Hybrid drives have arrived! Now you can buy SSD and HDD in a single package

SSD and HDD in one package

Flash memory and a conventional hard drive in a single package? Sounds like a great idea and it's available now

The idea of a hybrid drive consisting of fast flash storage and much larger, cheaper, but inevitably slower, mechanical storage, has been around for a while now and was probably first available as a product in the form of the iMac's Fusion drive.

But what hasn't been available until now is a drive you can buy yourself and put it into your own workstation. That's all about to change with the release of WE's "World's first SSD+HDD dual drive".

Control

Unlike the iMac Fusion drive, which doesn't allow much, if any, control by the user, WD's Black Squared Dual Drive gives users access to the way it is used.

It's in the form of a 2.5" package and it fits into a stubbornley metric 9.5mm slot.

According to WD, it's "Designed for Enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders" and is "free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6GB/s interface speed".

Priced at £249.99 for a package containing a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, it is avaialble now through WD retatailers.

We'll be testing one of these as soon as we get our hands on one. Meanwhile, this looks like a positive development that has the potential to give digital media creatives the best of SSD and HDD in one drive.

Full press release after the break

WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black2™ dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution. Perfect for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity, the WD Black2 dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot.

“Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD’s Storage Technology business unit. “The WD Black2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD Black2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products."

2-in-1

Designed for enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders, the WD Black2 dual drive provides improved overall drive capacity, performance, and reliability, while offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilising the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black2 dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD. Users maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage.

WD Black2 is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It is neatly packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector, making the WD Black2 dual drive compatible with popular PC operating systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 8.1.

Price and Availability
Available at wdstore.co.uk and through etailers such as amazon.co.uk, WD Black2 dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black2 dual drive, model #: (WD1001X06XDTL) is £249.99. Additional information about WD Black2 dual drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at http://products.wd.com/wdblack2.

About WD

WD, a Western Digital company, is a long-time innovator and storage industry leader. As a storage technology pacesetter, the company produces reliable, high-performance hard disk drives and solid state drives. These drives are deployed by OEMs and integrators in desktop and mobile computers, enterprise computing systems, embedded systems and consumer electronics applications, as well as by the company in providing its own storage products. WD’s leading storage devices and systems, networking products, media players and software solutions empower people around the world to easily save, store, protect, share and experience their content on multiple devices. WD was established in 1970 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.wd.com.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, Calif., is a global provider of products and services that empower people to create, manage, experience and preserve digital content. Its companies design and manufacture storage devices, networking equipment and home entertainment products under the WD, HGST and G-Technology brands. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.