Samsung’s 160GB Hybrid Hard Drive Available

The recently announced notebook-use Samsung’s hybrid hard drive (HHD or H-HDD), which combines a flash memory and a traditional hard disk for improved performance, is now available for purchase at CMS Products.

The offered HM16HJI model, which belongs to 2.5-inch MH80 hybrid hard drive series, features 160GB of storage capacity, 256MB of OneNAND Flash memory, Serial ATA interface, and 5400rpm rotational speed. It is priced at $299.

“The OneNAND Flash from memory leader Samsung functions in the HHD as a write cache during normal operation, saving power and reducing the chance of drive failure. It also acts as a read cache during boot/resume and when specific applications are launched to accelerate system performance,” the product description says.

When used with Windows Vista, which includes Windows ReadyDrive technology, Samsung’s MH80 hybrid hard drives are claimed to provide up to 50% reduction in boot and resume times, as well as up to 30 minutes longer battery life, when compared to a standard HDD. These hybrid storage products for laptops also bring improved reliability, since the write cache keeps the drive’s platters idle 99% of the time.

According to earlier reports, we can also expect the availability Samsung’s HHD models with 80GB and 120GB capacities, as well as the drives with 128MB flash memory.

[...] This summer, Samsung has also announced its hybrid HDDs. [...]