How to install windows on a hybrid hard drive. Hybrid and regular hard drives versus solid state drives in one laptop
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, 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?
The technology for the production of 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 on the market solid state drives SSD and SSHD hybrid hard drives. 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 boot 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 a regular HDD occurs within 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 drive configuration option is 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, SSHD began to produce Western Digital, but there are few of them 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 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 hybrid Seagate drive Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB 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 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 CrystalDiskInfo program and Victoria.
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 press 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
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 small volume built-in flash memory 8 GB, it would be great if its size increased to 32 GB, then more running programs could be placed in the solid-state cache and Windows performance would be exactly the same as if it were installed on an SSD.
A hybrid hard drive combines the performance of a solid-state drive with the capacity of a mechanical drive. They're bigger than SSDs and faster than ever hard drive.
It is sometimes referred to as a solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD). The drive automatically caches data into solid-state storage for faster file access.
Solid state drives are much faster than mechanical drives. Prices have dropped noticeably, so it makes sense to upgrade to an SSD. But even cheaper drives are less capacious. 1 GB of solid state drive costs $0.58, and 1 GB of mechanical drive costs $0.06. An affordable solid-state drive has a maximum capacity of 256 GB, while a mechanical drive has a capacity of 2 or 3 TB. Mechanical drives are slow, but have enormous capacity at an extremely low cost per gigabyte.
To take advantage of both types of drives, many people equip their computers with both solid-state and mechanical drives. The solid state drive is used for system files and programs that need speed. A large mechanical disk is used for long-term storage of files that are not particularly needed. fast access, - for example, collections of films. This requires installing both drives into the computer and choosing which programs and files to put on each drive. You have to move files to another drive yourself. Moving a program to another disk means deleting it and reinstalling it in another location.
A hybrid drive consists of a magnetic disk and a solid-state drive with the volume of a small solid-state drive. This disk appears to the operating system as a single disk. You are not responsible for which files go to the mechanical drive and which to the solid state. The drive's firmware determines what makes it onto the solid-state drive and what doesn't.
The SSD part of the disk serves as a “cache” - files that are often accessed - files of the operating system and programs, the firmware is stored in the SSD drive. The cache is stored in non-volatile semiconductor solid-state memory, surviving reboots and thereby speeding up the boot procedure.
Access to system and program files is performed at the speed of a solid-state disk, while simultaneously providing the capacity of the magnetic disk for other files. The drive handles this on its own—you don't have to move files back and forth or decide what goes where.
Most hybrid drives have a small SSD storage capacity. Some of them have 1 TB of mechanical capacity and only 8 GB of semiconductor memory. 8 GB is enough to store system and program files, but this volume is not comparable to 128 or 256 GB, which can accommodate all system and program files.
Apple's Fusion Drive is also a hybrid and is equipped with a magnetic capacity of 1 to 3 TB along with 128 GB of solid-state memory.
Hybrid wheels Cheaper than solid-state ones because they contain less solid-state memory. A 2TB hybrid drive with 8GB of cache is more expensive than a regular 2TB mechanical drive, but cheaper than a 256GB SSD, which has even less free space.
A major advantage is that the hybrid drive is a single physical drive. If your laptop only has room for one drive, but you need the speed of a solid-state drive and the capacity of a mechanical drive, then a hybrid drive is the best solution.
It's all about price and capacity. If magnetic and solid-state drives were the same in cost, then hybrid drives would not be needed at all. Solid state drives would be better in every way.
Hybrid drive is slow when first used. When it first starts working, caching has not yet been done, which means that the disk will be just as slow as a classic magnetic one. As you use it, the drive will learn which files to cache and speed will gradually increase.
It's up to you to choose which drive to use, but our team prefers a hybrid drive with solid state memory at least 32GB.
Solid-state drives (from the English solid-state drive, abbreviated as SSD) have come to replace traditional information storage - hard drives (hard disk drive, HDD). SSDs do not use magnetic disks that rotate (as in HDDs), but stationary flash memory chips, similar to USB flash drives. However, despite having numerous advantages, solid state has not yet been able to completely replace hard disks even in laptops, not to mention desktop PCs. Main disadvantage of SSD the price remains high: a gigabyte of their volume costs significantly more than that of an HDD. Therefore, we will tell you in which cases it is better to choose an SSD, HDD or a hybrid solution.
Benefits of SSD
The main advantages of solid state drives over hard drives is:
- high performance;
- resistance to physical impact.
For example, the sequential reading and writing speed of a 2.5-inch laptop HDD is 100 MB/s, and a 3.5-inch desktop HDD is 150 MB/s. The speed of random read-write (files are scattered over the entire surface of the disk) in an HDD can be ten times lower than the sequential one.
Another thing is SSD: even when connected to a motherboard with an outdated SATA II interface, the speed of linear data reading will be less than 250 MB/sec. And once you upgrade to SATA III, performance will increase to 400-500 MB/sec. In turn, the linear write speed of an SSD, depending on the model, can be either equal to the reading performance or be half as low (but still higher compared to the HDD). And thanks to minimal delays in accessing data (SSDs, unlike HDDs, do not need to move the read head across the disk surface), the random read-write speed is also significantly higher.
Without moving elements (electric motor, read heads), solid-state drives are not afraid of exposure to strong vibrations and shocks. This allows, for example, to work on a laptop while driving a car on a bumpy dirt road. However, it’s not worth crash testing the SSD, so that you don’t have to mourn the information that was stored on it later. Less afraid of SSD and overheating: acceptable working temperature up to 70°C, while HDDs are limited to 60°C.
Advantages of HDD
Good old hard drives also have their advantages, namely the ability to rewrite data multiple times and favorable ratio prices and volumes. At very active use SSD (server PC) memory blocks can be “worn to holes.” Depending on the type of flash memory - TLC, MLC or SLC (second mass storage) - blocks can be rewritten thousands to hundreds of thousands of times. Worn out blocks are automatically blocked, causing the SSD to lose capacity over time.
Traditional hard drives allow you to rewrite data a much larger number of times – the number goes into the millions. Therefore, it is not so much the magnetic disks that fail in HDDs (although bad sectors also sometimes appear on them), but rather the mechanical elements. However, on home and office PCs, data is not overwritten as often as on servers. Is it the operating room registry? Windows systems reads and writes data continuously (not surprisingly, there are bad sectors on HDD surfaces most often appear at the location of the registry).
But when it comes to price, arguing with victory hard drives becomes impossible. IN this moment for $100 you can buy a 120 GB SSD, a 2.5-inch 1 terabyte HDD or a 3.5-inch 2 terabyte HDD. The difference in volume between an SSD and a HDD for the same price is tenfold, which is why it is worth paying attention to hybrid solutions.
Advantages of hybrids
Hybrid is a PC disk subsystem that combines the advantages of SSD and HDD - high performance and large capacity. reasonable price. There can be three options for a hybrid disk subsystem: an SSD with enough capacity to install the operating system and programs (60-120 GB) plus a large HDD for storing photos, videos, music and games; large HDD plus a separate small SSD (20-32 GB) for caching frequently used programs; and finally the hybrid accumulated (HDD plus small SSD in a single building).
The first version of the hybrid disk subsystem is, of course, the best, but also the most expensive - it will cost a good $200 (HDD+SSD). Those who want to save money should choose the second option - a small SSD for caching costs only $50. However, for SSD caching to work, it is required motherboard with the support Intel technologies Smart Response ( Intel chipsets Z68, H77, Z77, H87, Z87, H97 and Z97). Hybrid drives (SSHD) are best suited for laptops, where you have to sacrifice a DVD drive to install separate SSD and HDD.
SSD form factors
Not all solid state drives are made in popular format 2.5" (additional mounting required for installation in 3.5" slot). In addition to the 2.5-inch models, there are 1.8-inch models with a SATA connection. They are used, however, in so-called embedded systems, for example on-board computers premium cars. For thin laptops (ultrabooks), extremely compact SSDs of mSATA and M. 2 form factors have been created. And for computer enthusiasts who are willing to pay any money for the most powerful components in the world, solid state devices are offered in the form of PCI-Express 3.0 expansion cards (linear reading speed -recording reaches an impressive 1000-1500 MB/s).
Let's migrate to SSD!
Installing an SSD speeds up your PC much more than, say, upgrading your processor, even if it has all eight cores. Reducing the loading time of the operating system, falling asleep and waking up the PC, launching programs (even a web browser and text editor) is hard to miss. And you can transfer Windows from HDD to SSD along with all installed and configured programs with literally two mouse clicks using free utility EaseUS Partition Master Free. Or just contact ours for help.
In this article I will tell you what it is hybrid rigid drive, why it is better than the HDD we are used to, as well as the pros and cons compared to SSD.
For most ordinary users I will now reveal a big secret - the weakest (read slowest) link in the chain computer system is a hard drive or hard drive. You can have the fastest processor, best video card and a bunch random access memory, but the slow and, excuse the expression, “dumb” hard drive nullifies all the work of this cool hardware.
This was the case until recently. Now there are SSDs or solid state drives. They helped get rid of this bottleneck in computer performance. Many people use them as their main boot disk for the operating system, which is very justified, but the high price and small amount of memory does not make it possible to use them more widely.
Manufacturing hard drives is very complex technological process, since it has many moving parts, which greatly limits the reduction in device size without losing certain characteristics (which is probably why so many modern hard drives fail now). Manufacturers find themselves at a technological impasse. There is no room to further increase the capacity of disks and their density.
To solve this problem, solid-state drives were created, and in 2007, Seagate developed the world's first hybrid hard drive or SSHD (solid-state hard drive). This is a physical storage device that combines data storage technologies from the 60s (hard drive on magnetic disks, HDD) and modern times (SSD drives on).
In general it looks regular hard a disk with significantly increased flash memory. The first samples had 128MB, but now there are models with 32GB.
The result is a very interesting and practical product. From regular disk it inherited a large capacity, and from the solid-state drive a large, one might even say huge, data cache.
Speed parameters or HDD and SSD vs SSHD
The process of increasing the speed of the operating system and applications using such hybrid drives is as follows:
After installing the operating system on a hybrid hard drive, the first boot will occur at normal speed, but after several reboots, the time will decrease due to the device's microcontroller entering the most frequently used operating system data areas into a large cache. Tests have shown that booting a system with an SSHD is only 5-10% slower than a regular SSD. The same will happen with various applications, games, etc. The main thing is that the disk has enough flash memory for everything you need.
In late 2011 and early 2012, speed tests showed that hybrid SSDs with a 750 GB HDD and 8 GB cache were slower than SSDs in random read/write and sequential read/write, but faster than HDDs when running applications. and turning off.
The amount of cache memory significantly affects the cost of the final product. Therefore, when choosing a drive, you must take into account how resource-intensive applications you are going to run on it and their number.
At the heart of hybrid drive technology is deciding which data elements are prioritized by flash memory and which are not. Therefore, SSHDs can operate in two main modes:
Automatic mode or self-optimized
In this mode, the hybrid hard drive independently makes all decisions related to data distribution and does not depend on the operating system.
Host-Optimized Mode or host-hinted
In this operating mode, hybrid SSHD includes an extended set of SATA "Hybrid Information" commands. Based on these commands, the operating system and device driver, given the structure file system,decides which data elements to place in NAND flash memory.
Some specific features of SSHD, such as host-hinted mode, require software support in the operating system. Support for host-hinted operations appeared only in Windows 8.1, while patches for Linux kernels available since late 2014. They are expected to be included in the Linux kernel in the future.
Historical reference
In 2007, Seagate and Samsung introduced the first hybrid drives: Seagate Momentus PSD and Samsung SpinPoint MH80. Both were 2.5-inch and had 128 MB or 256 MB of flash memory. The products are not widely available.
In May 2010, Seagate introduced a new hybrid product called the Momentus XT drive and used the term " Solid State Hybrid Disk (SSHD). It includes 500 GB of HDD memory with 4 GB of integrated NAND flash memory.
In April 2013, WD introduced 2.5-inch WD Black SSHD drives, including a 5 mm thick SSHD with 500 GB regular memory and flash memory sizes of 8 GB, 16 GB and 24 GB.
Pros and cons of hybrid HDDs
The main advantage of a hybrid hard drive is a significant increase in the performance of the disk subsystem, especially in netbooks and laptops, where hard drives are less powerful and you cannot install a second drive, as in a regular PC. It’s not for nothing that the very first SSHD disks were developed in the 2.5-inch laptop format. Later, 3.5-inch hybrid drives were released. Although now in laptops with a disk drive, it is possible to replace it with a hard drive or solid-state drive, but I will tell you how to do this in one of the following articles.
The disadvantages include the inability to fit all critical data on the flash memory of an SSHD disk. But it also doesn’t make sense to install more than 32GB on a hybrid SSHD, since it will be cheaper to buy a regular 64GB SSD.
At the moment, their price is significantly higher than that of conventional hard drives. For example, at the time of writing, a 1 TB hard drive Seagate Desktop SSHD model ST1000DX001 cost about 6,000 rubles, and its competitor 1Tb Western Digital WD Blue SSHD WD10J31X cost about 5,500 rubles. At the same time, a regular 1 TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 hard drive will cost you 3,600 rubles. And this includes models with only 8GB of memory. With more quantity the difference will increase. But this is still several times less than the cost of an SSD of similar size.
Conclusion
Hybrid hard drives are a compromise solution that allows you to both increase the overall performance of the system in which they are installed and reduce its price.
You could say this is an evolutionary development of conventional HDDs. Due to the increased cache, it was possible to reduce the number of disk accesses, which was reflected in reduced power consumption and heat dissipation, durability and reduced noise during operation. All this makes them much more productive and practical than HDDs, and several times cheaper than SSDs.
The original purpose of the SSHD was to provide a low-cost replacement for SSDs and HDDs in laptops and mobile computers completed successfully. After testing the technology and eliminating the shortcomings, manufacturers began to produce 3.5-inch formats for a regular PC.
Thus, for an expensive PC and laptop, it is still better to choose a high-speed solid-state drive with large capacity, on which to install the operating system and the programs and applications necessary for work, but for a regular PC and especially a laptop, an SSHD is ideal, which will replace the obsolete and slow hard disc drive.
An article about the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid hard drives that combine strengths HDD and SSD drives
Over the past ten years or so, solid state drives (SSDs) have gained popularity in the IT world. First, they got into laptops and mobile devices with their small form factor and no moving parts. Now they're making their way in corporate systems data storage. Using the same flash memory found in USB drives, mobile phones and SD cards, they offer a long list of advantages over their electromechanical counterparts, solid-state hard drives. SSD drives computers have no moving parts, they are more resistant to shock and other forms of physical damage, and they are lightning fast in their speed of reading and writing data.
Power for HDD storage have grown quite consistently - nowadays, massive 3TB and 4TB drives are within reach, and even 8TB and 10TB giants have made their way into the market. Hard drives reach speeds of up to 15,000 rpm. They are noisier, hotter, and require more power than their flash counterparts.
So why can't we ditch our hard drives and solid state drives? The answer is simple: the cost of one gigabyte of an SSD drive is noticeably more expensive. As of January 2015, a 1 TB hard drive can cost around $50, while the equivalent cost for an SSD is around $380 - $400.
In 2010, a number of manufacturers, starting with Seagate and Samsung, began introducing a third option in the drive world in an attempt to bridge the price and performance gap between HDDs and SSDs by offering a hybrid option. Since then, Western Digital and Toshiba have also started making hybrid drives. The hybrid drive provides some of the best features of both technologies, combining the speed of an SSD with the cost efficiency of an electromechanical HDD.
How does a computer's hybrid hard drive work?
The basis of a hybrid hard drive is the combination of a cache with rotating electromagnetic plates of a solid-state HDD. A solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD) typically consists of 8, 16 or 32 GB of flash capacity and a larger HDD for storing some of the data. The idea is that "hot data" should be accessible quickly or frequently (eg by the operating system). This data can be cached on the SSD and as a result is retrieved faster than if it were stored on the platters themselves. It's the same principle as installing hard disk and SSD on a desktop machine, that is, a dual disk and hybrid solution, except that performance optimization is built into the firmware and adapts to storage needs. These adaptive or self-learning optimization techniques eliminate the need to manually move files/applications to the appropriate hard drives.
There are currently two modes of operation for all hybrid hard drives, or SSHDs. First, the optimized mode itself, or stand-alone mode, which determines the “hot” and “cold” data to be written to the disk. For the host machine, the drive is not traditional internal device storage
Another SSHD mode is host optimized mode, or anchor host mode. In this format, the machine owner designates which data is hot and cold using its operating system, device drivers, and in some cases, through software. The host machine regularly sends designations to disk via SATA interface and instructs the drive how to store the data.
Benefits of hybrid disk storage
The key benefit of using a hybrid storage device is increased performance with high storage headroom, without a significant increase in cost (around $100 for 1TB SSHD), while maintaining high potential. SSHDs have computer hard drive capacity with increased seek speed for cached data on solid state hard HDD drive– and not as expensive as in the case of SSD.
In addition, a hybrid hard drive provides the computer with faster access to critical data, and there are other benefits associated with flash memory, which is also used on SSHDs. For example, if calibration is done correctly, you can reduce stress and wear on the drive, resulting in a longer lifespan than traditional solid-state hard drives.
Disadvantages of Hybrid Hard Drives
Although, hybrid drives - perfect solution, they are not perfect. Retrieving data from your hard drive is as fast as traditional solid state HDDs. Hybrid drives are still vulnerable to physical damage, and you won't benefit from the silence on the SSD.
Since we are experts in the field of data recovery, we must discuss the implications of data recovery under hybrid storage. Good news: The solid state portion of an SSHD is used primarily as a cache or for storing operating system files, and you are unlikely to lose data in that portion of the drive. If you manage to lose data from the solid state area of a hybrid drive, recovery presents its own challenges, such as alternative methods data organization.
Overall, hybrid drives have a lot to offer both consumers and business users looking to SSD speeds, while at the same time looking for cost per gigabyte of hard drive. This great way to bridge the gap between solid state HDD and high-speed SSD.