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Samsung's Hybrid Hard Drive (HHD) released to OEMs
Samsung and Microsoft have been touting the wonders of the hybrid hard drive since 2005 -- in other words "forever" on a technology timeline. Now, finally, Samsung is pushing their ReadyDrive-friendly HHD out the door to OEMs starting today. The MH80 series of 2.5-inch drives build in 128/256MB of NAND flash to augment the traditional 80/120/160GB of traditional hard disk capacity. Samsung claims that their new HHDs offer 5x the reliability of conventional hard disks while shaving up to 50% off Windows Vista boot times and cutting power consumption by 70-90% to deliver about 30-minutes more laptop run-time off battery. Sweet. No prices given, but look for 'em to hit higher-end laptops as relatively costly (no prices given) options any day now. With any luck, the higher cost will be offset by more bang-for-the-buck.
Hard disk makers form Hybrid Storage Alliance
With the format wars going on in one part of the tech world, it is good to know that some companies can still see the benefit of coming together. Putting aside their competitive differences, hard disk makers Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, and Samsung, have joined forces to form the Hybrid Storage Alliance, a group advocating -- you guessed it -- the use of hybrid drives. As you may or may not remember, these new storage devices combine the capacity of conventional platter drives with the speed of flash memory. Put that together with Microsoft's Windows ReadyDrive, and now you have longer battery life and faster boot-up times. While we appreciate the push the "Alliance" is making for the adoption of anything that makes laptop usage more enjoyable, we would rather see them create a group with SanDisk and push SSD prices down even more. Plus, where's Western Digital up in this piece?
Laptop Vista Premium certification will require hybrid HDDs
Far from being a niche technology that just happens to fully thrive in Windows Vista, it turns out that those hybrid hard drives we've been following for some time will actually be required equipment for laptops wishing to sport the Vista Premium logo. TG Daily caught up with Microsoft's Windows Client Performance program manager Matt Ayres at TechEd 2006 to pin him down about recent updates to the Windows Logo Device Program Requirements, and sure enough, Ayres confirmed that the new wording does indeed mean that hybrid drives will be part-and-parcel of Premium-labeled mobile systems released after June 1, 2007. As you may or may not recall, these so-called ReadyDrive HDDs manufactured by Samsung, Seagate, and unnamed others offer up to 256MB of on-board flash memory for faster boot times and better battery life thanks to buffering that reduces the amount of necessary drive spinning.[Thanks, Mack S.]
Samsung, Seagate show off ReadyDrive HDD prototypes
No surprises here: we've known since last WinHEC that Samsung was working on a so-called ReadyDrive hard drive that sports a 128MB flash buffer for enabling lower laptop power consumption, and just as we suspected, they've unveiled a working prototype of the technology at this year's conference. Also on hand with their own ReadyDrive was Seagate, who, like Samsung, plan to release their model when Vista finally starts shipping, as only the next-gen operating system will have the proper ATA driver command sets to allow for such a large buffer. PCMag was on the scene for one of Samsung's demos, and claim that a laptop running an office apps script only needed to access the hard drive every three to four minutes, which could result in ReadyDrive-equipped laptops sipping up to 40% less juice than models with those outdated, perpetually-spinning HDDs.
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]
