WD Creates World’s Thinnest 2.5-inch Hybrid Hard Drive – 5mm
Western Digital (WD) today announced it is sampling a 5mm-thin hard disk drive featuring hybrid technology. WD has developed hard drives slim enough for integration into todays thinnest notebook PCs, which provide high-capacity storage and robustness while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to todays client solid state drives (SSDs). The new technologies will be showcased during WDs Investor Day, Sept. 13, 2012. Watch out Seagate, the Momentus XT has some competition coming!
WDs innovative hybrid technology pairs MLC NAND flash storage for fast SSD-like data throughput and instant-on responsiveness with magnetic disks for efficient, high-capacity storage. Similar to the practice of multi-million dollar enterprise systems, WDs hybrid technology utilizes the concept of tiered storage. Data accessed most frequently (often referred to as hot data) is managed using speedy NAND flash to ensure fast response times, while data accessed less often (cold data) resides on the robust magnetic disks. The tiered design of hybrid hard drives, compared to current dual-drive solutions, also provides a redundancy benefit for users. The magnetic disk backs up all files residing in the NAND, protecting the user from inevitable NAND wear and preserving it for the more hot data handling. WDs hybrid technology works in conjunction with the PC operating system to deliver higher performance than current hybrid offerings while minimizing NAND wear to allow the use of less expensive MLC NAND.
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