Hybrid hard drives combine traditional magnetic platter storage with flash memory for fast caching, reducing boot times and increasing battery life. NAND hard drives may eventually replace hybrid hard drives, but are currently too expensive. Samsung plans to release hybrid-enabled laptops by the end of 2006.
A hybrid hard drive combines traditional hard drive storage on magnetic platters with a complement of flash memory for fast caching. This allows frequently accessed data to remain instantly available, even faster than using random access memory (RAM). Flash memory is made up of non-volatile memory chips, which means it stores bits of data without the need for a power source. This is in contrast to RAM chips which lose all data when power is cut.
A hybrid hard drive incorporates some sort of “personal cache system” or buffer, but instead of onboard RAM it uses onboard flash memory. Operating system (OS) boot processes stored in flash memory within the hybrid hard drive can significantly reduce boot times. Also, depending on the size of the flash chip, frequently used programs and files can be instantly accessed without the drive having to boot. Thus, the hybrid hard drive spends most of its time idle, even while continuing to read and write to the built-in flash memory.
Laptops should benefit greatly from hybrid hard drives over traditional storage devices which account for a significant portion of battery drain. Samsung Electronics’ introductory hybrid hard drive reportedly spins for a modest 30 to 45 seconds every 30 minutes, saving precious energy. Samsung says battery life has increased between eight and twenty percent, adding a potential 36 minutes to the life of an average laptop battery.
Samsung worked with Microsoft to introduce hybrid drive prototypes in August 2005 and May 2006, and plans to have hybrid-enabled laptops shipped to the market by the end of 2006. A prototype hybrid hard drive featured a 1 gigabytes, while others were equipped with 128 – and 256 megabyte chips. Flash memory is supposedly a cross between NAND (Not And) and NOR (Not Or) architectures, taking advantage of each. However, other manufacturers have their own proprietary solutions for flash memory in the hybrid hard drive.
Hard drives that are flash memory only are referred to as NAND hard drives. The NAND hard drive, or a future iteration, will likely replace the hybrid hard drive in the long run. NAND hard drives have the advantage of having no moving parts and all the benefits of flash memory. They also consume very little energy, are light in weight, produce little heat, and take up nominal space. The one factor keeping NAND hard drives from replacing the hybrid hard drive market is that the former will be too expensive to compete until 2009, or so industry insiders predict.
Meanwhile, manufacturers will enter the hybrid hard drive market. The units from Samsung and Microsoft are reportedly designed to run on Microsoft’s latest operating system, tentatively referred to as “Longhorn”.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
