Installing windows on a hybrid hard drive. How to speed up your computer with SSHD How to install the system on a hybrid hard drive
In this article I will explain what is a hybrid HDD than it is better than the HDD we are used to, as well as the pros and cons compared to the SSD.
For most ordinary users, I will now reveal a big secret - the weakest (read slow) link in the chain computer system is a hard drive or hard drive. You can have the fastest processor, the best graphics card, and a bunch of random access memory, but a slow and sorry for the expression "stupid" hard drive nullifies all the work of this cool hardware.
That was the case until recently. Now there are SSDs or Solid State Drives. They helped get rid of this bottleneck in computer performance. Many people use them as their main boot disk under the operating system, which is very justified, but the high price and small amount of memory does not make it possible to use them more widely.
Production hard drives a very complex technological process, since it has a lot of moving parts, which greatly limits the reduction in size of devices without losing certain characteristics (this is probably why so many modern hard drives fail now). Manufacturers are in a technological impasse. Further increase the capacity of disks and their density is nowhere to go.
To solve this problem, solid-state drives were created, and in 2007 Seagate developed the world's first hybrid hard drive or SSHD (solid-state hard drive). This is a physical storage device in which data storage technologies of the 60s (hard disk on magnetic disks, HDD) and modernity (SSD drives on) are intertwined.
In general, it looks like an ordinary hard drive with a significantly increased flash memory. The first samples had 128 MB, but now there are models with 32 GB.
The result is a very interesting and practical product. From a regular disk, he inherited large capacity, well, from a solid state drive is large, one might even say a huge amount of data cache.
Speed parameters or HDD and SSD vs SSHD
The process of increasing the speed of work in the operating system and applications using such hybrid drives is as follows:
After installation operating system to a hybrid hard drive, the first boot will occur at normal speed, but after several reboots, the time will decrease due to the device's microcontroller making a large cache of the most frequently used data areas of the operating system. Tests have shown that system boot with SSHD is only 5-10% slower than with a regular SSD. The same will happen with various applications, games, etc. The main thing is that the disk has enough flash memory for everything you need.
In late 2011 and early 2012, speed tests showed that hybrid SSDs with 750 GB HDD and 8 GB cache are slower than SSDs in random read / write and sequential read / write, but faster than hard drives when running applications. and off.
The amount of cache memory significantly affects the cost of the final product. Therefore, when choosing a drive, it is necessary to take into account how resource-intensive applications you are going to run on it and their number.
Hybrid storage technology is based on deciding which data elements are prioritized for flash memory and which are not. Therefore, SSHD can operate in two main modes:
Automatic mode or self-optimized
In this mode, the hybrid hard drive independently makes all decisions related to the distribution of data and does not depend on the operating system.
Host-optimized mode or host-hinted
In this mode of operation, the hybrid SSHD includes an extended set of SATA "Hybrid Information" commands. Based on these commands, the operating system and device driver, given the structure file system, decides which data elements to place in the NAND flash.
Some specific features of SSHD, such as host-hinted mode, require software support in the operating system. Support for host-hinted operation only appeared in Windows 8.1, while patches for the Linux kernel have been available since late 2014. In the future, they are expected to be included in the Linux kernel.
Historical reference
In 2007, Seagate and Samsung introduced the first hybrid drives: the Seagate Momentus PSD and the Samsung SpinPoint MH80. Both were 2.5-inch and had 128 MB or 256 MB of flash memory. The products are not widely used.
In May 2010, Seagate introduced a new hybrid product called the Momentus XT drive and used the term " Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD). It includes 500 GB of hard drive memory with 4 GB of integrated NAND flash memory.
In April 2013, WD introduced the 2.5" WD Black SSHDs, including a 5mm thick SSHD with 500GB of conventional storage and 8GB, 16GB, and 24GB flash storage.
Pros and cons of hybrid HDDs
The main advantage of a hybrid hard drive, is a significant increase in the performance of the disk subsystem, especially in netbooks and laptops, where hard disks less productive and you can not install a second disk, as in a regular PC. It is not for nothing that the very first SSHD drives were developed in a 2.5-inch notebook format. Later, 3.5-inch hybrid drives were released. Although now in laptops with a drive, it is possible to replace it with a hard drive or solid state drive, but I will tell you how to do this in one of the following articles.
The disadvantages include the inability to fit all critical data on the flash memory of an SSHD disk. But it also makes no sense to install more than 32GB on a hybrid SSHD, since it will be cheaper to buy a regular 64GB SSD.
For the price they are this moment significantly higher than conventional hard drives. For example, at the time of this writing, a 1 TB Seagate Desktop SSHD hard drive model ST1000DX001 cost about 6,000 rubles, and its competitor 1Tb western digital WD Blue SSHD WD10J31X about 5500 rubles. At the same time, a regular 1 TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 hard drive will cost you 3600 rubles. And this is with models with only 8GB of memory. WITH big amount the difference will increase. But still, this is several times less than the cost of an SSD of a similar volume.
Conclusion
Hybrid hard drives are a compromise solution that allows you to both increase the overall performance of the system in which they are installed, and reduce its price.
We can say this is an evolutionary development of conventional HDDs. Due to the increased cache, it was possible to reduce the number of disk accesses, which was reflected in a decrease in power consumption and heat dissipation, durability and noise reduction during operation. All this makes them an order of magnitude more productive and practical than HDDs, and several times cheaper than SSDs.
The original goal of SSHD was to be a low-cost replacement for SSDs and hard drives in laptops and laptops. mobile computers completed successfully. After running the technology and eliminating the shortcomings, manufacturers began to produce 3.5-inch formats for a regular PC.
Thus, for an expensive PC and laptop, it is still better to choose a high-speed solid-state drive with a large capacity, on which to install the operating system and the programs and applications necessary for work, but for a regular PC and especially a laptop, SSHD is ideal, which will replace obsolete and slow hard disc drive.
Author AMORAL SOCIOPATH asked a question in Software
Tell me how to properly install Windows 7/8 on SSHD? and got the best answer
Answer by †Codename87†[guru]
Where did you get that they are all so divided? And how can this even be?! And nah all this?! Some kind of fuss, besides useless. I bought a regular SSD - put the system on it. I bought a regular HDD - you use it as a file cleaner. So many do.
As far as I understand, SSHD is the same HDD, only with an additional, let's say, memory module (faster and more voluminous), which is used for the cache, that's all, that is, it speeds up copying to some extent: useful on small kilobyte files and is practically useless on GB files, because the cache is not rubber. But in order to divide Windows into parts - I hear about this for the first time in my years. Most likely you misunderstood something.
†Codename87†
Enlightened
(48810)
what exactly is bothering you? hidden sections?
show some thread screen, so let's say the proof of all this, that Windows is so divided into parts.
Answer from Leri[guru]
the system is generally installed, all on only one active carrier ...
there is no such thing as secondary files, so you can install additional programs later at least on an external one ...
Answer from Sansej[guru]
As far as I know, the pre-installed Windows is done like this: 2 disks are created, formatted. Then the first (which should be C:, system) volume is deleted. And the system is placed in an empty place (it turns out in front). In this type of installation, 2 sections are created from scratch:
1. Hidden partition that contains the Windows bootloader
2. Disk C: system with Windows itself.
With this setting, the bootloader is less likely to be exposed to virus attacks, less often it crashes.
In your case, put Windows on a completely empty SSD
Disk D: then you can make it in Windows as a logical volume from the HDD (or several volumes-D: E: ...)
Answer from Alexander Ivanov[guru]
Perhaps by "secondary" you mean the swap file and hibernation, so it's better to disable hibernation altogether, and it's better to keep the swap file on the system partition
Answer from Evgeny Kushnarev[guru]
if 64-128 gigs, the whole system. and important programs. the rest on disk2.HDD-and to work with it without the hassle-utility, respectively, platform-AMD or for Intel. SSD Tweaker let him watch. but a download. movies video-all on the HDD is desirable.
Answer from Ivan[guru]
There is no need to mislead anyone here with your conjectures. Hybrid disks are almost ordinary disks and the SSD part is controlled by the firmware to slightly speed up the system as a whole, but not radically. It's too small to store axis files on it, it's just a fast second-level type cache in processors. There is no separation of the system there and cannot be!!! Here is an article from Seagate: www. seagate.com/ru/ru/do-more/laptop-sshd-upgrade-master-dm/
Normal cloning from an old disk to a new hybrid.
Answer from Brain Dumovitsky[guru]
Answer from .
[guru]
Installation and Windows setup 7 on SSD drive>link
Answer from _ _
[newbie]
Don't make trouble for yourself! everything is simply done by splitting the disk into two partitions, system and logical, and installing Windows everything!
Hello admin! I want to buy a hard drive with a capacity of 1-2 TB, a computer specialist I know advised me to buy an SSHD drive (a hybrid of a hard drive and an SSD solid state drive), as it works noticeably faster than a regular HDD, but not as expensive as an SSD solid state drive. What can you say about these discs?
Hello friends! A very good question. Yes, the SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) hybrid hard drive is 30% faster than a conventional hard drive, and about the same price. If a regular 1TB hard drive costs 4,000 rubles, then SSHD can be bought for 5,400 rubles. Such discs are produced both for ordinary computers and for laptops.
Firstly, what is a hybrid hard drive
The technology for the production of hard drives (the only computer component that has moving mechanical parts) has long reached a dead end and it is almost impossible to increase the speed of a hard drive in a production way, which is proved by the appearance on the market of SSDs and hybrid SSHD hard drives. But if a solid state drive is a completely non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips, then a hybrid hard drive is primarily a regular hard drive with an MLC fast flash memory card (8 GB) soldered on it, used in the production of solid state drives, that is, it turns out that SSHD is a hybrid of a conventional hard drive and an SSD..
Second, why SSHD hybrid hard drive is faster than regular hard drive
Seagate's SSHD hybrid drives use self-learning technology - Seagate Adaptive Memory, examining the operating system installed on the disk from the first seconds of operation, as a result, the most commonly used programs and files are copied to the flash memory of the SSHD disk, these files primarily include elements involved in loading the operating system, which means that Windows will be boot faster, because Windows will be loaded from flash memory. For example, on my computer Windows boot 8.1 installed on a regular HDD takes 35-40 seconds, and on SSHD - 20 seconds, on a regular SSD - 15 seconds. The same applies to the applications you use all the time, they will start a little faster. Take, for example, the resource-demanding modern game, which you constantly play, according to my observations, such a game will load three times faster than on a regular HDD.
Hybrid hard disk SSHD, this is the golden mean
In general, the ideal drive configuration in system unit an ordinary home user looks like this: two drives are bought, the first is an SSD solid-state (volume 120-240 GB) for installing the operating system, and the second is a regular HDD for storing files (volume) 2-3 TB, you need about 10,000 rubles for all this . And if you purchase one 1TB SSHD hybrid drive, it will cost you 5,400 rubles, and a 2TB SSHD will cost you 7,000 rubles. Of course, everything will not fly (as in the case of SSD), but maybe you don’t need such speeds. It turns out a hybrid SSHD drive, this is the golden mean - for little money you get good performance and large volume disk space.
Which SSHD to buy
Until recently, SSHD hybrid drives were produced by the company that developed them - Seagate. In total, there are three Seagate Desktop SSHD models on the market with a capacity of 1, 2, 4 TB.
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST1000DX001 1TB
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2TB
Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4TB
Also, Western Digital has recently begun to produce SSHD, but they are few on the market, and the model that I came across - WD Blue SSHD, WD40E31X with a capacity of 4 TB did not differ in speed characteristics from the similar model Seagate ST4000DX001 4 TB.
In today's article, I suggest you consider the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 model with a capacity of 2 TB and that's why. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 1 TB model, then 1 TB of disk space is already not enough for a modern computer user. If we take the Seagate Desktop SSHD 4 TB model, then on the contrary, not everyone needs a large amount of 4 TB of disk space, and its price is quite high (11,500 rubles), and, more importantly, the spindle speed of this drive: 5900 rpm, that is, it is slightly slower than other 1 and 2 TB SSHDs (spindle speed 7200 rpm) and this will definitely affect the speed of the operating system.
So, I persuaded you and we have a model Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2TB
Upon closer inspection, the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001 2 TB hybrid drive turned out to be an ordinary hard drive, only SSHD is written on it.
Disk space - 2 TB
SSD buffer size - 8 GB
Cache memory size - 64 MB
Spindle speed - 7200 rpm
On the back of the drive we see a special printed circuit board Adaptive Memory, with soldered 8 GB of fast MLC memory and a "hybrid" controller.
It is very easy to install the drive in the system unit.
SMART hard drive in CrystalDiskInfo and Victoria.
The hybrid drive is new and has had 0 hours of use.
Read and write tests
To make sure that our disk is really good, let's do some tests on reading and writing with special programs: CrystalDiskMark 2.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark and SiSoftware Sandra. These utilities will sequentially read and write information to our hybrid disk in small blocks, then show us the result.
Crystal Disk Mark 2.0
The simplest and most frequently used program in this regard, you can download it on my Yandex.Disk
The utility is very simple, select only the desired drive letter (in our case E:)
And press AI, the SSHD disk performance test will begin.
1. Test of sequential reading and writing of large blocks of data;
2. Test of random reading and writing in blocks of 512 KB;
3. Test of random reading and writing in blocks of 4 KB;
I can say that the result is very worthy, we can especially note the recording in blocks of 512 Kb and 4 Kb.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Let's test the hybrid disk with another program - ATTO Disk Benchmark.
Select the drive letter of the SSHD hybrid drive and click Start.
Result.
SiSoftware Sandra
A global program capable of diagnosing all computer components and having its own official rating.
As a result, our disk is ahead of 94% of the results. Excellent performance.
Disadvantages of SSHD
In my opinion, the only disadvantage of SSHD is the small amount of built-in flash memory of 8 GB, it would be great if its size grew to 32 GB, then more running programs were placed in the cache of the solid state drive and Windows performance would be exactly the same as if it was installed on an SSD.
Read about what a hybrid hard drive is and what they are. Features of data recovery from SSHD. Hybrid hard drives or SSHDs (Eng. Solid-State Hybrid Drives or solid-state hybrid drives) are not yet very common devices, but they are gradually gaining popularity. Combining the properties of traditional magnetic hard drives and the well-known properties of solid state drives with their extremely high allowable speed, hybrid hard drives promise to offer the best of both worlds.
At least theoretically. Should I buy a hybrid hard drive, what are its advantages, and what to do if SSHD fails? To find out, read our comprehensive review.
First, identify the problem. Is your HDD drive still in working order, or has it failed due to mechanical damage? If it fails due to mechanical damage, you can take the HDD drive (with or without SSD parts) to a repair shop and ask them to save the information from this drive to another medium. You can also use signature-based data recovery technology (which is available in tools like Hetman Partition Recovery) to scan the SSD part at a low level in order to recover files that might be cached on it. But due to the nature of the hybrid media, your chances of recovering anything other than the group system files, are very small.
If your hard drive is still operational and you have identified data loss, simply treat your hybrid system as you would a normal hard drive. Download the appropriate data recovery tool and recover your data as if you were using a normal hard drive. In most cases, it will be better if you disable the SSD part in your computer's BIOS; but this is optional.
But what if you have SSHD from one device? Your actions should be the same, with some exceptions. If the SSD part fails (for example, due to wear and tear due to a large number of overwrites), you are better off replacing the SSHD drive completely, or continue using it, but with the SSD part disabled and Smart Response Technology deactivated. You will have access to all data, albeit at a slower speed. Do not use an SSHD drive with a worn out SSD part in hybrid mode! If you do this, you risk data corruption or loss of information written to the disc. If the SSD part fails, unplug it.
Finally, what if you have a real SSHD drive, with no visible separate SSD and HDD partitions, and the SSD part has failed? In this case, you can still use a data recovery tool like Hetman Partition Recovery to recover files from such a drive. In some cases, you may even be able to read the files normally without having to use a data recovery tool. However, you should not continue to use such a device, as you will probably have corrupted files sooner or later.
Did this article help you? Leave your comments.
Many have already heard about the new hybrid hard drives, but most will wonder if they are worth buying? Or maybe instead of hybrids it is better to take SSD drive a small volume (or a large one, there is a lot of money), install a system on it, and install a regular hard drive for data? Now I will try to shed light on this issue.
After my laptop fell off the table, the hard drive had to be replaced. There is no space for a separate SSD drive in the laptop, so you can only plug one device into it. I settled on a 1TB Seagate ST1000LM014-1EJ164 hybrid hard drive and about 8GB SSD cache. This is certainly not as much as we would like, but so much is better than nothing at all. Such a hybrid drive cost me almost 7,000 rubles.
The cache of the hybrid disk is completely hardware-based and there are no programs to configure and optimize it. Programs and files that are frequently used, including system ones, are cached.
Benefits of a hybrid hard drive
I list the advantages that I was able to identify when using a hybrid from Seagate:
- when using \”quick start\” windows system loads 25-30 percent faster,
- applications that we often use run several times faster,
- copying files up to 500 MB, even within different logical drives, occurs at a high speed, approximately 200-300 MB / s (I think the file is first copied to the cache, and then transferred to the hard drive during idle time),
- the whole machine runs faster and there are fewer bottlenecks.
Cons of a hybrid drive
We note some disadvantages, but they are not critical:
- the cost is almost 2 times more than a conventional hard drive,
- low amount of SSD cache (in general, there are all sorts of disks, they have both 32 and 64 GB, but the cost is appropriate).
Conclusion, is it worth buying?
Let's move on to the most important thing, and here I have two answers, and they depend on your computer operating conditions.
I think it's worth buying them only for laptops when there is no way to put a second separate drive in it. If you have a desktop computer, and there is space in it (usually it always is), then it would be best to take a separate SSD drive, from 64 GB to 128 GB (this is if you plan to keep only the system on it). And if finances allow, then you can fork out for a 1-2 TB SDD, I think it will be great.