Samsung and Microsoft introduce hybrid hard drive (HHD)

So here's the scoop: Microsoft and Samsung at WinHEC introduced their new HHD (hybrid hard drive), designed for use in the next generation of Windows (which we all know as Longhorn). So how's it work? It's outfitted with a 1Gbit NAND flash buffer (instead of the usual 8-32MB buffer of volatile memory), and it only spins up the platters and writes to the drive when its good n' full. If nothing else, this kind of system could be great for conserving juice in laptops by reducing the amount of power-hungry spin-time on the drives; they're also claiming significant speed increases, especially when boot-time data is written to the flash buffer, but unless they've got some tricky trick up their sleeves it's going to be hard to use that buffer to predictively increase the read speed. Thus, we must continue another year of holding our collective breath for fully solid state hard drives.

[Via I4U]

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Am I the only one who thinks it's funny that we're eventually going to de-evolve the harddrive for solid state? This is like when Nintendo finally gave up on expensive cartridges for CD-Roms and space when we all knew that cartridges were faster.

So now flash is the new cartidge.

Makes sense to me.

[Edgan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I like the idea of better performance hard drives. But not sure about the idea that this will increase reliablity. Isn't the write count of most flash memory a lot lower than hard drives? As in people say don't even think about putting a swap file on one, or anything else you will be writing to continiously.

[nojetlag @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Laptops should come with 4 GB of Flash Memory, to provide instant boot up, or better no boot time at all, just push a button and the thing is ready :)

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

It's the money, stupid. Flash got cheap.

[Question, Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

What's the difference between "instant boot up" and "no boot time at all"?

[gt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

a little confusing to say 1Gbit and then say the usual 8-32MB. Isnt 1Gb equal to 128MB? I don't see how this works since it can't truly predict what you will be reading from the drive in the future, it would work in a partial sleep mode i guess. I don't know, my laptops drive is always doing something, even hours after i leave it, and no the antivirus or defrag isnt happening.

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

My laptop hard drive already powers down and spins up only when it needs to - even when plugged in, and even if I specifically tell it never to spin down in the Hitachi utility I got from their web site. So I think at least some drives already have this feature built in. It seems like the main innovation here is just a larger cache.

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

To GT:

1Gb is around 1,000MB not 128.

[TVtheFleshtone @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

#8, no. See, when stateing sizes of data, the size of the B is important. 1 GB is either one gigaBYTE or one gigaBIT, capital meaning byte. A bit is one eigth the size. Think, big b, bigger size.

[Suntiger @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

To Adam: One gigaBIT. Not gigaBYTE. A gigaBIT is about 128 megaBYTEs.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

It's not about speeding up the READING. It's about being able to write to a laptop's hard drive without spinning it up. Spinning up the platters eats tons of juice, but is mandatory without flash because your document will be hosed if (um, when) Windows crashes. With a gig of flash built into the drive of your (high-end) laptop, it might never need to spin up AT ALL during a work session (assuming you keep your laptop in standby mode.)

They're looking for a hard drive that only spins when you boot the OS and load your apps, and is otherwise just storing stuff on the drive's chip. Less power, less heat, less fan, etc.

[justin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Wouldn't this cause data loss in case of a power failure? The last 1Gig of stuff you saved never makes it to the disk if the power goes out right?

[CF18 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

This is a good idea, IF flash memory don't have a limited number of write:

http://www.micron.com/products/nand/massstorage/
100,000 program-erase cycles

Use the drive for anything that write to disk alot: pagefile, registry, browser cache and temp files etc, I would expect the flash part would die within two months. Of course when the flash dies the drive firmware can fallback to pure disk mode.

[ZATZAi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

No doubt they will use the type of flash memory that remembers everything without power. Like a Flash ROM (I know there is a better term but it escapes me at the moment), unlike RAM.

[ZATZAi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

No doubt they will use the type of flash memory that remembers everything without power. Like a Flash ROM (I know there is a better term but it escapes me at the moment), unlike RAM.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I imagine that's why MS has to coordinate with the drive manufacturers on a new spec -- Windows will have to keep track of two classes of data, and tell the drive to deal with document data differently from pagefiles & the like (that can be rebuilt or reloaded from HD if there's a crash.)

[eli @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

This would also be good so that programs that write to virtual memory can run a lot faster, without wasting regular RAM space.

[Pedro @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Nobody else has anything to say about Microsoft getting into the HDD market?

Wowww. I'm terrified already.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Yeah, like everything else, there's what Microsoft CLAIMS a technology's for, and then there's how it enforces monopoly and hobbles Linux.

[Anthony @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I want a 20GB flash card that I can load my OS and favorite apps onto so that they load instantly. Then everything else (the files they read, for example) can be left on the HDD.

*sigh* I really wish HDD would go away altogether..... 500GB of instant read/write memory!

[Geoff @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I think what they should do is allow for a separate partition that is flash only (both "drives" show up when you install the one physical unit.) This way you could locate OS files onto the fast flash "partition".

Alternatively, why not just make the OS flash RAM based so that you can have something pretty close to instant-on. I love how quickly xbox is able to boot up, it would be nice to see a desktop be able to do that.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Flash memory is far from instant reading. I read 200MB from a CF card (a pro card mind you) and it takes far longer than reading that same 200MB from a hard drive.

[Ne0 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

"instant boot up" is feature of operating system, not of a mass storage device. You could have 20GB flash disk for Windows XP and still would need to wait several minutes to boot up.
Difference between large disk drive cache and hybrid hard drive could be in firmware: different I/O management plus larger buffer can result in longer inactivity periods for physical drive in way absolutely transparent for operating system, regardless if OS has any support for power management.

[Server @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I can't find the link but I do remember reading that IBM already has a 90-Gigabyte Solid-State "Hard Drive" The only problem
of course is CO$T!

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Solid state mass storage has been around forever. We just can't afford it.

[ConceptVBS @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Samsung has been working on this type of drive on their notebook pc line for years in Korea. Microsoft just joined in at the last minute to help proliferate this technology.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5683836.html

[ConceptVBS @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Samsung is the actual hard drive manufacterer of the prototype, not Microsoft.