WD Black2 2 in 1 SSD and HD 2.5″ inch Dual Drive
WD has just announced and released a new Black2 SSD/HD 2.5 hybrid drive. It pairs a 120GB SSD with a 1TB drive. The drive has been designed for System Builders, Media Enthusiasts, Gamers, and Awesome People like us, well it doesn’t say that but we are all awesome.
The drive uses WD “Shift_Technology” that allows you to choose what drive to store the data. It is considered a dual drive and uses SATA 3 interface. Read speeds of 350MB/s, with a minimum of 600,000 unload/load cycles. Sounds like the perfect fit for some of the smaller HTPC that need a speed increase without losing space. Looks like it is retailing for $299 on Newegg.
“WD Black2 combines the shock and vibration resistance of SSD with the proven technology of the HDD for one truly agile and highly reliable dual drive storage solution. Advanced firmware and intelligent algorithms assist in heightened performance, resulting in cooler temperatures with nearly inaudible operation,” reads the product sheet.
Sounds interesting, but
Sounds interesting, but pretty pricey considering the fact that you can get an equivalent sized SSD and 3.5″ drive for about half what this drive costs. I can see the attraction if you have limited space, but some Velcro or double-sided tape allows you to mount a SSD just about anywhere.
“Shift Technology” just sounds like a fancy name for separate partitions.
I’d be curious to see how this works when installing Windows 7 (and possibly Win 8) from scratch. Does it see this as two separate drives or partitions? Windows likes it if you only have a single drive installed initially and tends not to install the System partition if it sees more than one drive.
I really want two of these.
I really want two of these. But only if they were ~$150