Skip the navigation
News

Seagate rolls out hybrid disk, flash memory drive

First Momentus 5400 drives limited to Windows-based systems

By Brian Fonseca
October 8, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Seagate Technology LLC on Monday rolled out its new Momentus 5400 PSD, or Power Savings Drive, hybrid disk drive, which combines disk storage with flash memory.

The 2.5-in. Momentus 5,400-rpm drive features 256MB flash cache memory and spins only 10% of the time while operational, noted Seagate officials. It is slated to begin shipping in volume for notebook PCs later this month.

Melissa Johnson, product marketing manager at Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate, said the initial versions of the drive will run only with Microsoft Corp. Windows-based machines. However, she noted that the company is working to update the drive's natively built ReadyDrive technology to support non-Windows systems.

That limitation may stall the adoption of the Momentus 5400 and other nascent hybrid disk drives such as Intel Corp.'s Turbo Memory technology, remarked Jeff Janukowicz, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC.

"There have been concerns," said Janukowicz. "Hybrid is really targeted toward Vista-only systems, so there's been a lot of caution from the hard drive industry about adopting this until [hybrid technology] starts to get a little more mainstream."

Janukowicz noted that solid-state drive technology still carries a significant price premium compared with traditional hard drives, so Seagate is on the right track by bridging the two. He added that the hybrid technology makes the most sense for access-time and power-hungry mobile applications that "don't really translate all that well to the desktop environment."

Seagate said its hybrid drive can boot up 20% faster than standard drive technology, cuts energy consumption by 50% and improves mean time between failure (MBTF) by 50% compared with traditional drives.

Johnson said that the company expects to be offering hybrid versions of all Seagate desktop and enterprise hard drives over the next five to 10 years.

The Momentus 5400 has been qualified by Sony and by three other undisclosed major resellers, she noted.



Related News and Discussion:

Read more about Storage in Computerworld's Storage Topic Center.



Additional Resources
Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World
WHITE PAPER
Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Storage White Papers
Datacenter Consolidation Best Practices Whitepaper
The benefits of storage consolidation are being realized by companies and seen as a way to streamline many storage-driven applications. Learn why the...
Eliminating VMware / Storage Related Performance Challenges
How to proactively monitor the performance in a Fibre Channel SAN / vSphere environment is always a concern. Understand the importance of a...
Cloud Environments Have Familiar Storage Challenges
Cloud environments have many storage challenges that are familiar to data center managers, but due to their density and abstraction, the issues become...
Eight Considerations for Evaluating Disk-Based Backup Solutions
In the past, the movement from tape- to disk-based backup has been less compelling due to the expense of storing backup data on...
ExaGrid Helps U.S. Federal Government Agencies Reduce Backup Windows and Improve Data Protection
The U.S. Government has been the largest user of tape-based backup systems since the 1970s. Most agencies have begun to deploy disk storage...
All Storage White Papers
Storage Webcasts
Understand Your Data: The Future of Backup and Archiving
Archiving and Backup are the foundation of the next generation of information governance. However, commodity data protection tools and basic archives are only...
Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
All Storage Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs