a lot more battery life, and MUCH greater performance and battery life.
 
[citation][nom]GoogleMe[/nom]I don't think a 128 SSD is $400 more than a $100 hard drive is it? Performance worries me as well. Performance of those 2.5" compact single platter hard drives has not been good. My guess is it is 5400 rpm. Might get you an ultrabook for $700, but would rather pay a couple hundred more for a lot more battery life, and MUCH greater performance and battery life.[/citation]

This. A 320GB HDD and a 128GB SSD at the "ultrabook" type form factor should be less than a 150$ price difference. (ssd max 220$ ish). Nothing wrong with more options though.
 
[citation][nom]esrever[/nom]^a lot of people really only care about looks so if you sell them something that looks high quality for low price, they will buy it.[/citation]

Inverse this statement and you get Apple with their $600+ shares.
 
[citation][nom]jaber2[/nom]Why are they still making mechanical storage devices, get on SSD or get out.[/citation]

SSDs don't have high enough capacity for the price. That's like asking why they still make Pentiums and i3s if we have SB Xeons.

[citation][nom]extremepcs[/nom]7,200 RPM or GTFO.[/citation]

The point of ultrabooks/ultrathins is partially to have high battery time. Having a faster hard drive would go against the point of this. That would also increase price.
 
[citation][nom]gm0n3y[/nom]Why would anyone buy an ultrabook with an HDD instead of an SSD? This will help to keep the price down and provide more storage, but the whole point of an ultrabook is its supposed to be faster than a netbook and provide decent battery life. This goes against both of those points. I guess lowering the entry price is good though.[/citation]

1 platter 2.5" hard drives like this one take very little power. If you look at reviews of mSATA or regular SATA SSDs, they aren't much lower with power consumption/heat than laptop hard drives.
True that it's the same hard drive performance you'd find on a netbook.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]SSDs don't have high enough capacity for the price. That's like asking why they still make Pentiums and i3s if we have SB Xeons.The point of ultrabooks/ultrathins is partially to have high battery time. Having a faster hard drive would go against the point of this. That would also increase price.[/citation]

7200RPM hard drives don't take much more power than 5400RPM laptop drives. In the desktop segment there is more of a difference, but in the mobile segment there isn't much. Maybe 1 watt more
So +1 7200RPM or GTFO
 
[citation][nom]danwat1234[/nom]7200RPM hard drives don't take much more power than 5400RPM laptop drives. In the desktop segment there is more of a difference, but in the mobile segment there isn't much. Maybe 1 watt moreSo +1 7200RPM or GTFO[/citation]

Even one watt can make a significant difference for a very low power machine such as an ultrabook. Besides that, the majority of people buying an ultrabook probably aren't performance junkies considering the already sub-par CPUs and graphics for a laptop.
 
I suppose it might, if the ultrabook has a small battery, say a 35 watt hour battery and let's say a 5 hour battery life. So in 5 hours that 7200RPM drive would use ~5 watt hours more than a 5400RPM drive, which is 1/7th the battery. You have a point and 5400 vs 7200RPM isn't that big of a difference if they are both the same density and generation. Just please not 4200RPM, I don't think they make those anymore.

But the subpar CPUs are quite speedy these days with Turboboost and all, nothing like Atom. It would be a shame if they were slow because of not having a hybrid 7200RPM hard drive.
 
[citation][nom]danwat1234[/nom]I suppose it might, if the ultrabook has a small battery, say a 35 watt hour battery and let's say a 5 hour battery life. So in 5 hours that 7200RPM drive would use ~5 watt hours more than a 5400RPM drive, which is 1/7th the battery. You have a point and 5400 vs 7200RPM isn't that big of a difference if they are both the same density and generation. Just please not 4200RPM, I don't think they make those anymore.But the subpar CPUs are quite speedy these days with Turboboost and all, nothing like Atom. It would be a shame if they were slow because of not having a hybrid 7200RPM hard drive.[/citation]

A 5400RPM with a decent multi GB Flash cache would use less power than a 7200RPM drive and be as fast as or faster than the 7200RPM drive. Best of both worlds there? Agree on not using 4200RPM. That's going too far down the low power line of thought.

Maybe there could be a hard drive that can change it's spindle rate? IE, a hard drive with Turbo? Other ways of improving speed without increasing power usage too much would be having the hard drive have two read/write heads instead of only one. It wouldn't be the first hard dive to have more than one read/write head. Maybe use all three methods for very high performance while using less power than a regular 7200RPM hard drive would?
 
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