Toshiba Launches New 7mm Hybrid Drive Series
Toshiba has introduced two new 7 mm 2.5 inch hybrid drives perfect for thin notebooks.
Toshiba launched the new 7 mm MQ01ABFH hybrid drive series, two drives that are packed with both hard drive platters and NAND flash memory. It's the company's first 7 mm hybrid drive family, and follows the 9.5 mm MQ01ABDH series models that were launched back in 4Q12. Toshiba expects to have samples ready for ODMs by June 28.
"Drawing on its knowledge and experience in NAND flash, Toshiba has optimized the NAND flash performance into a tiered-storage approach that uses the speed of the DRAM and NAND components with high-capacity rotating media," the company said. "The hybrid drive delivers SSD-like performance without any dependence on external drivers or assistance from the host system."
The new MQ01ABF050H SSHD provides a 500 GB capacity whereas the MQ01ABF032H has 320 GB of storage. The PCMark Vantage Score for the larger MQ01ABF050H is approximately 20,000, against a typical score of 5,000 for standard HDDs, the company said. Both underwent multiple performance and compatibility tests with a variety of host PCs in addition to the PCMark Vantage test.
"The drives proved to be fully compatible with 175 PC systems," the company said, "including high-end notebook PCs, thin and light PCs, and ultra-thins." The start-up times for Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint are reduced up to 40 percent compared to using conventional hard drives, scoring an 18.5; the same applications using a Toshiba SSD and traditional Toshiba HDD scored a 15.3 and 33.2 respectively.
"It is recognized by the system as one storage device," the company said. "The system accesses the drive through one interface without the need for specific device driver software. Comparing to the type of "dual mount", the single interface allows for physical space efficiency within a system."
Toshiba has confirmed compatibility of both the MQ01ABDH and MQ01ABFH series with almost 180 PC systems, and provided the results in PDF form here.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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dgingeri I wouldn't touch Toshiba hard drives with a 100' pole.Reply
In my lab, Toshiba Enterprise class 2.5" (146GB, 15k rpm) hard drives compose right around 1% (9 machines, 2 with two trays, 17 drives per tray for 187 drives) of my drive population, and for the last 3 years have been over 40% of my hard drive failure rate. This is out of just under 20,000 drives, and including Seagate and Hitachi 1TB and 750GB drives that are older than 5 years, while these Toshibas are less than 3 years old. Yet, these Toshiba drive fail at such a rate that they outnumber any other drive type. I get from 2 to 8, mostly 3 or 4, Toshiba drives fail per month. These are supposed to be Enterprise level drives with a lower failure rate than standard desktop drives.
I am certainly not going to go for their desktop or laptop drives with that kind of a record on drives that are supposed to be more reliable. These things must have an absolute horrid failure rate. -
twelch82 I'd be a little concerned, if they get too thin, if the drive might be susceptible to bending. It seems like it wouldn't take much of a bend to cause a hard drive crash.Reply -
tntom Not what I am looking for. Maybe good for OEMs. I want a 750GB - 1TB HDD attached to a 128GB - 256GB SSD with one interface and a jumper to switch between series and parallel hybrid modes. Than I can select the appropriate mode for my use. I am fine with having to use software drivers if necessary.Reply