Hybrid HDD

Hybrid hard disk drives combine a traditional HDD with additional non-volatile flash memory, which plays a role of the buffer for storage of the most frequently used data. It allows:

  • To lower power consumption using reducing the direct access to a magnetic disk.
  • To improve reliability since the hard drive with the parked magnetic heads is less sensitive to mechanical influence.
  • To reduce the time of normal loading and restoration of a system from the sleep mode.
  • To lower temperature and acoustic noise produced by a hard drive.

Microsoft Windows Vista became the first of the operating systems supporting hybrid hard drives.