{"id":8547,"date":"2023-10-19T12:32:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T10:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/?p=8547"},"modified":"2023-10-19T12:32:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T10:32:53","slug":"what-is-a-hybrid-hard-drive-hhd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/what-is-a-hybrid-hard-drive-hhd\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a hybrid hard drive (HHD)?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

A hybrid hard drive (HHD), sometimes known as a solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD), is a mass\u00a0storage\u00a0device that combines a conventional hard disk drive (HDD) and a\u00a0NAND flash\u00a0module. An HHD blends the capacity, cost and performance of physical disk storage with the accelerated performance of flash.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Garry<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Garry Kranz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data that is frequently written to or retrieved from storage is served from\u00a0flash memory. Seagate Technology, Toshiba Corp. and Western Digital Corp. offer variants of hybrid hard drive technology, typically branded using the SSHD moniker, for particularized consumer use in\u00a0notebook computers\u00a0and\u00a0personal digital assistants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hybrid hard drives vs. SSD vs. hard drives<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hybrid hard drives attempt to bridge the gap between flash and fixed-disk Magnetic storage. SSDs are faster than traditional rotational media, but have much lower storage capacities than HDDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An HDD uses stacks of electromechanical spinning platters to store nonsequential data, written to\u00a0sectors\u00a0within specified blocks on each disk via an\u00a0actuator\u00a0arm. The HDD positions a hard disk so data is read and written on the correct disk sector. The HDD mechanism and hard disk are packaged as an integrated unit, although both terms are used to describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engineers at IBM in the 1950s created the hard disk to provide random access to high capacities of data. Doing so at an affordable cost was one of IBM’s key design criteria. Disk\u00a0density\u00a0has increased greatly from IBM’s original 3.75 megabyte (MB) device. Seagate said it plans to introduce a 16 terabyte (TB) HDD in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

HDDs connect to computing devices via a serial-attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) interface. Similarly, SSDs (also known as flash drives) are based on SAS or SATA form factors, but they have no internal mechanical movement. SSDs consist of\u00a0silicon\u00a0chips designed as an integrated circuit to provide\u00a0nonvolatile memory\u00a0for resilience. This differs from volatile storage on HDDs, which require an onboard\u00a0capacitor\u00a0or battery backup to protect data in the event of a system failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hybrid hard drive adds a small dose of flash to the core disk architecture. The NAND cache\u00a0buffer\u00a0stores\u00a0hot data\u00a0and serves it to disk to accelerate application workloads. A typical HHD cache volume contains about 8 gigabyte (GB) of flash and requires no special software\u00a0driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An SSHD\/hybrid hard drive with embedded flash costs a fraction of an SSD, yet can give similar performance benefits. That value may diminish over time in tandem with falling flash prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pros and cons of hybrid storage products<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hybrid hard drives deliver distinct advantages compared to a conventional hard drive, namely the ability to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n