whatever happened to hybrid drives?

[blanketyblank]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/17/78429_HNhybriddrive_1.html

I was really looking forward to these hybrid hard drives which were supposed to use less power, but were several times faster than a regular hard drive. However it's been a year vista is out, and I haven't heard anything since about these things. Did these just get scrapped? Is readyboot basically the inheritor of this tech? Anyone know anything?

 

[Cogman]

Honestly I can't see a huge benefit from flash memory on a hard drive. If you are transferring big files, a hard drive will move the data faster then flash memory can. The only place you see the huge benefits from is in Random access. (preferably while dealing with small files)

I don't know about the road map for these things, but yes just get a ready boost stick with Vista and that will show you about how much of an improvement you will get.

 

[aka1nas]

ReadyDrive is what you are looking for, I think. The tech is mainly for laptops, though. The flash memory acts as a non-volatile cache and Vista has new power modes to take advantage of that.

 

[zephyrprime]

That stuff is only just taking off. Just wait for it. I would like a more ambitous sort of hybrid but that doesn't seem to be in the wings as far as I know.

 

[Old Hippie]

They just started shipping these drives to OEMs about a month ago.

 

[corkyg]

They are really just getting started. The flash memory is used to replace the cache memory, which is volatile. A Flash memory cache retains data and therefore is ready to go before being powered up (non-volatile.)

 

[anarchyreigns]

They're just coming out now. Toshiba, Apple, etc are readying models now.

 

[w00t]

I want a full flash drive

mechanical drives have been around too long about time we replace them

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: w00t
I want a full flash drive

mechanical drives have been around too long about time we replace them

But non-mechanical memory has been around for even longer then mechanical (at least the mechanical memory we are used to) Im waiting for a better flash tech to take off like PRAM or something along those lines, then I think flash memory will have an offer that is much better then current HD's

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: Cogman

Originally posted by: w00t
I want a full flash drive

mechanical drives have been around too long about time we replace them

But non-mechanical memory has been around for even longer then mechanical (at least the mechanical memory we are used to) Im waiting for a better flash tech to take off like PRAM or something along those lines, then I think flash memory will have an offer that is much better then current HD's

true, but I ment more as mass storage. anything non mechanical and faster sounds good to me

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: w00t
I want a full flash drive mechanical drives have been around too long about time we replace them

But that is not a Hybrid drive by definition. What you want is a non-volatile, 100% solid state drive.

Patience! Look how long it has taken to get this far.