Two-in-one devices have always attracted buyers, because combining technologies in one device often increases the performance of devices. Naturally, the price for the set will be worthy. Take for example a video pair, a laptop-tablet or an MFP. Hard drive manufacturers have also decided to cross the two technologies by introducing inexpensive SSHD drives to the market. The focus of the article is a hybrid hard drive, the pros and cons of the device, as well as reviews from happy owners.
A holy place is never empty
The expensive technology of very fast SSDs and the affordable but very slow magnetic disks HDD have created a huge gap in the hard storage market, both in price and speed. The golden mean was urgently needed, which could satisfy the user not only with its characteristics, but also with an affordable price. So there was a symbiosis - SSHD disks. Nothing depends on the user in the operation of the device. Everything works automatically. In fact, for the owner, the process of the hybrid drive will be invisible in terms of mounting and installation. No drivers need to be installed, the controller is detected and controlled by the computer's BIOS. You can only see the result - a significant increase in performance, which is noticeable during system boot and launch of resource-intensive applications, including games.
How it works
The principle of operation is quite simple and somewhat resembles the operation of a central processor. The magnetic hard drive has long used caching technology, when frequently used information is read from the magnetic disk and written to the memory of the built-in chip on the hard disk. The size of the chip is disproportionately small (8-128 MB), but this is quite enough for the system to work. Naturally, the chip is able to communicate with the processor at a tremendous speed. The technology used by hybrid hard drives provides for the presence of another chip created using SSD technology, but with a larger volume. As a result, the processor accesses the hard disk for information.
- If the information is in the 1st level cache, it is instantly provided.
- If the information is not in the 1st level, the access is passed to the 2nd level cache. Since the second layer uses an SSD, information is provided to the processor just as quickly.
- Information is read from the surface of the magnetic disk, which slows down the entire system.
Installation expediency
At first glance, it may seem that the main consumers in the market for these drives are the owners of personal computers. After all, for a laptop, devices without rotating components are preferable for safety and shock resistance. However, judging by the numerous reviews of the owners, it is for the laptop that hybrid hard drives are purchased. In portable devices, first of all, volume is required and only then high performance. And if for a personal computer it is not problematic to install several storage drives, different form factors, then there is a serious limitation in a laptop. In addition, installing an SSD is impractical due to the limited volume and high price.
Reasons to buy a new drive
For most laptop owners, the main problem in work is the failure of a hard drive with the loss of important information for the user. As an alternative solution, the seller offers three options.
- Install the same HDD, such as a 500 GB hard drive, but with an increased shock resistance of 1000 G. At the same time, the purchase cost will be minimal, as well as performance.
- Install an SSD, losing in capacity, spending a round sum, but winning in performance.
- Install a hybrid SSHD drive, getting high performance, affordable cost, large volume.
Naturally, thanks to this approach of sellers, judging by the numerous reviews of happy customers, hybrid drives have conquered the portable device market.
Two hard drives in a laptop?
It is not necessary to install a hybrid hard drive for a laptop instead of a standard device. Due to the mass of various adapters on the market, it is possible to install an additional hard drive in the system. Lots of options. Starting with the USB interface and eSATA, ending with the desoldering of unused SATA ports on the motherboard of a portable device. And only one option deserves special attention of users. We are talking about a device called the Second HDD Caddy, which resembles a pocket for connecting hard drives to a working personal computer.
This pocket, due to its size and interfaces, should be installed instead of a standard DVD optical device. Naturally, it can only be installed in laptops where this drive is pre-installed. As a result, the user gets a second hard drive, which, in addition to the gigantic storage capacity, provides excellent performance at an affordable price.
PC Priorities
A hybrid hard drive for a computer will be more useful for gamers. After all, most synthetic tests on office computers show that the weak link is the processor or video adapter, but not the magnetic disk. And only in gaming systems, when there is a powerful video card, a strong central processor and fast RAM, the hard drive becomes the culprit of all problems.
Installing an SSD can solve performance problems, but the high price and small amount of memory do not suit half of potential buyers. Judging by the numerous reviews, the hybrid device is also used under the system. The 8 GB L2 cache can accommodate a working Windows system with all its services and drivers, including the swap file. Such unloading will allow not only games to work faster with a processor and memory, but also significantly accelerate the work of applications related to video encoding and working with flash.
How to see performance
Hybrid hard drives are the only drives that allow you to see the performance of the system firsthand, as well as measure and compare the results before and after improvement. Sounds fantastic, but it's a fact. Everything is very simple. After mounting and installing the operating system, the controller on the drive needs time to fix frequently used files, which it will place in the second-level cache. Sometimes you have to make 5-7 reboots of the system in order for the drive to start working in the desired mode, providing high performance. If the SSHD disk was purchased as an additional drive, for games, for example, then, accordingly, you need to start the game, play, exit, restart the computer. The result of the controller's work will be noticed immediately when the operating system or your favorite game loads several times faster.
What's on the market for PC
When choosing, the user may encounter the problem of choosing the required device. We are talking about the range - it is too small for the huge market of computer components. Market leaders Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba introduced SSHD devices to the world. But only Seagate provided the buyer with a choice, the rest were limited to a couple of models. Judging by the numerous reviews of experts, all developed countries have long since replaced magnetic drives with SSDs. And only in third world countries, where not every buyer can afford a device at a high price, such hybrid miracle devices are sold. The manufacturer Seagate offers customers SSHD drives in all sorts of variations, ranging from memory size and cache sizes of the 1st and 2nd levels, ending with the spindle speed.
Worthy model
Hard drives with a capacity of several terabytes today do not surprise anyone. In the pursuit of volume, the user loses sight of many other factors.
- The speed of chaotic reading from the disk. The larger the volume, the more difficult it is for the read head to find information. Although this parameter is measured in milliseconds, the result is quite noticeable in the synthetic test.
- Purchasing rationality. Reading the reviews of many buyers, we can conclude that it makes no sense to purchase a drive over 1 TB. Having spent a large amount for the extra volume, the user is not able to fill it with data.
Apparently, the manufacturer Seagate also came to such conclusions, focusing on a 500 GB SSHD hard drive with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm. It is the ST500LM000 model that participates in all synthetic tests to compare performance with other hard drives, judging by the results, it has few competitors in terms of speed.
To take or not to take?
The rhetorical question in any case will affect the buyer when choosing a hard drive. After all, SSHD technology does not represent the best hard drives for PC and laptop owners. The purpose of the production of a hybrid drive, first of all, was to saturate the market with devices that combine large volume and fast NAND memory at a low price. At this point, you need to stop and make decisions based on the needs of use.
- If a large capacity drive that was always packed to capacity failed, an SSHD drive would be a great replacement. With a difference of 300-500 rubles, the buyer will receive increased productivity.
- You need a super-fast computer for gaming, and the information on the hard drive rarely exceeded 100 GB - you can't find a better SSD. Might be more expensive, but it's worth it.
- There was a need for additional media for documents and multimedia - the usual, cheapest HDD drive would be the best buy.
Finally
Summarizing the information, we can draw conclusions, thanks to which any user will make his own decision, as the specialists of popular computer publications did. And judging by the numerous reviews, these findings are quite interesting.
- Users who have a gaming computer with high-performance components will not hit the pocket of buying one or two SSD drives, because for them FPS (frames per second) in the game is more expensive than any bills.
- In search of an inexpensive magnetic drive, the buyer very often resorts to buying it on the secondary market. In our country, this is a fairly common option.
- Only a handful of people, looking for compromises, eager to get maximum performance and able to count their own earned money, will look at hybrid hard drives.
Hi all.
It's time to get acquainted with such a concept as 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, of course, want to save money? Then we read on.
Hybrid drive - what is it?
A hybrid hard drive, or in English SSHD (solid-state hybrid drive), is a cross between an old hard drive that is in your computer, and a new technology compared to it - a solid state drive. To clarify the situation, you need to understand what one and the other are.
The one we are used to consists of plates and reading heads that spin at an incredible speed.
Such a mechanism takes up a lot of space, makes noise and is prone to breakage when shaking.
Therefore, manufacturers have come up with an improved version - which does not have any rotating elements, but consists only of a memory chip.
Despite the fact that the solid state drive appeared back in the 80s, it is still not going to get cheaper. True, the super-fast operation justifies the high price. To balance the situation, the developers have created a hybrid option between the first and second - SSHD. And yet, what is it?
In appearance, this is the same simple screw, that is, it also works thanks to the plates and heads. Only flash memory was added to it, as in a solid state drive.
How did you come to this decision?
To understand the cause-and-effect relationships, let's turn to the principle of operation of the drive. When you give it a keyboard and mouse command, it first accesses the data in the first level cache. This is the area where the information you use most is temporarily stored.
Depending on the HDD model, its volume varies between 8-64 MB. Catastrophically small, right? Therefore, the computer freezes (or rather, the screw itself freezes), if it suddenly does not find the necessary information in the cache and starts choosing it from what it has in stock.
In order to prevent the computer from slowing down, a level 2 cache was added to the hard drive in the form of flash memory. Its volume can reach 8 GB. Already better, right? And although the additional cache has a slower speed than the main one, you are unlikely to have to be nervous with a hybrid hard cache 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 in the electoral 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 those files on the disk that have already been used several times and if you use them repeatedly, they will run faster. That is, only the most frequently used files work quickly on such drives.
But the volume of the buffer 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:
- Works faster than the old screw by about 30%;
- Costs less than SSD;
- Flash memory and the screw have a single housing.
There is only one disadvantage of a hybrid drive - a small amount of cache. But this is temporary as technology advances. By the way, do not confuse the cache with memory designed to store multimedia and other data - its volume can be calculated in terabytes.
Do you need a hybrid hard drive?
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 who have a broken screw. That is, you still have to buy a new one, so why not a hybrid one? At a price it 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 have taken care of the owners of stationary computers by releasing 3.5-inch devices.
- Interface - a way to connect a disk to the motherboard. The speed of data exchange also depends on this parameter. The most common now is SATA. In many computers, the first and third generations of this bus are found. Do you have a very old hardware? Perhaps it has a deprecated IDE interface.
- Capacity. In this case, choose according to personal needs.
The conclusion I offer is this: since this disk basically works faster only with frequently used files, it would be more rational to buy it to install the OS in it. I just don’t see the point in taking it for ordinary files.
That's all, friends, subscribe to the update and do not forget to bookmark the link to my blog.
Good luck with the upgrade.
Hello admin! I want to buy a hard drive with a capacity of 1-2 TB, a computer specialist I know advised me to buy an SSHD drive (a hybrid of a hard drive and an SSD solid state drive), as it works noticeably faster than a regular HDD, but not as expensive as an SSD solid state drive. What can you say about these discs?
Hello friends! A very good question. Yes, the SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) hybrid hard drive is 30% faster than a conventional hard drive, and about the same price. If a regular 1TB hard drive costs 4,000 rubles, then SSHD can be bought for 5,400 rubles. Such discs are produced both for ordinary computers and for laptops.
Firstly, what is a hybrid hard drive
The technology for the production of hard drives (the only component of a computer that has moving mechanical parts) has long reached a dead end and it is almost impossible to increase the speed of a hard drive in a production way, which is proved by the appearance on the market of SSDs and SSHD hybrid hard drives. But if a solid state drive is a completely non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips, then a hybrid hard drive is primarily a regular hard drive with an MLC fast flash memory card (8 GB) soldered on it, used in the production of solid state drives, that is, it turns out that SSHD is a hybrid of a conventional hard drive and an SSD..
Second, why SSHD hybrid hard drive is faster than regular hard drive
Seagate's SSHD hybrid drives use self-learning technology - Seagate Adaptive Memory, examining the operating system installed on the disk from the first seconds of operation, as a result, the most commonly used programs and files are copied to the flash memory of the SSHD disk, these files primarily include elements involved in loading the operating system, which means that Windows will be boot faster, because Windows will be loaded from flash memory. For example, on my computer, loading Windows 8.1 installed on a regular HDD takes 35-40 seconds, and on SSHD - 20 seconds, on a regular SSD - 15 seconds. The same applies to the applications you use all the time, they will start a little faster. Take, for example, a modern game that is demanding on computer resources, which you constantly play, according to my observations, such a game will load three times faster than on a regular HDD.
Hybrid hard disk SSHD, this is the golden mean
In general, the ideal configuration of drives in the system unit of an ordinary home user looks like this: two drives are bought, the first is an SSD solid-state (120-240 GB) for installing the operating system, and the second is a regular HDD for storing files (volume) 2-3 TB , you need about 10,000 rubles for all this. And if you purchase one 1TB SSHD hybrid drive, it will cost you 5,400 rubles, and a 2TB SSHD will cost you 7,000 rubles. Of course, everything will not fly (as in the case of SSD), but maybe you don’t need such speeds. The SSHD hybrid disk comes out, this is the golden mean - for little money you get good performance and a large amount of disk space.
Which SSHD to buy
Until recently, SSHD hybrid drives were produced by the company that developed them - Seagate. In total, there are three Seagate Desktop SSHD models on the market with a capacity of 1, 2, 4 TB.
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST1000DX001 1TB
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2TB
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4TB
Also, Western Digital has recently begun to produce SSHD, but they are few on the market, and the model that I came across - WD Blue SSHD, WD40E31X with a capacity of 4 TB did not differ in speed characteristics from the similar model Seagate ST4000DX001 4 TB.
In today's article, I suggest you consider the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 model with a capacity of 2 TB and that's why. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 1 TB model, then 1 TB of disk space is already not enough for a modern computer user. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 4 TB model, then on the contrary, not everyone needs a large amount of 4 TB of disk space, and its price is quite high (11,500 rubles), and, more importantly, the spindle speed of this drive: 5900 rpm, that is, it is slightly slower than other 1 and 2 TB SSHDs (spindle speed 7200 rpm) and this will definitely affect the speed of the operating system.
So, I persuaded you and we have a model Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2TB
Upon closer inspection, the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB hybrid drive turned out to be an ordinary hard drive, only SSHD is written on it.
Disk space - 2 TB
SSD buffer size - 8 GB
Cache memory size - 64 MB
Spindle speed - 7200 rpm
On the reverse side of the drive we see a special printed circuit board Adaptive Memory, with soldered 8 GB of fast MLC memory and a "hybrid" controller.
It is very easy to install the drive in the system unit.
SMART hard drive in CrystalDiskInfo and Victoria.
The hybrid drive is new and has had 0 hours of use.
Read and write tests
To make sure that our disk is really good, let's do some tests on reading and writing with special programs: CrystalDiskMark 2.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark and SiSoftware Sandra. These utilities will sequentially read and write information to our hybrid disk in small blocks, then show us the result.
Crystal Disk Mark 2.0
The simplest and most frequently used program in this regard, you can download it on my Yandex.Disk
The utility is very simple, select only the desired drive letter (in our case E:)
And press AI, the SSHD disk performance test will begin.
1. Test of sequential reading and writing of large blocks of data;
2. Test of random reading and writing in blocks of 512 KB;
3. Test of random reading and writing in blocks of 4 KB;
I can say that the result is very worthy, we can especially note the recording in blocks of 512 Kb and 4 Kb.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Let's test the hybrid disk with another program - ATTO Disk Benchmark.
Select the drive letter of the SSHD hybrid drive and click Start.
Result.
SiSoftware Sandra
A global program capable of diagnosing all computer components and having its own official rating.
As a result, our disk is ahead of 94% of the results. Excellent performance.
Disadvantages of SSHD
In my opinion, the only disadvantage of SSHD is the small amount of built-in flash memory of 8 GB, it would be great if its size grew to 32 GB, then more running programs were placed in the cache of the solid state drive and Windows performance would be exactly the same as if it was installed on an SSD.
author AMORAL SOCIOPATH asked a question in Software
Tell me how to properly install Windows 7/8 on SSHD? and got the best answer
Answer by †Codename87†[guru]
Where did you get that they are all so divided? And how can this even be?! And nah all this?! Some kind of fuss, besides useless. I bought a regular SSD - put the system on it. I bought a regular HDD - you use it as a file cleaner. So many do.
As far as I understand, SSHD is the same HDD, only with an additional, let's say, memory module (faster and more voluminous), which is used for the cache, that's all, that is, it speeds up copying to some extent: useful on small kilobyte files and is practically useless on GB files, because the cache is not rubber. But in order to divide Windows into parts - I hear about this for the first time in my years. Most likely you misunderstood something.
†Codename87†
Enlightened
(48810)
what exactly is bothering you? hidden sections?
show some thread screen, so let's say the proof of all this, that Windows is so divided into parts.
Answer from Leri[guru]
the system is generally installed, all on only one active carrier ...
there is no such thing as secondary files, so you can install additional programs later at least on an external one ...
Answer from Sansej[guru]
As far as I know, the pre-installed Windows is done like this: 2 disks are created, formatted. Then the first (which should be C:, system) volume is deleted. And the system is placed in an empty place (it turns out in front). In this type of installation, 2 sections are created from scratch:
1. Hidden partition that contains the Windows bootloader
2. Disk C: system with Windows itself.
With this setting, the bootloader is less likely to be exposed to virus attacks, less often it crashes.
In your case, put Windows on a completely empty SSD
Disk D: then you can make it in Windows as a logical volume from the HDD (or several volumes-D: E: ...)
Answer from Alexander Ivanov[guru]
Perhaps by "secondary" you mean the swap file and hibernation, so it's better to disable hibernation altogether, and it's better to keep the swap file on the system partition
Answer from Evgeny Kushnarev[guru]
if 64-128 gigs, the whole system. and important programs. the rest on disk2.HDD-and to work with it without the hassle-utility, respectively, platform-AMD or for Intel. SSD Tweaker let him watch. but a download. movies video-all on the HDD is desirable.
Answer from Ivan[guru]
There is no need to mislead anyone here with your conjectures. Hybrid disks are almost ordinary disks and the SSD part is controlled by the firmware to slightly speed up the system as a whole, but not radically. It's too small to store axis files on it, it's just a fast second-level type cache in processors. There is no separation of the system there and cannot be!!! Here is an article from Seagate: www. seagate.com/ru/ru/do-more/laptop-sshd-upgrade-master-dm/
Normal cloning from an old disk to a new hybrid.
Answer from Brain Dumovitsky[guru]
Answer from .
[guru]
Installing and configuring Windows 7 on an SSD drive>link
Answer from _ _
[newbie]
Don't make trouble for yourself! everything is simply done by dividing the disk into two partitions - system and logical - and put everything on Windows!
Many have already heard about the new hybrid hard drives, but most will wonder if they are worth buying? Or maybe instead of hybrids, it’s better to take a small SSD drive (or there is a lot of money for a large one), install a system on it, and install a regular hard drive for data? Now I will try to shed light on this issue.
After my laptop fell off the table, the hard drive had to be replaced. There is no space for a separate SSD drive in the laptop, so you can only plug one device into it. I settled on a 1TB Seagate ST1000LM014-1EJ164 hybrid hard drive and about 8GB SSD cache. This is certainly not as much as we would like, but so much is better than nothing at all. Such a hybrid drive cost me almost 7,000 rubles.
The cache of the hybrid disk is completely hardware-based and there are no programs to configure and optimize it. Programs and files that are frequently used, including system ones, are cached.
Benefits of a hybrid hard drive
I list the advantages that I was able to identify when using a hybrid from Seagate:
- when using \”quick start\” Windows, the system loads 25-30 percent faster,
- applications that we often use run several times faster,
- copying files up to 500 MB, even within different logical drives, occurs at a high speed, approximately 200-300 MB / s (I think the file is first copied to the cache, and then transferred to the hard drive during idle time),
- the whole machine runs faster and there are fewer bottlenecks.
Cons of a hybrid drive
We note some disadvantages, but they are not critical:
- the cost is almost 2 times more than a conventional hard drive,
- low amount of SSD cache (in general, there are all sorts of disks, they have both 32 and 64 GB, but the cost is appropriate).
Conclusion, is it worth buying?
Let's move on to the most important thing, and here I have two answers, and they depend on your computer operating conditions.
I think it's worth buying them only for laptops when there is no way to put a second separate drive in it. If you have a desktop computer, and there is space in it (usually it always is), then it would be best to take a separate SSD drive, from 64 GB to 128 GB (this is if you plan to keep only the system on it). And if finances allow, then you can fork out for a 1-2 TB SDD, I think it will be great.
