The race for ultrabooks: Cache SSDs vs Hybrid HDDs

CALIFORNIA, USA: The advantage of consolidated storage for ultrabooks laptops could now be realized with the Hybrid hard disk drives (HDD) containing a built-in layer of NAND flash memory. As per market research firm, IHS iSuppli, cache solid state drives (SSD) will remain the mainstream ultrabook storage solution.

This year, shipments of Cache SSDs are expected to see a hike of upto 2.39 crore units, from just 8.64 lakh units in 2011. As per IHS’s predictions, shipments will then jump to 6.77 crore units next year, cross the hundred-million-unit mark in 2015, and hit 16.30 crore units by 2016.

Growing from 10 lakh units in 2011, shipments of hybrid HDDs will reach 20 lakh units this year. SSDs (that do not contain cache components) will reach shipments of 1.80 crore in consumer applications, this year. This will ramp up to 6.90 crore units in 2016.

Hybrid HDDs are a new storage option being considered for the super-thin ultrabooks. "The cache SSD solution was first hit upon by PC manufacturers because the use of a dedicated solid state drive proved too expensive when passed on to consumers in the retail market. However, a combined physical hard disc drive with a smaller cache component allowed PC makers to reap the advantages of faster responsiveness and larger capacities while keeping costs down,” said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage, IHS.