The company claims that the drives are slim enough for the thinnest of notebook PCs, and also provide high-capacity storage, up to 500 GB of capacity, while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to solid state drives
BANGALORE, INDIA: WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp., announced it is sampling a 5 mm-thin hard disk drive featuring hybrid technology.
The company claims that the drives are slim enough for the thinnest of notebook PCs, and also provide high-capacity storage, up to 500 GB of capacity, while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to solid state drives (SSDs).
The new technologies will be showcased during WD’s Investor Day, Sept. 13, 2012.
“Mobile devices are becoming smaller, thinner, lighter and more responsive,” said Matt Rutledge, vice president, client storage solutions, WD. “Working with our technology partners, WD has developed new 5 mm hard drives that enable high capacity storage along with excellent performance and superior economics to allow our customers to expand their thin offerings.”
WD’s hybrid technology pairs MLC NAND flash storage for fast SSD-like data throughput and instant-on responsiveness with magnetic disks for efficient, high-capacity storage.
The technology utilizes the concept of tiered storage. Data accessed most frequently (often referred to as ‘hot’ data) is managed using NAND flash, while data accessed less often (‘cold’ data) resides on magnetic disks, says a release.
