14 DAY TRIAL // Solid-state hybrid drives seem to be the main topic this week, with I-O Data, Western Digital and now Toshiba all introducing one of those hybrid storage devices. There are two new Toshiba drives in fact, both slimmer than their brethren.
The new storage units are somewhat alike those from I-O Data, with a token NAND Flash capacity and otherwise like any other HDD.
Western Digital's invention was more of a fusion between a full-on SSD (120 GB) and a hard disk drive unit of 1 TB. No wonder it was called a dual drive, but we digress.
The new Toshiba SSHDs are called MQ01ABFH and come in 500GB and 320GB capacities, all packed in 7 mm-thick packages.
That's actually their main asset, the thinness. Their predecessors, the 1TB2 and 750GB MQ01ABDH, are 9.5 mm models, both of them.
Thus, they should be more suited for laptops and ultrabooks. While the HDD part stores the data, the 8 GB of NAND memory hold the frequently accessed files, enhancing responsiveness for the PC overall.
"The MQ01ABFH series fulfills users' desire for thin and light notebook PCs with fast response times that can keep up with their demanding gaming and multimedia applications," said Mr. Kashiwabara, senior manager of marketing sector, Toshiba Digital Media Network Taiwan Corporation.
"This addition to our SSHD lineup demonstrates Toshiba's continued focus on delivering a wide range of storage devices that enhances the computing experience for our customers."
Toshiba's SSHDs use self-learning algorithms to figure out which data access patterns can improve the computing performance. The data is cached based on the conclusions drawn from observing which files are used more often. The protocols are constantly updated too.
Only samples are available for now, but laptops featuring the Toshiba MQ01ABFH are bound to show up soon, as early as CES 2013 maybe (early January).