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.
