Seagate Debuts Flash-Cache Notebook Drives

Seagate has its first notebook hard drives to feature an extra-large cache of NAND Flash memory which ought to assist performance....someday.

Storage manufacture Seagate has introduced its first notebook hard drives to be equipped with a large cache of NAND flash memory. The Momentus 5400 PSD 2.5-inch hard drives feature an additional cache off 256 MB of Flash memory, and will initially be available in 80, 120, and 160 GB configurations. The Momentus 5400 PSDs should begin shipping this week at prices about 25 percent higher than traditional hard drives of equivalent capacities.

The idea behind these so-called hybrid hard drives is to combine some of the performance benefits of Flash-based solid-state hard drives (fast start up and wake times, lower power consumption, reduced vulnerability to shocks and bumps) with the economics and sheer capacities available on traditional hard drives. In theory, hybrid drives should start up and resume faster than traditional hard drives, and consume less power overall than their traditional counterparts without a significantly higher price tag.

The Momentus drives rely on Microsoft Windows Vist’s Superfetch and ReadyDrive technologies to manage use of the cache; unfortunately, the real-world performance of these technologies apparently leaves something to be desired, with future improvements in BIOS and Vista device drivers expected to improve performance in the future as the devices and software mature. (And without driver support, the Momentus drives function as ordinary hard drives with no significant performance benefits.) In the meantime, the Momentus drives claim to reduce Windows Vista start up time by about 20 percent, and reduce power consumption by about 40 percent.