What to choose: HDD, SSD or hybrid? SSHD strange behavior of the hybrid drive market

Hi all.

It's time to get acquainted with the concept of a “hybrid hard drive”, as it is increasingly being heard. Would you like to increase the speed of your computer? I have no doubt that yes. And at the same time, naturally, you want to save money? Then read on.

Hybrid drive - what is it?

A hybrid hard drive, or in English SSHD (solid-state hybrid drive), is a cross between the old hard drive that is in your computer and, compared to it, new technology- solid state drive. To clarify the situation, you need to understand what one and the other are.

The one we are familiar with consists of plates and read heads that spin at incredible speeds.

Such a mechanism takes up a lot of space, makes noise and is prone to breakage when shaking.

Therefore, manufacturers came up with an improved version - which does not have any rotating elements, but consists only of a memory chip.

Even though solid state drive appeared back in the 80s, and is still not going to get cheaper. True, the high price is justified by the ultra-fast work. To balance the situation, the developers created a hybrid version between the first and second - SSHD. And yet, what is it?

It looks like the same simple screw, that is, it also works thanks to the plates and heads. Only they added flash memory to it, as in solid state drive.

How did you come to this decision?

To understand the cause-and-effect relationships, let’s look at the operating principle of the drive. When you give it a command with the keyboard and mouse, it first accesses the data in the first level cache. This is the area where the information you use most often is temporarily stored.

Depending on the HDD model, its volume varies between 8-64 MB. Catastrophically few, right? Therefore, the computer freezes (or rather, the screw itself freezes) if it suddenly does not find the necessary information in the cache and begins to select it from what it has in stock.

In order to prevent the computer from slowing down, we added a level 2 hard cache in the form of flash memory. Its volume can reach 8 GB. Better now, right? And although the additional cache has a lower speed than the main one, with a hybrid hard cache you are unlikely to have to worry about waiting for a response from the computer to your request.

After all, SSHD can add much more information to its temporary storage than HDD. True, there is no way to interfere in the election process: the drive itself decides what is more important to you.

For this, self-learning technology is used, which, from the first seconds of work, examines on the disk those files that have already been used several times, and if you reuse them, they will launch faster. That is, only the most frequently used files work quickly on such drives.

But the buffer size is known to be limited, therefore the disk will not process all your files faster (the files are replaced by others you use).

Advantages and Disadvantages

Like everything in our world, this device has pros and cons. Let's start with the good:

Works faster than the old screw by about 30%;
Costs less than SSD;
Flash memory and screw have a single housing.

The hybrid drive has only one drawback - a small cache size. But this is temporary, as technology develops. By the way, do not confuse the cache with memory intended for storing multimedia and other data - its volume can be calculated in terabytes.

Do you need an SSHD?

As you can see, when buying a hybrid propeller you can only win. But is it worth buying this hard one while the old one works flawlessly? The answer is yes if you want to speed up your computer.

I can say the same to those whose propeller has broken. I mean, you'll have to buy a new one anyway, so why not a hybrid? The price is not much more expensive regular disk, but it works much faster.

If you decide that you need a drive, when choosing, pay attention to the following main features:

Form factor - size.

Initially, these screws were intended only for mobile gadgets, therefore they were produced in a form factor (size) of 2.5 inches.

But the manufacturers also took care of the owners stationary computers, releasing 3.5-inch devices.

Interface - the way the disk is connected to motherboard. The data exchange speed also depends on this parameter. The most common one now is SATA. The first and third generations of this bus are found in many computers. Do you have very old hardware? Perhaps it contains an obsolete IDE interface. Most modern development considered PCI Express.
Capacity. IN in this case choose according to your personal needs.

My conclusion is this: since this disk generally works faster only with frequently used files, it would be more rational to buy it to install the OS on it. I just don’t see the point in using it for regular files.

That's all, friends, subscribe to the update and don't forget to bookmark the link to my blog.

Good luck with the upgrade.

SSHD is a new marketing term coined by Seagate to describe what is known as a hybrid drive in the market. hard drives and are a combination of a traditional hard drive (HDD), as well as new technologies.

Today we will talk about the pros and cons of this type of drive and whether they are worth your attention and, importantly, money.

What is the advantage of SSHD?

Seagate's advertising headlines read: " SSD performance. Hard drive capacity. Affordable price" Essentially what they are trying to say is that SSHD combines the benefits of both technologies without any significant cost. But if this is true, then why hasn't hybrid hard drive technology revolutionized the storage market yet? We’ll talk about this later, but for now let’s try to take a closer look at these “hybrids.”

SSHDs are essentially regular HDDs, but with a compact, small-capacity solid-state drive added to the disk controller and acting as a kind of cache for frequently used files. Therefore, you should not be surprised that the memory capacity of SSHDs is not inferior to classic hard drives.

SSHD

As for cost, hybrid hard drives cost about 10-20% more than traditional HDDs - this is the result of adding additional cache memory and firmware to manage that cache. On the other hand, they are much cheaper than solid-state drives, many times cheaper.

It all sounds quite cool and optimistic, but...

Is SSHD performance really the same as SSD?

The performance issue of hybrid hard drives directly depends on how the user uses the system, and the limiting factor in that same performance is the small amount of cache memory (currently about 8 GB), which is simply not enough to perform more or less serious tasks.

If the user “uses” his PC to a minimum, well, let’s say, surfs the Internet, sits on social networks, reads email, plays solitaire and plays chess, then such a user will have the greatest benefit from using hybrid hard drives, because in this scenario, the cache memory is quite enough to fully process all data at a speed corresponding to an SSD.

But, if we take into account another user who, let’s say, plays a variety of “heavy” computer games, then we can safely say that this user will not notice any difference in performance if he changes the HDD to an SSHD. Why? Because the cache volume is quite small and the files of that same computer game in it will be constantly updated and cannot be reused (from the cache), since they will be deleted and replaced with new files. And if the files are not reused, then there will be no real benefit from the SSD cache.

The same applies to copying data. If you copy, say, a folder of files and want to move it from one place to another, and it takes up more than 8 GB, then, accordingly, not the SSHD cache will be used, but its regular memory on a magnetic hard disk, and the copying speed will be the same , just like on a classic HDD.

But, as a “sweetener”, it is worth noting that the system boot when you turn on the computer will be approximately 10 seconds, which practically corresponds to the speed of the SSD.

So who needs an SSHD?

The primary market for solid-state hybrid drives is laptops. The fact is that the limited space of the case does not allow installing more than one disk in these systems. Installing only one SSD can provide greater performance, but limit the amount of data that can be stored on it. On the other hand, installing a single HDD will provide a lot of space, but the hard drive will not perform as well as an SSD.

SSHD, in turn, can offer simple and affordable way provide more high performance, with the same volumes internal memory- an excellent compromise. Plus, since most laptops are used for work rather than gaming, the benefits of SSHD drives become even more attractive.

For desktop systems, however, I do not yet recommend installing hybrid hard drives, since the case of a personal computer allows you to easily install several drives, namely SSD (for system operation) and HDD (for data storage), which will give excellent performance and large volume disk space.

An exception would be mini-desktop systems, which only have internal space for one drive.

The first quantum leap in data storage in personal computers happened about 30 years ago - when the hard drive became the main storage device. The personal computer equipped with the latter really reached a different level compared to its predecessors, equipped only with floppy drives, or even working with household tape recorders, and in all respects. Simply because the high capacity and speed of hard drives led to a sharp increase in power application programs, and indeed to a completely different scenario for using technology. Actually, that's why this scheme quickly became standard and remained unchanged for many years.

However, by now the market has begun to undergo further developments. Hard drives continue to be the main type of drive in mass-market computers. However, it is no longer the only one - flash memory is nipping at its heels. However, solid-state drives still cannot compete with hard drives in terms of capacity, but the trick is that the user often does not need high capacity. In any case, it is not needed in every computer - now a personal computer is not the only device of this kind at the owner’s disposal, but just part of a global infrastructure, which includes both local NAS and global cloud services. Accordingly, parameters such as performance or resistance to external adverse influences (shaking, for example) are taking the lead in many areas of use, but here flash memory drives are head and shoulders above their mechanical relatives.

But in practice, everything is even more complicated than the head-on confrontation between mechanics and semiconductors. The fact is that manufacturers have long been engaged in hybrid drives that include both. In terms of capacity, they do not lag behind hard drives (which is not surprising, since the hard drive is the basis of all hybrids), but at the same time they inherit many of their shortcomings, and performance... It’s more complicated with it. A conservative estimate (with which we tend to agree) is that the performance of hybrids is no lower than that of hard drives, and in a number of use cases can be comparable to solid-state devices. But not always, i.e. everything is simple only at the extreme points: hard drives are slow, SSDs are fast. And hybrids - depending on your luck.

However, such a vague definition certainly does not suit everyone. The only problem is that accurate testing of systems with hybrid drives is extremely difficult due to the variability of the results. Depending on the selected scenario and test programs, it is not so difficult to obtain both performance at the level of conventional hard drives and comparable to solid-state drives. Moreover, the more test programs low level we take, the more results of the first type we get. And high-level tests of the entire system usually do not depend too much on the performance of the drives themselves, so in them you can easily achieve parity between all types of the latter.

But no matter how difficult the search for an exact answer to the question posed may be, it needs to be done. Including using different approaches. In the line of articles devoted to testing drives themselves, we mainly focus on low-level tests and try (for obvious reasons) not to compare devices of different types with each other. Today's material is of a different kind. In it we will limit ourselves to high-level benchmarks, but we will test five different drives within one system. Let's see what comes out of this.

What and how we test

Not long ago we got our hands on gaming laptop MSI GP60, which differs from most devices on the market in the use of a hybrid hard drive Western Digital. This is already interesting in itself, since, unlike Seagate, which sells its hybrids left and right through all channels (so anyone can buy them), WDC so far ships its drives of this class only to manufacturers ready-made systems. According to the company, this should help the most complete and correct use potential of hybrid hard drives and avoid their “incorrect” use. For example, an individual buyer can try to install a couple of hybrids in RAID0, which is not very reasonable (mostly sequential operations are accelerated, but the same level of performance can be achieved on a cheaper array of conventional hard drives), or use additional external flash caching, which in most cases it will only worsen the performance. And the laptop manufacturer definitely won’t do anything stupid :) Moreover, if possible, he will configure the system accordingly and include the “correct” utilities in the kit (ideally). In general, this is an approach with its pros and cons. And its main disadvantages on the part of testers (i.e. us) is that you can’t just go to the store and pick up one hard drive - you need to get a whole system with it somewhere. However, as we see, it is not so difficult :)

So, the WDC WD10J13T itself is interesting in itself. Despite belonging to the Black series, it has a platter rotation speed of only 5400 rpm, which, in general, is already becoming common: 7200 laptop hard drives are dying out, since hybridization is now becoming the main method of increasing productivity. This model also has as much as 24 GB of flash memory installed, which is not so bad - SanDisk caching SSDs, actively used by many laptop manufacturers, have just such a capacity. And the package of pancakes is also familiar - two 500 GB disks, which is at the moment is the maximum for 9.5 mm WD hard drives. Note - only 5400 models: “black” at 7200 rpm. has not been updated for a very long time and uses less dense platters, so the capacity is limited to 750 GB, and for some types of load it is already more high speed rotation of the plates does not help to break away from the cheaper “blue” models (and, accordingly, older hybrids). In general, this is a capacious hard drive, accelerated by hybridization.

Who can compare it with? Of course, testing would not be complete without the Seagate SSHD. Closest to technical specifications is ST1000LX003: also a terabyte on two plates and 32 GB of flash memory, but, unfortunately, we have not tested it yet. But I found the Laptop Thin SSHD ST500LM000 “at hand”. The plate in it is the same as in older models, but there is only one. However, in comparison with an SSD, its 500 GB capacity still looks good - flash memory of this or greater capacity is still too expensive from the point of view of many buyers. So the main drawback of this model’s performance characteristics is only 8 GB of flash buffer, which, as we already found when testing the drive, is not enough. On the other hand, the technology developed over several years may well compensate for the advantage of a Western Digital drive in flash capacity, so the comparison promises to be interesting.

But, be that as it may, the question is “which hybrid to buy?” Users ask themselves much less often than “is it worth buying a hybrid hard drive?” (especially since, as mentioned above, Western Digital does not yet sell its models at retail, which further narrows the possibility of choice as such). That is why it is impossible to avoid comparison with “ordinary powder,” i.e., a simple hard drive. So as not to offend any of the manufacturers, today we will serve as an example of this: Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500-320: Single-platter from a “neutral manufacturer” with the same 5400 rpm speed as both test subjects. Of course, there are faster “classic” hard drives, but the modern “floor” is more important to us, not the “ceiling”. And in general - as has been said more than once, the latter is already beginning to slowly disappear: the role of top models is beginning to be played by hybrids, and devices with a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. become a dead-end branch of evolution.

And finally, today's favorites are solid-state drives. There will be two of them - the budget Crucial M500 120 GB and the Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB belonging to a slightly higher class. Note that the “budget” of the M500 is, in general, also relative - in price it is approximately equal to a terabyte hybrid from Seagate with 8 GB of flash memory (there are no retail prices for the WD10J13T yet, but it is unlikely that the cost of two similar drives from different companies can be too much vary). Actually, this is the answer to the question - why solid-state drives are still unable to displace mechanical drives: the prices are too different. Yes, of course, it is now possible to purchase an SSD at the price of an HDD (especially an SSHD), but the capacity will differ radically - eight times, i.e. almost an order of magnitude. A quarter of a terabyte of flash is relatively more profitable than an eighth of flash, but here it’s better not to compare absolute prices with hard drives. And if the buyer needs half a terabyte, then he will either have to buy an SSD at the price of a budget (even not the cheapest) laptop, or... Or give up on all the theoretical advantages of new technologies and turn to time-tested ones. Or also new, but less radical, i.e., hybrid drives.

As for the tools, there is no particular point in leaning on low-level tests - we have already established that. But PCMark is suitable as a measuring tool. Moreover, the two latest (at the moment) versions of this test package are also used when testing laptops, so some of the results have already been obtained earlier.

Low level - technology matters

So, let's start with the routes specialized for storage devices. There are too many detailed results, so we will limit ourselves to general estimates.

There are two suitable traces in PCMark7, so let's start with the more “refined” one. As you can see, hybridize does not hybridize, and solid-state drives are out of reach. They themselves can vary greatly in speed, but a budget SSD is already a couple of times faster than the fastest of the three hard drives participating in testing. However, flash buffering is not so bad - it allows you to increase performance on this route by 30-50%, but this is not at all enough to cross the chasm separating “mechanical” drives from semiconductor drives.

If you rise to a higher level and get closer to real loads, then the situation no longer looks so clear. Yes, of course, SSDs are still out of reach, but their advantage is greatly reduced compared to the previous case. That is, we can talk about a twofold difference only when comparing a slow hard drive with a fast SSD, and hybrid drives can already somehow be compared with budget solid-state drives. Of course, we are still not talking about equality, but a lag of some 20% against the background of many times greater capacity at similar prices is something that many users can already accept.

In PCMark8, this group of tests turned out to be completely new, and not a significantly reworked old one. The result is at least interesting - the difference between different hard drives or different SSDs almost disappears. The former are about one and a half times faster than the latter, but within the groups the spread is not too great.

So, let's drop everything, break out the piggy bank and run to the store? Take your time - these are just relatively low-level tests.

PCMark7 - Ubiquitous Storage

As we already wrote in the review of the laptop itself, with the exception of the Computation test, in each PCMark 7 scenario there are tasks to determine the performance of the data storage subsystem. Moreover, when calculating the integral result, the weight of these results turns out to be quite large. What should we get as a result?

Computation, of course, is practically independent of the type or specific model system storage. The influence of the latter can be traced a little, of course, but the difference (albeit stable - easily repeatable) is somewhere within the measurement error.

The transition to other routes changes things dramatically. Lightweight (light, non-stressful computer work) is almost identical to System storage. Relatively, but not absolutely, of course: after all, the test also contains a considerable number of tasks for other computer systems. As a result, we can talk about something like parity between hybrid hard drives and budget SSDs - the difference between them is only about 10%, which is not important for many users. At the same time, “traditional” hard drives are significantly slower, but top-end SSDs are much faster.

The Productivity test is also very “easy”, and it includes only two traces from the System storage group, and not three as in the previous case. True, here is one of them (namely launching applications), as we have seen more than once when testing drives, O and everyone else. In general, the results are already familiar: a computer with a traditional hard drive is almost two times slower than one equipped with a fast SSD, but budget models solid-state drives and hybrid hard drives are somewhere in the middle between them, and provide comparable performance. But even that is not the same. True, they still have capacity to a greater extent not the same :)

There is more work in Creativity, so the difference between drives different types begins to shrink, even if it does not disappear altogether. But don’t be surprised that many may not notice it. That is, a person exchanges a hard drive for an SSD to work with videos and photos in anticipation Wow!, but instead of “wow” he gets 20% of the productivity, and not everywhere. Also a lot, of course, but knowing the numbers in advance, there would be even fewer people willing to pay for them.

And finally, the entertainment group. There are only two “accumulative” tests here (and one of the traces is not very accelerated on an SSD), and there are 11 others. Some of them, however, flash memory allows you to pass faster, but not all of them are significant. As a result, we come to the conclusion that for “home entertainment” use of a computer, the type of drive used is not very important. Hybrid hard drives certainly provide some performance gains, and solid-state ones are even faster, but the difference is not as dramatic as the low-level tests might lead you to believe. Which is quite consistent with everyday logic - a fast drive will allow you to launch the game faster and/or load new levels, but the frame rate in it will be determined by the video card (and a little by the processor, memory, etc.), regardless of where the game is installed. On the other hand... It is precisely in order to remove these most annoying delays when switching between levels that gamers buy SSDs. And those who are not too irritated by them (at least, not enough to part with a significant amount of money) do not buy.

The overall PCMark7 result, as one would expect, is even more dependent on the performance of the drive used than individual traces. But this still doesn’t give us anything new - a familiar situation, where mechanical drives are obvious outsiders, fast solid-state drives are the undisputed leaders, and somewhere between them is the habitat of budget SSDs and hybrid hard drives, which can, to a first approximation, be considered equal to each other.

PCMark8 - everything is calm in Baghdad

The operating logic of the new Futuremark test package has changed greatly - unlike its predecessor, it does not try to “mix” cumulative tests, focusing specifically on “real software” (which in some scenarios can actually be real - as we have already written, the package is capable of using different Adobe versions Creative Suite or Microsoft Office, For example user installed). However, as we have already seen, and, in fact, the Storage group in this package finds fewer differences between drives of different types. Let's see how all this affects high-level tests.

Home computer - All Colas are the same. In any case, when running tests repeatedly, only “pure” mechanics lose (and only 10%), and hybrid hard drives are able to quickly cache the bulk of the work, which makes them equal to SSDs. But even if we plan for the worst case scenario (which, unfortunately, is almost impossible to simulate in this version of the package), we will “fall” only to the level of ordinary hard drives. That is, with this use of the computer, as we see, there is no need to chase an SSD (in any case).

What is noteworthy is that in an even easier “working” scenario, the gap between solid-state and hybrid drives from traditional ones only increased, while they themselves remained approximately equal to each other.

If content is not only consumed, but also produced, the use of flash memory in any form becomes even more preferable. In itself, there is no longer any need to chase top-end solid-state drives, since budget models of the latter, as well as hybrid hard drives, provide a level of performance comparable to them. However, you can look at the situation from the other side - in fact, here the difference between the two hybrids that took part in testing is comparable to the difference between drives of different classes.

And sometimes it can even exceed it. Indeed - Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD lags behind junior modification Crucial M500 is weaker than the hybrid WD Black. However, here the fastest SSD taken outperforms the slow “classic” hard drive by less than 15%. But it overtakes, i.e. the already established dependencies are in force.

Perhaps the most difficult work scenario also turned out to be the most loyal to solid-state drives. So we come to the conclusion that to use Adobe products buying an SSD highly desirable. Which is not surprising - the applications of this manufacturer work very actively with hard drives. Especially the same Photoshop, which actively creates a large number of temporary files. Hybrid hard drives are unable to greatly speed up the process - after all, the mechanics prevent you from achieving high performance. But the potential of solid-state drives is fully utilized. A “smart” SSD allows you to get a one and a half times increase in performance relative to hard drives, which is very noticeable in the same environment. Especially in laptop computers, where, for example, it is impossible to obtain a similar increase due to the processor in some cases - let us recall that the system we used had a Core i7-4700QM installed: albeit not the highest model range, but quad-core Haswell, which lags behind the extreme model of its generation by only 20 percent (the competition with representatives of older lines is even less clear). But, of course, to get such an effect, the solid-state drive must be used not only for installing programs, but also for working with data - otherwise the increase will be much more modest. And this unambiguously addresses us to capacious models of the top lines (the rest may simply not fit everything you need), which themselves can cost as much as a middle-class laptop. Thus, hybrid technologies are even more relevant - as we see, such hard drives are quite capable of competing with some budget SSDs, offering the buyer many times more working space, which can turn out to be extremely important (“splashing” a hundred gigabytes of photos with a modern DSLR is a simple matter and within one trip). In general, based on a combination of factors (speed, capacity, price), there are no clear leaders and clear outsiders. This means that all technologies and their combinations will remain relevant in the near future. Each one is simply in its place.

Total

Manufacturers of solid-state drives “love” to use the results of low-level benchmarks in advertising, and when promoting hybrid ones, the main emphasis is on the fact that sometimes they are almost as good as solid-state drives. Both are true. But not all of them :) In the first case, do not forget that low-level “parrots” are extremely rarely achievable in practice - more often than not, the performance of the entire computer when solving certain problems is “limited” by the characteristics of completely different components. Or even nothing at all except the user. As you might guess, this is often the “stumbling block” for hybrids: there are many loads where “regular” hard drives are often not too far behind solid-state drives even without any hybridization. Therefore, you should not count on the fact that SSD installation Instead of even the slowest hard drive, adding it to any laptop will radically speed it up everywhere - this may not affect the time it takes to complete practical tasks at all, i.e. you will continue to process the photo for 15 minutes. Another question is that the comfort of this event may increase - in particular, delays when launching programs will no longer be noticeable. Or “brakes” when loading levels in a game, etc. But the frame rate, as we wrote above, will not increase - it all depends on the video card and, to a lesser extent, on the processor. To view a photo in RAW format, it seems that you need to quickly read it from the media. However, when high resolution“developing” RAW itself can take several seconds (or even tens of seconds) - against this background, the time for reading a file even from a USB flash drive will simply be “lost.”

Hello admin! I want to buy hard drive with a capacity of 1-2 TB, one computer geek friend advised me to buy an SSHD drive (a hybrid of a hard drive and an SSD solid-state drive), since it works noticeably faster than a regular HDD, but is not as expensive as an SSD solid-state drive. What can you say about such discs?

Hello friends! Very good question. Yes, SSHD hybrid hard drive ( Solid State Hybrid Drive) works 30% faster than a conventional hard drive, and is about the same more expensive. If a regular 1 TB hard drive costs 4,000 rubles, then an SSHD can be bought for 5,400 rubles. The following discs are available for regular computers, and for laptops.

Firstly, What is a hybrid hard drive?

Production technology hard drives(the only computer component that has moving mechanical parts) has long reached a dead end and it is almost impossible to increase the performance of a hard drive through production, as evidenced by the appearance of SSDs and SSHD hybrid hard drives on the market. But if a solid-state drive is a completely non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips, then a hybrid hard drive is, first of all, a regular hard drive with an MLC fast flash memory card (8 GB capacity) soldered onto it, used in the production of solid-state drives. that is, it turns out that SSHD is a hybrid of a regular hard drive and an SSD..

Secondly, why is an SSHD hybrid hard drive faster than a regular hard drive?

Seagate SSHD hybrid drives use self-learning technology - Seagate Adaptive Memory, which examines the operating system installed on the disk from the first seconds of operation, as a result, the most frequently used programs and files are copied to the flash memory of the SSHD disk, such files primarily include elements involved in loading operating system, which means Windows will load faster the second or third time, because Windows will be loaded from flash memory. For example, on my computer Windows boot 8.1 installed on regular HDD, occurs within 35-40 seconds, and on SSHD - 20 seconds, on a regular solid-state SSD drive- 15 seconds. The same applies to applications you constantly use; they will launch a little faster. Let’s take, for example, a modern game that requires computer resources and that you constantly play; according to my observations, such a game will load three times faster than on a regular HDD.

Hybrid SSHD hard drive is golden mean

At all, ideal option drive configurations in system unit ordinary home user looks like this: you buy two drives, the first is a solid state SSD (volume 120-240 GB) for installing the operating system, and the second is a regular HDD for storing files (volume) 2-3 TB, you need about 10,000 rubles for all this. And if you purchase one 1 TB SSHD hybrid drive, it will cost you 5,400 rubles, and a 2 TB SSHD will cost you 7,000 rubles. Of course, everything won’t fly (as is the case with an SSD), but maybe you don’t need such speeds. A hybrid SSHD drive is coming out, this is the golden mean - for little money you get good performance And large volume disk space.

Which SSHD to buy

Until recently, SSHD hybrid drives were produced by the company that developed them - Seagate. In total, there are now three Seagate Desktop SSHD models on the market with capacities of 1, 2, 4 TB.

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST1000DX001 1 TB

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4 TB

Also, recently Western Digital began to produce SSHD, but they are few on the market, and the model that I came across - WD Blue SSHD, WD40E31X with a capacity of 4 TB, was no different in speed characteristics from the similar model Seagate ST4000DX001 4 TB.

In today’s article, I suggest you consider the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB model and here’s why. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 1 TB model, then 1 TB of disk space is not enough for modern user computer. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 4 TB model, then on the contrary, not everyone needs a large volume of 4 TB of disk space, and its price is quite high (11,500 rubles), and what is also important is the spindle speed of this drive: 5900 rpm, that is, it is slightly slower than other SSHDs with a capacity of 1 and 2 TB (spindle speed 7200 rpm) and this will certainly affect the performance of the operating system.

So, I persuaded you and we have a model in front of us Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB

Upon closer inspection, the hybrid Seagate drive Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB turned out to be ordinary hard drive, only it says SSHD on it.

Disk space - 2 TB

SSD buffer capacity - 8 GB

Cache memory size - 64 MB

Spindle speed - 7200 rpm

On back side drive we see a special printed circuit board Adaptive Memory, with 8 GB of fast MLC memory and a “hybrid” controller soldered.

It’s very easy to install the drive into the system unit.

SMART hard drive in the CrystalDiskInfo and Victoria program.

The hybrid drive is new and has been used for 0 hours.

Read and write tests

To make sure that our disk is really good, let's perform several tests on read and write using special programs: CrystalDiskMark 2.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark and SiSoftware Sandra. These utilities will sequentially read and write information to our hybrid disk in small blocks, then show us the result.

CrystalDiskMark 2.0

The simplest and most frequently used program in this regard, you can download it on my Yandex.Disk

The utility is very simple, select only the desired drive letter (in our case E:)

And click AII, the test will begin SSHD disk for performance.

1. Test of sequential reading and writing of large blocks of data;

2. Test random reading and recording in 512 KB blocks;

3. Test of random reading and writing in 4 KB blocks;

I can say that the result is very worthy, especially the recording in 512 KB and 4 KB blocks.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Let's test the hybrid disk with another program - ATTO Disk Benchmark.

Select the drive letter of the SSHD hybrid drive and click Start.

Result.

SiSoftware Sandra

Global program capable of diagnosing all computer components and having its own official rating.

As a result, our disk is ahead of 94% of the results. Excellent performance.

Disadvantages of SSHD

In my opinion, the only disadvantage of SSHD is the small amount of built-in flash memory 8 GB, it would be great if its size increased to 32 GB, then more running programs would be placed in the solid state cache and the performance of Windows would be exactly the same as if it was installed on the SSD.

Hello admin! I want to buy a 1-2 TB hard drive, one computer geek I know advised me to buy an SSHD drive (a hybrid of a hard drive and an SSD solid-state drive), since it works noticeably faster than a regular HDD, but is not as expensive as an SSD. What can you say about such discs?

Hello friends! Very good question. Yes, the SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) hybrid hard drive is 30% faster than a conventional hard drive, and about the same amount more expensive. If a regular 1 TB hard drive costs 4,000 rubles, then an SSHD can be bought for 5,400 rubles. Such disks are produced both for regular computers and for laptops.

Firstly, What is a hybrid hard drive?

The technology for the production of hard drives (the only component of a computer that has moving mechanical parts) has long been at a dead end and it is almost impossible to increase the performance of a hard drive through production, as evidenced by the appearance on the market of solid-state drives SSDs and hybrid hard drives SSHD. But if a solid-state drive is a completely non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips, then a hybrid hard drive is, first of all, a regular hard drive with an MLC fast flash memory card (8 GB capacity) soldered onto it, used in the production of solid-state drives. that is, it turns out that SSHD is a hybrid of a regular hard drive and an SSD..

Secondly, why is an SSHD hybrid hard drive faster than a regular hard drive?

Seagate SSHD hybrid drives use self-learning technology - Seagate Adaptive Memory, which examines the operating system installed on the disk from the first seconds of operation, as a result, the most frequently used programs and files are copied to the flash memory of the SSHD disk, such files include, first of all, the elements involved in loading the operating system, which means that Windows will be installed from the second or third time boot faster, because Windows will be loaded from flash memory. For example, on my computer, loading Windows 8.1 installed on a regular HDD takes 35-40 seconds, on an SSHD - 20 seconds, on a regular SSD - 15 seconds. The same applies to applications you constantly use; they will launch a little faster. Let’s take, for example, a modern game that requires computer resources and that you constantly play; according to my observations, such a game will load three times faster than on a regular HDD.

Hybrid SSHD hard drive is the golden mean

In general, the ideal configuration of drives in the system unit of an ordinary home user looks like this: buy two drives, the first is an SSD (volume 120-240 GB) for installing the operating system, and the second is a regular HDD for storing files (capacity) 2-3 TB , you need about 10,000 rubles for all this. And if you purchase one 1 TB SSHD hybrid drive, it will cost you 5,400 rubles, and a 2 TB SSHD will cost you 7,000 rubles. Of course, everything won’t fly (as is the case with an SSD), but maybe you don’t need such speeds. A hybrid SSHD drive is coming out, this is the golden mean - for little money you get good performance and a large amount of disk space.

Which SSHD to buy

Until recently, SSHD hybrid drives were produced by the company that developed them - Seagate. In total, there are now three Seagate Desktop SSHD models on the market with capacities of 1, 2, 4 TB.

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST1000DX001 1 TB

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB

Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4 TB

In today’s article, I suggest you consider the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB model and here’s why. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 1 TB model, then 1 TB of disk space is no longer enough for a modern computer user. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 4 TB model, then on the contrary, not everyone needs a large volume of 4 TB of disk space, and its price is quite high (11,500 rubles), and what is also important is the spindle speed of this drive: 5900 rpm, that is, it is slightly slower than other SSHDs with a capacity of 1 and 2 TB (spindle speed 7200 rpm) and this will certainly affect the performance of the operating system.

So, I persuaded you and we have a model in front of us Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB

Upon closer inspection, the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB hybrid drive turned out to be an ordinary hard drive, only it says SSHD on it.

Disk space - 2 TB

SSD buffer capacity - 8 GB

Cache memory size - 64 MB

Spindle speed - 7200 rpm

On the back of the drive we see a special Adaptive Memory printed circuit board, with 8 GB of fast MLC memory and a “hybrid” controller soldered on.

It’s very easy to install the drive into the system unit.

SMART hard drive in the CrystalDiskInfo and Victoria program.

The hybrid drive is new and has been used for 0 hours.

Read and write tests

To make sure that our disk is really good, let's perform several tests on reading and writing using special programs: CrystalDiskMark 2.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark and SiSoftware Sandra. These utilities will sequentially read and write information to our hybrid disk in small blocks, then show us the result.

CrystalDiskMark 2.0

The simplest and most frequently used program in this regard, you can download it on my Yandex.Disk

The utility is very simple, select only the desired drive letter (in our case E:)

And click AII, the SSHD disk performance test will begin.

1. Test of sequential reading and writing of large blocks of data;

2. Test of random reading and writing in 512 KB blocks;

3. Test of random reading and writing in 4 KB blocks;

I can say that the result is very worthy, especially the recording in 512 KB and 4 KB blocks.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Let's test the hybrid disk with another program - ATTO Disk Benchmark.

Select the drive letter of the SSHD hybrid drive and click Start.

Result.

SiSoftware Sandra

A global program capable of diagnosing all computer components and having its own official rating.

As a result, our disk is ahead of 94% of the results. Excellent performance.

Disadvantages of SSHD