Hybrid hard drive due for this month?

We first heard about Samsung's and Microsoft's hybrid hard drive (HHD) over a year ago at last WinHEC 2005, and according to the Korea Times it would appear that after a year of waiting for the drive (and the operating system intended to run it -- Vista), it will be launched at this year's WinHEC. The world has yet to see what adding a 128MB buffer solid state storage area to a hard drive will offer in terms of performance and battery life when used in conjunction with Microsoft's Windows ReadyDrive (i.e. sleep / hibernation quick boot and suspend support), but we're all waiting with bated breath because anything to start moving us away from this whole spinning hard drive thing is fine by us, thanks.

[The Inq]

[matt @ May 8th 2006 5:03AM]

It'd be cool to see but I wouldn't hold our breaths, at least for right now.

[Intrepid @ May 8th 2006 5:23AM]

This could be very useful... Now if only they'd make a drive completely from flash memory... SPEED!

[Revrant @ May 8th 2006 5:29AM]

Live fast, die young, Intrepid. Funny how many things that applies to, eh?

This hybrid idea is pretty fantastic, I don't think RAM/Flash or even the Hybrid here will be the true evolution, I think something else is on it's way, perhaps that whole Hologram CD thing, of course, it's a long way off.

[PodMonkeys @ May 8th 2006 7:40AM]

I'd be interested to find out how 128mb flash will help with hibernation, since hibernation needs as much storage as you have ram. ie: 1gb > 128mb, so you'd still need the HD space, unless of course its used for some other shortcut.

I'd still like to have one of those SATA RAM "HD" cards with the battery backup, and 4 DDR slots.

[zyx @ May 8th 2006 7:57AM]

PodMonkeys:

i could be way off, but i'm under the impression that features like hibernation actually only require the amount of ram currently *in use* [why reserve space for ram that might currently hold no relevant data]... so perhaps the safe assumption is that the hybrid approach will simply use part flash, part drive. it would be faster than before, but i'm not sure how much faster.

then again, maybe they know something about system startup/shutdown that we don't and maybe 128mb is more than enough to accomplish the task. (i'll place my bets on that)

[Intrepid @ May 8th 2006 7:59AM]

"Live fast, die young, Intrepid. Funny how many things that applies to, eh?"

Well Revrant, I don't really care if it dies sooner than normal... as long as it gives me good warning first. 2x the speed and half the life is just fine if you can afford it... (overtime and public holidays lol)

[Jason @ May 8th 2006 8:18AM]

Can barely wait to see if Apple stuck these in tomorrow's MacBooks. Ok they "should" go into the Pro's first, but if the MacBooks are battery life centric...

[Intrepid @ May 8th 2006 9:13AM]

Yeah Microsoft/Samsungs new drive will be first appear in an Apple. I hate fanboy tards.

[Jason @ May 8th 2006 9:58AM]

Fanboy tards? I don't consider myself a fanboy, but you sound like a real die-hard anti-apple-fanboy fanboy.

I was just thinking that since one of Samsung's buggest flash memory customers is Apple, that they might want to grow that relationship first. New customers are always more expensive at first.

[Michael Geary @ May 8th 2006 10:28AM]

"Now if only they'd make a drive completely from flash memory... SPEED!"

Not!

Flash memory is *much* slower than a hard drive, especially for writing.

[willyjsimmons @ May 8th 2006 11:05AM]

Intel demoed the same tech a few months back...

and it basically cuts the OS boot and app startup times(your most frequently used apps) in half.

In our 'trusted computing'/vituralized future, we'll all be using it.

[Scott @ May 8th 2006 11:07AM]

It would be nice to see one of these with a 2GB Flash. Yeah, I know it would be more expensive, but this way you could keep Windows XP and a few apps in the flash. Think of the cold boot times.

[Soum @ May 8th 2006 11:55AM]

Flash memory is around 3 times faster than hard drives (ide) but only in reading. writes are MUCH slower.

[David @ May 8th 2006 2:02PM]

Intrepid (#2): Now if only they'd make a drive completely from flash memory.

They do, however the price is in the five-figure range.

[yuppicide @ May 8th 2006 2:02PM]

This is great. I can't wait to see 2 second startup times.

[oshean @ May 8th 2006 2:30PM]

Sweet! I am going to replace my PCs power button with a light switch. Instant on!
....in my dreams.

[zero @ May 9th 2006 9:58AM]

umm.. my pc only takes about 25sec to boot + or- 2 sec from time to time.. i just dont have all my apps boot on startup. its verry simple.

goto: start/run/ type msconfig/ goto startup tab.

turn off programs which dont need to boot with your pc: you should consider leaving stuff like mcfee or norton and video drivers on.. everything elce turn off. that should jump start your pc boot time