Hybrid hard drives: Why they are failing

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Back in 2005, Samsung and Microsoft announced something that got the storage fans in the world excited: they had designed a hard drive with a bit of flash memory in it that would serve as a data cache.

The hybrid hard drive would cut down power consumption, increase battery life, and, most importantly, whack boot-up time, the companies said.

But so far, you don't see a lot of them on store shelves and the benefits are somewhat disappointing, said hard drive executives at Diskcon 2007, taking place in Santa Clara this week.

"The initial versions haven't delivered the performance consumers expected," said Dr. Richard New, director of research for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

The problem, said New, might be correctable if drive makers put in more flash. Right now, hybrid drives have about 256MB of memory. If you put in 4GB or so, the flash could hold a lot more storage, which in turn would reduce power consumption and help boot-up time. That would raise prices, though.

The small amount of flash also means that boot-up time isn't that much shorter, noted Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing at Fujitsu Computing Products of America. From a cold start, boot-up time might drop from 28 seconds with a standard drive to 21 seconds with a hybrid, according to Hagberg.

"I don't see anyone paying for that," Hagberg said.

The sleep function on Vista also indirectly chips into the desirability of hybrids, added Richard Rutledge, senior vice president of marketing at Western Digital, the number two maker of drives. The company, which doesn't market a hybrid, conducted a bunch of tests comparing boot-up times of different versions of Vista from a cold start with boot-up times with computers resting in Vista's sleep state. Boot-up from a cold start with Vista PCs ranged all the way up to 70 seconds, depending on the version of Vista (Vista Home Premium is the slow one, by the way.)

Vista PCs, however, would come out of the sleep state to being operational in four seconds. Western Digital tried seven variants for Vista and it always came to around four seconds. Thus, with the sleep state working as it does, you don't need a hybrid, he said.

[W2Kuser]

nice idea, but 256MB was stupid

256MB? How do the morons who make these decisions keep their jobs?

[rturner2]

dumb arses...

Hard drive manufactures have no idea putting only 256MB. Stop caring about price so much and let consumers decide for themselves!!! Put in 4GB to 16GB (and advertise this fact with the hard drive marketing so that people know). A lot of people are wanting full NAND drives but they are too expensive for the space at the moment, so start making hybrids properly and, if done correctly, you will keep your market even when NAND drives are larger and cheaper!!

[GotAMD]

It would make them more expensive?

How much more expensive could the additional flash make them? Even with the small amount of flash, they still have to be built to take advantage of it. The only additional cost would be adding the extra flash memory. The rest is already there. Considering you can buy a fast 4GB USB flash drive for under $100, I don't understand why they're dragging their feet because of the "price". It can't be *that* much more expensive to add the additional flash.

[aemarques]

4 GB pen drive for 40 euros

Where I live, you can buy a 4 GB pen drive for as little as 40 euros (56 dolars). But this is a complete flash drive: the HD makers only have to buy the memory chips, they don't need the extra packaging, usb connector and controller, etc.
So, 4 GB of flash in a hard disc should not be very difficult and NOT very expensive also!
256 MB? You gotta be kidding...

[hawkeyeaz1]

Look at how cheap HDs are

When you can get a 500Gb hard drive for about $120 (internal SATA) or a 200Gb for $60 (internal EIDE).


Then consider you can get a 2Gb flash drive for $20, and that is the full package, then adding 4Gb to a 200Gb drive at $20 (half price to account for packaging) means the 500Gb is the better deal, and as everyone needs storage, the 500Gb will win out.

[Kelekolio]

Why wait for Vista?

Let Apple do it with the kind of os and flashdrive performance that
OSX is showing in iPods and iPhones. Then Vista can copy the
technique as usual.

[rslc]

Just use Flash for program, HDD for data

Just hybrid cars, these are half-hearted solutions.
Go series hybrid or full electric.

For Harddisk, go for full flash or
flash for programs and regular HDD for data.

[blueshore]

Why not RAM/Flash/HD?

A better idea might be use RAM in a RAID1-like mode, and adding either a battery or a inertial generator to keep power after the system is shutdown (either a controlled or uncontrolled) in order to transfer all the RAM Data to the Flash. Might be a bit complex, but the technology already exists, and only the cost/benefit issues are the only restriction.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Vista isn't the only OS

And, while BSD and Linux are both viable, there is still XP, which will probably be out there for years to come considering Vista's current state.