A few months ago, in Tech Tails #716, I wrote about Seagate’s new hybrid hard drives that bridge the gap between a full-on solid state drive (SSD) and a standard platter-based hard drive. These high-capacity hybrid drives are just becoming available, and we have them on our site here.
These drives feature a very large cache that learns which files require the most frequent access and moves them into the solid state cache portion of the drive. It does this independently of the operating system, so no special drivers are required to take full advantage of the technology. Seagate reports that the drives are 100% faster than a conventional 2.5-inch laptop drive running at 5400 RPM, and 80% faster than a conventional 2.5-inch drive running at 7200 RPM.
For those of you not quite ready to upgrade your Intel-based Apple laptop to the latest and greatest, installing one of these drives and upgrading your RAM will be a very cost-effective (and very effective) upgrade to hold you over until you’re ready for the full-on upgrade.
The best part of this new product is the price. While it is higher than its conventional counterpart, it is still orders of magnitude lower than the prices we thought acceptable only a few years ago. The 7200 RPM 2.5-inch laptop hybrid drive is only $154.99. If you have a unibody machine, installing it is easy; if not, though, please exercise caution or simply bring it to your closest authorized service provider for assistance.
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