Hybrid Hard Disk Drives

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

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