Hands On With Western Digital's New 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 11, 2012 8:03 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- Hybrid Drive
- HDDs
- Western Digital
- SSHDs
Remember the 5mm hybrid HDD announcement from yesterday? I just spent some time with the drive itself at the IDF Tech Showcase.
The 5mm drive will be OEM-only at this point as a result of its fairly unique SATA/power connector. WD implemented the SFF-8038 connector, which is standardized but very rare in the industry at this point. The new connector seems necessary to hit the ultra thin 5mm form factor.
The drive will be available in both Blue (HDD only) and Black (HDD + NAND) varieties. The NAND on the Black drive is hidden by the bottom cover so you unfortunately can't see it in the photos below. WD gave us time with a 500GB model at 5mm as well as a 1TB model at 7mm. The NAND capacity varies from 8GB - 32GB depending on the OEM needs. Both reads and writes are cached in the NAND.
There's no word on OEM pricing or availability.
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dg27 - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
This what I have been hoping for as well. If they can make it they'll sell at least three of them!Golgatha - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
http://www.amazon.com/SILVERSTONE-SDP08-3-5-2-5-In...Add a SSD and a laptop hard drive.
extide - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
LOL, and your wish has come true! http://www.anandtech.com/show/7540Meaker10 - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
This is already obsolete compared to a mSATA + 2.5" standard drive combo.wicketr - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
Haha. How do you plan on getting that 2.5" standard drive into an ultrabook or tablet?bill.rookard - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
Since this is apparently a standardized connector (although admittedly rare), why in the world other than sheer greed or stupidity would Asus and Apple implement their own proprietary connector? Why make a whole new, non-standard connector instead of just using a standardized one?By using the rare but standardized connector, it makes it, well, less rare - to the point where maybe someone else will adopt it. Maybe the aftermarket would produce replacement drives in event of a failure or perhaps an upgrade?
piroroadkill - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Well, you already answered it from the POV of Apple: greed and stupidity.