The launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest OS, in the last quarter of this year may change the computing landscape. One of its intriguing features called ReadyDrive requires the use of hybrid drives. Strictly speaking, this technology centaur is half hard disk drive (HDD), and half solid state disk (SSD) drive. Aiming to exploit the best of both worlds, hybrid drives consist of a rotating magnetic platter for storage, and a non-volatile flash memory chip for caching.
Vista's endorsement is exciting but it's human nature not to trust strange disk drives. The tricky part is getting users acquainted with SSDs to care enough about hybrid drives. The half of the pair presents no problem. Almost everyone is familiar with HDDs – its form factor, RPM, and storage capacity – that they're as conventional as household furniture. While people can readily identify HDDs, they have difficulty defining SSDs. This limited knowledge of SSDs may be attributed to the fact that they are distributed to the consumer market in small doses.
Flash memory-based storage devices have permeated commercial electronic stalls in the form of thumb drives, storage chips for digital cameras, MP3/MP4 players, mobile phones, and memory cards for PDA and handheld computers. It comes in all these forms but SSD still doesn't ring a bell, does it? Here's one scenario: let's say Tom buys a digital camera and is overjoyed with his 1 GB flash disk memory. He tirelessly browses the Internet for tricks and tweaks he can do with his professional 'digicam'; he combs stores for lenses, he deliberates what tripod and carry case to use. But wait, does he take time to read up on his 1 GB flash disk? At most, he will skim through a review on it, but the typical answer would be "No". As an average user, Tom is more concerned with the functionality of his digital camera than the wonder that is his 1 GB flash disk memory.
Imagine the same scene playing out with Dick's brand new mobile phone and Harry's latest PDA. If Tom, Dick, and Harry don't even bother to seek out information on their newly acquired flash disk memory, how will they ever encounter the acronym SSD? How will they learn more about this amazing technology? Surely, a lot of people are guilty of doing what Tom, Dick and Harry did.
In today's technological arena, SSDs are more commonly used as storage solutions for defense, enterprise, and other mar c
ket segments that are willing to pay a premium. These industries are exposed to high-risk environmental conditions and have significant storage speed, reliability and endurance demands. As such, it is easily ignored by the consumer electronics industry whose users are happy just to get the computer work on applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and Internet surfing.
The induction of hybrid drives via Vista is an opportunity for SSDs to go beyond their widely accepted minor role and play a more prominent part in daily computing. As one half dedicated storage in hybrid drives, even if only for caching scraps of data, the storage capacity of SSD drives has been expanded so that it cannot be missed. Even Tom, Dick and Harry will be interested to know just what this 16 GB chunk of flash drive is up to – What is it? What does it do? How can it do that?
Once these questions are answered, the public is not only more educated about SSDs, the superior points of SSDs have also been inevitably unveiled – all thanks to the arrival of these dichotomous drives.
What is it? SSDs have been around and available for almost twenty years. Several industries rely on them as storage drives because they are faster, more reliable, and rugged. SSDs can read and write data in microseconds, and that's 1000 times faster than 1 millisecond! The chances of these drives failing or storing corrupted data are kept to a minimum. SSDs can withstand extreme weather conditions. The absence of moving parts also eliminates noise, heat, and weight compared to HDDs. Some of today's most popular electronic devices, as mentioned earlier, use SSDs.
Hybrid drives plan to use flash-based SSDs to store immediate data for quicker processing. What are they for? When used in hybrid drives, SSDs act as temporary storage for write data, significant read data, frequently accessed applications and files, and any disk sector that requires quick retrieval. Because all needed data is easily accessible in the cache, much of the user's waiting time either for storing and executing files is removed. How does it do that?
The idea is to fill up the flash disk so that the HDD is at rest. It is only when the flash disk is fully loaded that the HDD wakes up and spins so that the data from the flash disk can be transferred and stored in its cavities. This simple mechanism makes a myriad of advantages possible for computer users, especially for notebook carriers.
Hybrid drives promise to impress users with operational upgrades, but do not expect any of the sparks to shoot off the HDD compartment. The real showstopper in this invention is the flash memory chips. Bear in mind that the specifications of HDDs in hybrid drives have not exceeded the market standards: a speed not exceeding the 5400-15,000 RPM range, and storage capacity within the boundaries of 200-500 GB. Suffice to say that in reference to HDDs, there is nothing new to discuss.
Whatever improvement hybrid drives guarantee - including but not limited to - shortening boot up and shut down times, prolonging battery life (for notebooks), reducing energy consumption and overheating, speeding up overall performance, and getting rid of noise and the extra weight – in all of these an'd more, the credit goes to SSDs.
After Vista's release, the notion that SSD drives only come in bite sizes can be broken. Thanks to hybrid drives, SSDs now have one leg in the storage mainstream market. These duplex drives may very well dominate the scene once Microsoft piles them on the racks. However, their reign may not last for long. Future iterations of BiTMICRO SSD products target high capacity at low cost – the very criteria that put hybrid drives on the lead. Without these plus factors, the saga is over.
With Vista giving users the option of using hybrid drives, no one can deny that a slice of the SSD experience has also been tossed to the eager consumer market, and a door has been opened to SSDs where their other leg is just waiting to step in. The idea of an SSD as a storage option even for your typical desktop/notebook user has been sneaked in along with Vista, and only time will tell when this dream will be realized. It is true what they say: There is no way to go but up and further, to the next big and better thing. It is just a matter of time before SSD drives become just like another piece of furniture.
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