Hybrid and regular hard drives versus solid state drives in one laptop. Hybrid hard drives

Hi all.

It's time to get acquainted with the concept of a “hybrid hard drive”, as it is increasingly being heard. Would you like to increase the speed of your computer? I have no doubt that yes. And at the same time, naturally, you want to save money? Then read on.

Hybrid drive - what is it?

A hybrid hard drive, or in English SSHD (solid-state hybrid drive), is a cross between the old hard drive that is in your computer and a comparatively new technology - a solid-state drive. To make the situation clearer, you need to understand what one and the other are.

The one we are familiar with consists of plates and read heads that spin at incredible speeds.

Such a mechanism takes up a lot of space, makes noise and is prone to breakage when shaking.

Therefore, manufacturers came up with an improved version - which does not have any rotating elements, but consists only of a memory chip.

Despite the fact that solid-state drives appeared in the 80s, they are still not going to become cheaper. True, the high price is justified by the ultra-fast work. To balance the situation, the developers created a hybrid version between the first and second - SSHD. And yet, what is it?

It looks like the same simple screw, that is, it also works thanks to the plates and heads. Only they added flash memory to it, like in a solid-state drive.

How did you come to this decision?

To understand the cause-and-effect relationships, let’s look at the operating principle of the drive. When you give it a command with the keyboard and mouse, it first accesses the data in the first level cache. This is the area where the information you use most often is temporarily stored.

Depending on the HDD model, its volume varies between 8-64 MB. Catastrophically few, right? Therefore, the computer freezes (or rather, the screw itself freezes) if it suddenly does not find the necessary information in the cache and begins to select it from what it has in stock.

In order to prevent the computer from slowing down, we added a level 2 hard cache in the form of flash memory. Its volume can reach 8 GB. Better now, right? And although the additional cache has a lower speed than the main one, with a hybrid hard cache you are unlikely to have to worry about waiting for a response from the computer to your request.

After all, SSHD can add much more information to its temporary storage than HDD. True, there is no way to interfere with the election process: the drive itself decides what is more important to you.

For this, self-learning technology is used, which, from the first seconds of work, examines on the disk those files that have already been used several times, and if you reuse them, they will launch faster. That is, only the most frequently used files work quickly on such drives.

But the buffer size is known to be limited, therefore the disk will not process all your files faster (the files are replaced by others you use).

Advantages and Disadvantages

Like everything in our world, this device has pros and cons. Let's start with the good:

1. Works faster than the old screw by about 30%;
2. Costs less than SSD;
3. Flash memory and screw have a single housing.

The hybrid drive has only one drawback - a small cache size. But this is temporary, as technology develops. By the way, do not confuse the cache with memory intended for storing multimedia and other data - its volume can be calculated in terabytes.

Do you need an SSHD?

As you can see, when buying a hybrid propeller you can only win. But is it worth buying this hard one while the old one works flawlessly? The answer is yes if you want to speed up your computer.

I can say the same to those whose propeller has broken. I mean, you'll have to buy a new one anyway, so why not a hybrid? The price is not much more expensive than a regular disk, but it works much faster.

If you decide that you need a drive, when choosing, pay attention to the following main features:

• Form factor - size.

Initially, these screws were intended only for mobile gadgets, so they were produced in a 2.5-inch form factor (size).

But manufacturers also took care of owners of desktop computers by releasing 3.5-inch devices.

• Interface - a way to connect the drive to the motherboard. The data exchange speed also depends on this parameter. The most common one now is SATA. The first and third generations of this bus are found in many computers. Do you have very old hardware? It may have an obsolete IDE interface. PCI Express is considered the most modern development.
• Capacity. In this case, choose according to your personal needs.

My conclusion is this: since this disk generally works faster only with frequently used files, it would be more rational to buy it to install the OS on it. I just don’t see the point in using it for regular files.

That's all, friends, subscribe to the update and don't forget to bookmark the link to my blog.

Good luck with the upgrade.

Hello and good day to you!!! Help please, I bought an Asus beech with a hybrid drive ssd 24g and hdd 750g. I want to install Windows on an ssd, but nothing works. I read a bunch of forums, searched on YouTube, I don’t understand how to separate them? I know that the SSD is there like a flash, but I read that they separate it and put the system on it. I tried to just format everything. I installed a boot disk with Windows 7 and it says insert a boot disk.

Although I have a boot disk. You can’t format the system, it’s not even in the menu, you can simply install it like a second Windows on the hdd. Yes, Windows 8 is preinstalled from the factory. What should I do, please tell me? Yes, the BIOS is somehow incomprehensible, like it’s stripped down or incomplete: I finally couldn’t find the install menu from the CD-ROM. In short, I sat with him for 8 hours today with zero results.

• Smart-Tronics

  Hello. If you are running Windows 8, then the system is probably installed on an SSD. Accordingly, if you need to install another OS on it, then Windows 8 will have to be removed. You can remove the Win 8 bootloader using the EasyBCD program.

  Next, you need to boot from the installation disk. The BIOS is most likely UEFI, this is a new generation of BIOSes. But there is a choice of device to download. Once you boot from the installation disk, you simply need to format and select the SSD.

• shniferson74

• Andrey

  Guys..I have a hybrid drive...Windows is on NND..I want to install it on an SSD..but it just doesn’t work..the BIOS just doesn’t see the SSD..!!!
  in Archie settings everything is fine..!!
  how can I install Windows on an ssd???
  ssd (24gb)

• Igor

  Hi all.
  A hybrid hard drive is an ordinary HDD + SSD (solid-state) in one case. The model is not important here.
  In fact, installing the System specifically on solid-state flash is not recommended for many reasons.
  1 - flash drives do not last long if you reinstall the operating system on them several times. 1-2, maximum 3 times, and a kayak may occur. It’s not Corsair or Kingston you have. Obviously something is cheaper. By definition, it cannot be that Asus puts high-quality parts into its product. This is not the same company.
  2 - if something happens to Windows (it’s closed), then it’s closed forever and you won’t be able to restore it, and along with it those files and folders (usually photos, etc.) that are on your desktop table. This is an unpleasant feature of flash drives.
  3 - the flash drive itself has a very limited service life due to frequent overheating.
  And that's not all. Here you will have to print a lot of technical information. Why this, why that.

  Yes, the system on flash boots faster and runs faster. But if you have a hybrid disk, then it is better to install the system as usual (on the HDD), and it will itself use the flash part as a cache while loading the operating system. As a result, loading is faster than on traditional HDDs and is safer for data.
  And installing an operating system only on an SSD and being proud of the loading speed is kindergarten. The speed of a regular hard drive depends on how full it is of various nonsense. Keep it and your desktop on your computer clean and you will be happy.

SSHD is a new marketing term coined by Seagate employees to refer to drives in the market known as hybrid hard drives, which are a combination of a traditional hard drive (HDD) and new technologies.

Today we will talk about the pros and cons of this type of drive and whether they are worth your attention and, importantly, money.

What is the advantage of SSHD?

Seagate's advertising headlines read: “SSD Performance. Hard drive capacity. Affordable price." Essentially what they are trying to say is that SSHD combines the benefits of both technologies without any significant cost. But if this is true, then why hasn't hybrid hard drive technology revolutionized the storage market yet? We’ll talk about this later, but for now let’s try to take a closer look at these “hybrids”.

SSHDs are essentially regular HDDs, but with a compact, small-capacity solid-state drive added to the disk controller and acting as a kind of cache for frequently used files. Therefore, you should not be surprised that the memory capacity of SSHDs is not inferior to classic hard drives.

As for cost, hybrid hard drives cost about 10-20% more than traditional HDDs - this is the result of adding additional cache memory and firmware to manage that cache. On the other hand, they are much cheaper than solid-state drives, many times cheaper.

It all sounds quite cool and optimistic, but...

Is SSHD performance really the same as SSD?

The performance issue of hybrid hard drives directly depends on how the user uses the system, and the limiting factor in that very performance is the small amount of cache memory (currently about 8 GB), which is simply not enough to perform more or less serious tasks.

If a user “uses” his PC to a minimum, well, let’s say, surfs the Internet, sits on social networks, reads email, plays solitaire and plays chess, then such a user will have the greatest benefit from using hybrid hard drives, because in this scenario what is happening The cache memory is quite enough to fully process all data at a speed corresponding to an SSD.

But, if we take into account another user who, let’s say, plays a variety of “heavy” computer games, then we can safely say that this user will not notice any difference in performance if he changes the HDD to an SSHD. Why? Because the cache volume is quite small and the files of that same computer game in it will be constantly updated and cannot be reused (from the cache), since they will be deleted and replaced with new files. And if the files are not reused, then there will be no real benefit from the SSD cache.

The same applies to copying data. If you copy, say, a folder of files and want to move it from one place to another, and it takes up more than 8 GB, then, accordingly, not the SSHD cache will be used, but its regular memory on a magnetic hard disk, and the copying speed will be the same , just like on a classic HDD.

But, as a “sweetener”, it is worth noting that the system boot when you turn on the computer will be approximately 10 seconds, which practically corresponds to the speed of the SSD.

So who needs an SSHD?

The primary market for solid-state hybrid drives is laptops. The fact is that the limited space of the case does not allow installing more than one disk in these systems. Installing only one SSD can provide greater performance, but limit the amount of data that can be stored on it. On the other hand, installing a single HDD will provide a lot of space, but the hard drive will not perform as well as an SSD.

SSHD, on the other hand, can offer a simple and affordable way to provide higher performance with the same amount of internal memory - a great compromise. Plus, since most laptops are used for work rather than gaming, the benefits of SSHD drives become even more attractive.

For desktop systems, however, I do not yet recommend installing hybrid hard drives, since the case of a personal computer allows you to easily install several drives, namely SSD (for system operation) and HDD (for data storage), which will give excellent performance and large amount of disk space.

An exception would be mini-desktop systems, which only have internal space for one drive.

An article about the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid hard drives that combine the strengths of HDD and SSD drives

Over the past ten years or so, solid state drives (SSDs) have gained popularity in the IT world. First, they have made their way into laptops and mobile devices with their small form factor and lack of moving parts. Now they are making their way into enterprise storage systems. Using the same flash memory found in USB drives, mobile phones and SD cards, they offer a long list of advantages over their electromechanical counterparts, solid-state hard drives. Computer SSD drives have no moving parts, are more resistant to shock and other forms of physical damage, and are lightning fast in their speed of reading and writing data.

HDD storage capacity has grown quite consistently - nowadays, massive 3TB and 4TB drives are within reach, and even 8TB and 10TB giants have made their way to the market. Hard drives reach speeds of up to 15,000 rpm. They are noisier, hotter, and require more power than their flash counterparts.

So why can't we ditch our hard drives and solid state drives? The answer is simple: the cost of one gigabyte of an SSD drive is noticeably more expensive. As of January 2015, a 1 TB hard drive can cost around $50, while the equivalent cost for an SSD is around $380 - $400.

In 2010, a number of manufacturers, starting with Seagate and Samsung, began introducing a third option in the drive world in an attempt to bridge the price and performance gap between HDDs and SSDs by offering a hybrid option. Since then, Western Digital and Toshiba have also started making hybrid drives. The hybrid drive provides some of the best features of both technologies, combining the speed of an SSD with the cost efficiency of an electromechanical HDD.

How does a computer's hybrid hard drive work?

The basis of a hybrid hard drive is the combination of a cache with rotating electromagnetic plates of a solid-state HDD. A solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD) typically consists of 8, 16 or 32 GB of flash capacity and a larger HDD for storing some of the data. The idea is that "hot data" should be accessed quickly or frequently (eg by the operating system). This data can be cached on the SSD and as a result is retrieved faster than if it were stored on the platters themselves. It's the same principle as installing an HDD and SSD on a desktop machine, i.e. a dual drive and hybrid solution, except that the performance optimizations are built into the firmware and adapt to storage needs. These adaptive or self-learning optimization techniques eliminate the need to manually move files/applications to the appropriate hard drives.

There are currently two modes of operation for all hybrid hard drives, or SSHDs. First, the optimized mode itself, or stand-alone mode, which determines the “hot” and “cold” data to be written to the disk. For the host machine, the drive does not feature traditional internal storage.

Another SSHD mode is host optimized mode, or anchor host mode. In this format, the machine owner designates which data is hot and cold using its operating system, device drivers, and in some cases, software. The host machine regularly sends designations to the drive via the SATA interface and instructs the drive how to store the data.

Benefits of hybrid disk storage

The key benefit of using a hybrid storage device is increased performance with high storage headroom, without a significant increase in cost (around $100 for 1TB SSHD), while maintaining high potential. SSHDs have the capacity of a computer's hard drive with increased lookup speeds for cached data on an HDD solid-state hard drive—at a fraction of the cost of an SSD.

In addition, a hybrid hard drive provides the computer with faster access to critical data, and there are other benefits associated with flash memory, which is also used on SSHDs. For example, if calibration is done correctly, you can reduce stress and wear on the drive, resulting in a longer lifespan than traditional solid-state hard drives.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Hard Drives

Although hybrid drives are a great solution, they are not perfect. Retrieving data from your hard drive is as fast as traditional solid state HDDs. Hybrid drives are still vulnerable to physical damage, and you won't benefit from the silence of an SSD.

Since we are experts in the field of data recovery, we must discuss the implications of data recovery under hybrid storage. The good news is that the solid state portion of an SSHD is used primarily as a cache or for storing operating system files, and you are unlikely to lose data on that portion of the drive. If you happen to lose data from the solid-state area of ​​a hybrid drive, recovery presents its own challenges, such as alternative methods of organizing the data.

All in all, hybrid drives have a lot to offer both consumers and business users seeking the speed of an SSD while still looking for the cost per gigabyte of a hard drive. This is a great way to bridge the gap between a solid state HDD and a fast SSD.

Hybrid drives SSHD - what kind of bird?

• King Servers Blog

In our work we often have to deal with a variety of information storage devices, including hard drives and solid-state storage devices. At the same time, sometimes you come across quite unusual devices that are not common everywhere. For example, SSHD are hybrid hard drives. There are probably people on Habré who are well acquainted with this type of information storage device, but there are also those who have not even heard of such “hybrids”.

So, hybrid hard drives, first of all, are a compromise solution that allows you to both increase the overall performance of the system in which they are installed and reduce the price of such a system.

After all, despite their widespread use, solid-state drives are still quite expensive, and it is unlikely that there will come a time soon when the price of such drives will drop significantly.

Conventional hard drives are inexpensive for the most part, but their performance is limited, and you cannot “jump” above a certain limit. That's why hybrid hard drives appeared. SSHD appeared a few years ago, and at first they were pure exoticism, which few people took seriously (and few knew about them). The main advantage of a hybrid hard drive is that it increases the overall performance of the system in which they are installed, using only one drive bay (rather than two, if you use both an SSD and a regular hard drive). Now there are models of “hybrids” of small sizes, for example, with a thickness of only 7 mm (this is the model ST500LM000 from Seagate), which allows you to install such drives in netbooks/ultrabooks.

The operating principle of SSHD is based on caching the most frequently used data using flash memory, that is, the SSD part of the “hybrid”. Already when the operating system is launched for the first time on a laptop/PC with a “hybrid”, the files that the operating system needs to load are placed in the non-volatile part of the SSHD memory. As a result, the OS startup speed increases, and quite significantly.

The hybrid drive, by the way, shows almost similar file transfer speed results compared to conventional hard drives. But the difference in the operation of different types of devices becomes very noticeable when comparing file access time (Access Time). For example, if you take a Seagate ST500LT032 drive with a capacity of 500 GB and compare it with the “hybrid” ST500LM000 of the same capacity, then the file access speed will be 24.2 and 0.3 ms.

As for the maximum speed of the interface, the difference is no longer several times, but 15%. In the first case, 101 MB/s, in the second - 115 MB/s.

There are also disadvantages, and first of all, it is the inability to fit all critical data on the SSD part of an SSHD disk. Typically, an SSD in a “hybrid” is installed with a capacity of 8 GB, sometimes more (for example, models with 32 GB of flash memory are not uncommon), but then such a drive will be more expensive.

The price of “hybrids” is only slightly higher than that of conventional hard drives. If we take the models already mentioned above, then the price of the Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD ST500LM000 is $73-75, and the Seagate ST500LT032 is about $50.

So, if you want to increase the OS loading speed, as well as the overall performance of your laptop/desktop PC, we recommend using “hybrids”. Well, that's if saving money is important to you. If not, then you should use SSD and regular hard drives separately.