Can Seagate Push Hybrid Drives?
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on October 8, 2007 at 2:29:43 PM
I think these hybrid drives are a good idea... They still need more flash memory. 1GB should be minimum.
Quote
"It absolutely makes sense to take advantage of nonvolatile semiconductor memory and the best aspects of the hard disk drive technology," said John Monroe, a vice president of research at Gartner. Using the two technologies together has benefits for users, including faster boot times and better battery life. Seagate says it's positioning the Momentus 5400 PSD as a mainstream option that balances the use of flash chips with the affordability of traditional hard disk drives. Sony's Vaio SZ650 is currently shipping with the new hybrid drive from Seagate, and four other PC manufacturers have also signed on. It all depends on the order volume, but Seagate says its hybrid drives will sell for an approximately 20 to 30 percent premium over its standard hard disk drives. A 160GB hard drive from Seagate, for example, costs approximately $130.