14 DAY TRIAL // Like Western Digital and Seagate, Toshiba has embraced the concept of hybrid storage. It had to really, in order to help make ultrabooks that are at least mildly affordable. Here is the newest series.
Toshiba has introduced the MQ01ABFH line of 2.5-inch solid-state hybrid drives (SSHD) with a thickness of 7mm.
7mm used to be the thinnest form factor, but then 5mm units showed up, leaving it at the middle (9.5 mm being above).
With how few 5mm drives exist, however, 7mm is still a very thin form factor, more than suited to ultrabooks and other ultrathin systems.
In any event, the Toshiba SSHD line comes in 320 GB and 500 GB capacities, plus 8 GB of SSD storage.
Files are copied on the SSD part, and frequently used files are held there all the time, thus ensuring SSD-level performance.
The move from the SSD part to the platters is done in the background, after the file copy is completed (assuming the SSD isn't being used for something else at the time).
“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 Don Jeanette, director of product marketing at Toshiba’s storage products business unit.
“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 used a tiered-storage approach to optimize the flash performance. Ostensibly, there are both DRAM and NAND components there.
The newcomers even have self-learning algorithms that optimize performance based on user data access patterns.
Sample notebooks with Toshiba's MQ01ABFH will be available on June 26. The exact part numbers are MQ01ABF050H (500 GB) and MQ01ABF032H (320 GB). The already existing 750GB and 1TB models (9mm) may show up as well.