SSHDs Debut On the Desktop With Mixed Results

crookedvulture writes "Seagate's solid-state hybrid drives have finally made it to the desktop. The latest generation of SSHDs debuted with a 2.5" notebook model that was ultimately hampered by its slow 5,400-RPM spindle speed. The Desktop SSHD has the same 8GB flash payload and Adaptive Memory caching scheme. However, it's equipped with 2TB of much faster 7,200-RPM mechanical storage. The onboard flash produces boot and load times only a little bit slower than those of full-blown SSDs. It also delivers quicker response times than traditional hard drives. That said, the relatively small cache is overwhelmed by some benchmarks, and its mechanical sidekick isn't as fast as the best traditional hard drives. The price premium is a little high, too: an extra $30 for the 1TB model and $40 for the 2TB variant, which is nearly enough to buy a separate 32GB SSD. Seagate's software-independent caching system works with any operating system and hardware platform, so it definitely has some appeal. But dual-drive setups are probably the better solution for most desktop users."

Re:Does it require windows only software?

[aitikin]

You can't RTFS!

Seagate's software-independent caching system works with any operating system and hardware platform, so it definitely has some appeal. But dual-drive setups are probably the better solution for most desktop users.

Huh?

[Russ1642]

I've had one in my desktop for a couple years now.

Re:oops

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a write through cache. The drive firmware copies frequently read files to flash. I use a Momentus XT and can you can actually notice when it does this. Frequently used programs load quickly. If you update a program, it loads slowly a time or two, then suddenly switches to loading fast.

Bittorrents screw all of this up. Frequent reads lead to more and more programs being displaced. If I leave bittorrent running over night, it takes a day or two for the flash to repopulate with the OS and programs.

you'd need a BIG capacitor if no Flash.

[raymorris]

with actual real world write speeds of around 20 MB/s, that capacitor would need to spin the drive for three minutes. That would be one hell of a capacitor. Flash chips use less power and are faster, so they could run long enough on capacitors that actually exist.

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