Pros and cons of hybrid drives.
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RaistlinZ
Diamond Member
- Oct 15, 2001
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On paper, it sounds like you'd get the best of both worlds but you don't get the best of either. The cost of hybrid drives is higher per GB than a regular high performance 7200rpm drive. And with SSD prices always dropping it's better to just go with a small SSD for your OS and a regular HDD for storage.
A 64GB SSD can probably be had for $50.00 and a 1TB HDD can be had for around $70.00, making a slow 500GB hybrid drive rather pointless.
A 64GB SSD can probably be had for $50.00 and a 1TB HDD can be had for around $70.00, making a slow 500GB hybrid drive rather pointless.
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Pro: They are ever so slightly faster than normal spinning platter drives.
Con: They aren't anywhere near as fast as SSDs
If you have some amount of data that you access far more regularly than the rest of the content on the drive, and which is small enough to fit into the SSD cache, you'll probably see quite a benefit - this is pretty much the optimal usage scenario. Otherwise, it won't really help that much. Much better to just bite the bullet and get an actual SSD.
I know this is a little different, but I just recently set up intel SRT (enhanced) on a 64 GB SSD. I have to say I am very happy. My boot time went from ~1:30 down to ~:30. App and game loads are substantially faster (I'm usually one of the first, if not the first player to drop in on BF3 maps now)
Sure, this is not as fast as pure SSD. And anything that involves writing, installing, or copying files is not going to be any faster, but 90% of what I care about is booting and launching. I could have spent a lot of effort breaking up the data on my drive to get a boot drive down to 60GB (or spent $50 more and made the task a little easier), but to me it is well worth it to not have to stress about managing the size of my boot drive.
Sure, this is not as fast as pure SSD. And anything that involves writing, installing, or copying files is not going to be any faster, but 90% of what I care about is booting and launching. I could have spent a lot of effort breaking up the data on my drive to get a boot drive down to 60GB (or spent $50 more and made the task a little easier), but to me it is well worth it to not have to stress about managing the size of my boot drive.
they are not much of a market segment as they have a very small SSD part (original was 4GB, the newer ones I think are 8 or 16 at the base level), and they cost nearly as much as a full SSD.
The other issue is that only seagate make them, the rest probably do not have the IP rights from seagate to even try doing it.
The other issue is that only seagate make them, the rest probably do not have the IP rights from seagate to even try doing it.
Many of you guys severely underestimate the way forward in regards to hybrid drives, IMHO.
Just imagine the performance and flexibility of a 2TB hybrid drive with 128 - 256GB's of SSD caching meshed into the same housing with no software or special hardware needed to do it. That is the way forward until SSD reaches larger capacity points and prices become more realistic for OEM's to make profit off of faster disk drive options. Which will likely still be another 3-4 years or so.
Also keep in mind that as much as we all like to believe that we will soon be buying 1TB SSD's for $200 bucks due to smaller die and TLC based nand?.. things just won't move fast enough to phase out larger capacity HDD for the near future.
Another point to consider is that the SSD/chip mfgrs are all coming out with smarter firmware and faster processors to make hybrid drives much more viable and ultimately mesh the two technologies together more effectively.
Obviously this tech is still in its infancy and we all know that heavier workloads easily expend these smaller caches very quickly and therefore reduce the overall effectiveness as a whole.. but consider that the more SSD's come down in price(TLC will be the way forward here as well) along with newer smaller form factors.. http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34439_1-57563391/plextor-unveils-various-ssd-based-products-at-ces-2013/..
and in conjunction with major HDD mfgrs getting in on the R&D.. http://reviews.cnet.com/hard-drives/wd-black-sshd-1tb/4505-3186_7-35567266.html.. the greater the chance to see a major growth curve in this arena.
Just imagine the performance and flexibility of a 2TB hybrid drive with 128 - 256GB's of SSD caching meshed into the same housing with no software or special hardware needed to do it. That is the way forward until SSD reaches larger capacity points and prices become more realistic for OEM's to make profit off of faster disk drive options. Which will likely still be another 3-4 years or so.
Also keep in mind that as much as we all like to believe that we will soon be buying 1TB SSD's for $200 bucks due to smaller die and TLC based nand?.. things just won't move fast enough to phase out larger capacity HDD for the near future.
Another point to consider is that the SSD/chip mfgrs are all coming out with smarter firmware and faster processors to make hybrid drives much more viable and ultimately mesh the two technologies together more effectively.
Obviously this tech is still in its infancy and we all know that heavier workloads easily expend these smaller caches very quickly and therefore reduce the overall effectiveness as a whole.. but consider that the more SSD's come down in price(TLC will be the way forward here as well) along with newer smaller form factors.. http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34439_1-57563391/plextor-unveils-various-ssd-based-products-at-ces-2013/..
and in conjunction with major HDD mfgrs getting in on the R&D.. http://reviews.cnet.com/hard-drives/wd-black-sshd-1tb/4505-3186_7-35567266.html.. the greater the chance to see a major growth curve in this arena.
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On the first point, I do not think so. It is a nice idea but looking at the current offerings of hybrid drives, 128GB SSD on a 2TB drive is not happening in the next 5 years is my guess. The reason is that seagate are the only ones making these hybrid drives for the last few years, and the original version had 4GB of SSD, after 2 years and a revamp, they went to 8GB. To get over 100GB from them is not going to happen any time soon.
Second point is that 2TB laptop/2.5" are just not that common. Seagates I think top out at 750GB.
Currently if you want 128GB SSD and a 2TB you need to do some drive caching of some sort, which means it is not a hybrid drive, and you need some software as intel in their wisdom (the most common ssd+hdd controller) capped the SSD size to 64GB with no signs of changing that.
As to the 1TB SSD for $200, I think it is still a few years away, and HDD makers are not increasing their sizes all that fast. 4GB is just only comming out, 3TB is only just becomming the perfered price point and most people (ie: prebuilt systems) are only just getting 2TB as "standard" with manufactures saying 1TB is more than enough for the average user.
The way forward for SSD's is their, but the current path they are following is to increase complexity, reduce reliabilty/ware levels, reduce speeds while aiming for the only thing the average customer knows about, cost.
I might buy cheap SSD's like these for storage, but for the OS/thrash drive, I will still spend extra to get the older flash based drives (not quiet to SLC, as that is a too big of a price jump)
When you're limited to one drive it actually works pretty well. I've run it in a laptop and while not as fast or quiet as an SSD, not having to carry an external hard drive is a big benefit and I still feel the annoying slowness of a plain vanilla spinner when I switch from a hybrid one.
When space or convenience is not an issue I definitely prefer the discrete solution.
When space or convenience is not an issue I definitely prefer the discrete solution.
I wasn't really speaking towards mobile environments per se.. but the main point was(did you look at the links above and see how small the newer gen SSD's are now becoming?).. that it will eventually become more commonplace to see both devices sharing the same housing.
As SSD's continue to shrink(look at that fingernail sized 128GB eMMC embedded portable device drive.. although granted its channel count/throughput may not be up to par for a system based drive just yet).. and platter density increases become more affordable and therefore mainstream.. along with the software complexity to mesh it all together.. it's quite inevitable. The current 3rd party tools and devices to make it all happen are just the temporary bridge for a faster traveled means to an end.. but are by no means what we'll eventually end up with as things continue to develop.
In just two years time.. I'm betting you'll see fully contained hybrid drives pushing 64 gig's or greater cache onboard. The Western Digital drive linked above already has 16 - 24 gigs as it is. Just from the sheer availability of hybrid drive hardware and software up to this point shows that a market does actually exist for a larger flash accelerated OS drive(MS/Intel isn't the only one in that game, eh).. and as hard drive mfgrs eventually figure out that such small cache won't contain the ever growing streaming HD experience along with the million plus apps we surely must have.. it's nearly a sure thing to see more hybrid devices with smarter firmware running the show on even more systems around the world.
In a nutshell.. the "general public" will be more willing to buy a 1TB HDD with 128GB's of acceleration caching rolled into one unit for $279.. than they will buying a 1TB SSD for $479 bucks. Especially if they think the hybrid HDD will last longer or somehow be more stable than the pure SSD. And imagine the impact if they finally implement some sort of automatic data mirroring capability(maybe even have an "ON/OFF" switch in the included toolbox?) to protect their "I'm too damned noob'ish, lazy or just plain ignorant to backup my data" on these types of drives. Think of similar to a type of.. "hybrid RAISE" functionality.
As another recent threads "960GB's for $600" title obviously indicates.. we're getting closer to larger SSD's being made affordable enough to do away with HDD altogether on SOME upper end systems.. but 1TB SSD.. even at $500 bucks.. just won't be enough to do it anytime soon for more mainstream users. That's where even larger hybrid drives(1 - 2TB and up) will come into the game and push those first timers.. and OEM's.. over the edge.. and that much closer towards pure SSD based storage.
Another even more simplistic breakdown of my point is that we'll surely get to a $200 2TB hybrid drive much more quickly then we will to a 1TB SSD for even $300. And if the cache size is sufficient enough to diminish the speed differential between the two types of drives even moreso than current offerings?.. well.. nuff said.
As SSD's continue to shrink(look at that fingernail sized 128GB eMMC embedded portable device drive.. although granted its channel count/throughput may not be up to par for a system based drive just yet).. and platter density increases become more affordable and therefore mainstream.. along with the software complexity to mesh it all together.. it's quite inevitable. The current 3rd party tools and devices to make it all happen are just the temporary bridge for a faster traveled means to an end.. but are by no means what we'll eventually end up with as things continue to develop.
In just two years time.. I'm betting you'll see fully contained hybrid drives pushing 64 gig's or greater cache onboard. The Western Digital drive linked above already has 16 - 24 gigs as it is. Just from the sheer availability of hybrid drive hardware and software up to this point shows that a market does actually exist for a larger flash accelerated OS drive(MS/Intel isn't the only one in that game, eh).. and as hard drive mfgrs eventually figure out that such small cache won't contain the ever growing streaming HD experience along with the million plus apps we surely must have.. it's nearly a sure thing to see more hybrid devices with smarter firmware running the show on even more systems around the world.
In a nutshell.. the "general public" will be more willing to buy a 1TB HDD with 128GB's of acceleration caching rolled into one unit for $279.. than they will buying a 1TB SSD for $479 bucks. Especially if they think the hybrid HDD will last longer or somehow be more stable than the pure SSD. And imagine the impact if they finally implement some sort of automatic data mirroring capability(maybe even have an "ON/OFF" switch in the included toolbox?) to protect their "I'm too damned noob'ish, lazy or just plain ignorant to backup my data" on these types of drives. Think of similar to a type of.. "hybrid RAISE" functionality.
As another recent threads "960GB's for $600" title obviously indicates.. we're getting closer to larger SSD's being made affordable enough to do away with HDD altogether on SOME upper end systems.. but 1TB SSD.. even at $500 bucks.. just won't be enough to do it anytime soon for more mainstream users. That's where even larger hybrid drives(1 - 2TB and up) will come into the game and push those first timers.. and OEM's.. over the edge.. and that much closer towards pure SSD based storage.
Another even more simplistic breakdown of my point is that we'll surely get to a $200 2TB hybrid drive much more quickly then we will to a 1TB SSD for even $300. And if the cache size is sufficient enough to diminish the speed differential between the two types of drives even moreso than current offerings?.. well.. nuff said.
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sandorski
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- Oct 10, 1999
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How are you measuring Boot time? On my system(in Sig) I go from Power On to Windows Desktop(albeit it is still starting Apps) after typing in my Password in 45 seconds. No SSD, just my platter drive.
VirtualLarry
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- Aug 25, 2001
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Going along with what groberts said... the only real use for a Hybrid drive is an OS/apps volume. Since the cache feature would be useless, or nearly so, for a media drive.
Not sure where you read that between the lines in what I wrote above, Larry.
But on system ram limited machines(I only have 12 gigs).. I do actually find that hybrid drive caching software(I use FancyCache for my main HDD storage array) can and does keep my ram doing what I prefer it to do best.. which is to keep things from being bumped out of cache for my OS volume as I rip and edit. And it's MUCH more flexible and capable than Intel's hybrid caching option. :thumbsup:
Measuring from POST to the time all my sidebar gadgets + sys tray icons are loaded.
I'm one of those that never installs clean... been upgrading my OS since the dawn of time; would rather spend $70 on SRT to bring my boot time down to a reasonable level than go through the effort of installing and re-configuring all my stuff from scratch.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
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sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,785
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Denithor
Diamond Member
- Apr 11, 2004
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