WD Black² Dual-Drive Hybrid HDD

[HardOCP News]

The gang at Legit Reviews has put the finishing touches on their review of the WD Black² Dual-Drive Hybrid HDD today. Here's a quote from the full review:

Western Digital has a new spin on this concept with a hybrid drive of a different sort that they’ve aptly named Black². With it, they’ve actually combined a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD on a single drive, although separate save for the the SATA III interface they share. Before you go wetting yourself with anticipation, have a look at the performance numbers and our impressions to see if it truly delivers full SSD performance with HDD capacity.

 

[Skripka]

Meh, a 120GB SSD and a TB HDD can be run in RST for cheaper....Or just do like most and have a native SSD install and an HDD for storage/games.

Device is neat...but for the price I fail to get the point.

 

[aL Mac]

Meh, a 120GB SSD and a TB HDD can be run in RST for cheaper....Or just do like most and have a native SSD install and an HDD for storage/games.

Device is neat...but for the price I fail to get the point.

Not sure what RST is, but I think the point of these is for laptops that have 1 bay. Now you don't have to choose on a laptop if you want more storage or performance, you can have both.

 

[MrGuvernment]

wasnt apple using basically "RST" in there last line up.. the system see's an SSD and uses it for the OS and cache and such and then moves things to the mechanical drive...

 

[ir0nw0lf]

Seems a *lot* of people miss the point of this drive: ONE SATA power/data cable is useful for laptops that only have one hard drive slot. (Yes you can remove the optical drive and drop in a HD bay adapter, but that is beyond the scope here)

This isn't designed to win speed tests. Yes it is quite overpriced if compared to a SSD + separate HD. They are new and of course they factor that + convenience factor into the extra $$$.

 

[bucketlist]

Seems a *lot* of people miss the point of this drive: ONE SATA power/data cable is useful for laptops that only have one hard drive slot. (Yes you can remove the optical drive and drop in a HD bay adapter, but that is beyond the scope here)

This isn't designed to win speed tests. Yes it is quite overpriced if compared to a SSD + separate HD. They are new and of course they factor that + convenience factor into the extra $$$.

^This.

I like the idea of the drive.
I myself have a laptop with a single HDD bay and no mSATA slot for a mSSD but I do have a HDD caddy.

I like to see this product evolve were you can buy the SSD and HDD sides separate so If you want a larger SSD you can just get that and add it to the HDD.

 

[Exavior]

^This.

I like the idea of the drive.
I myself have a laptop with a single HDD bay and no mSATA slot for a mSSD but I do have a HDD caddy.

I like to see this product evolve were you can buy the SSD and HDD sides separate so If you want a larger SSD you can just get that and add it to the HDD.

don't see that being a very simple thing. I think at least for some time, it will have to be something that you purchase a precreated combo and just deal with what options they give you . Which for now is just this 120GB + 1TB I assume.

For what the product is meant to be, doesn't look that bad.

 

[drescherjm]

don't see that being a very simple thing. I think at least for some time, it will have to be something that you purchase a precreated combo and just deal with what options they give you . Which for now is just this 120GB + 1TB I assume.

Agreed. Look at the internals. It does not look like it would be easy at all to make this an end user upgradeable device and still keep the form factor.