Seagate unveils hybrid drives

Storage Review.com reports.

The SSHDs have onboard software enhancements to boost performance, and have fast speeds in a single drive configuration.

In a Channel Register report, Seagate says the 750GB gen 2 Momentus is faster than the previous XT because it has something called FAST Factor technology, as well as double the NAND capacity and twice the SATA interface speed of the gen 1 Momentus XT.

According to Seagate, FAST stands for flash-assisted storage technology, and that "FAST Factor boot technology will deliver the fastest boot possible, whether you boot your system once a day or once a week". That suggests the boot files are permanently loaded into the flash cache.

The Seagate Momentus XT drive shows the company's continuing support for hybrid drives, Forbes states.

Flash memory is more expensive than hard disk drives (HDDs) and will remain so for the foreseeable future. However, flash memory is faster than an HDD, particularly in reading information. So far, Seagate is the only company that is making hybrid HDDs today that combine flash memory and an HDD.