SeaGate 500GB SSHD

**Raj** · 16-10-2013

SSHD are affordable hybrid solution for Laptop and Netbooks. SSD’s are bit costly due to slow development procedure. High performance flash chips are used that provide faster data read and write compare to a regular internal hard drive. Internal hard drive with moving physical components is prone to damage via shock. Head damage is common among all. SSHD does not remove those threats, but it helps us to gain more performance. Internal Hard drive mostly depend on the rpm for data read and write speed. The higher rpm, higher speed you will get but also the power consumption and vibration rises with that. There is a constant moving motor in between that rotates the platter. So if the drive has a low rpm then your data read and write speed will be slow and also it will affect the performance of an operating system. At that point going for a SSD is not reasonable.

Because in this we are not getting two things. First budget price and second large storage space. SSD’s are developing quiet slowly and so the price is getting lower. It might still take years, for SSD to replace the regular hard drive completely. So manufacturers came up with a unique solution of building a hybrid hard drive. This hard drive has features of a SSD. It is like a regular drive only, but it is more portable and powerful. Called as SSHD. In this article we are going to checkout a Laptop Think SSHD by Seagate. It offers 500GB Space and SATA 6GB/s interface. Ideal for backup and work. The drive comes with regular SATA port widely used in many systems. It can be an ideal solution for laptop, portable external hard drive, internal hard drive, etc.

The price of this hard drive is around Rs.5,300 excluding taxes. It is a kind of good upgrade for laptop and netbook where space is limited and adding more storage is always costly. It comes in two storage models. One is 500GB and the second is 320GB. We had already reviewed a similar model which has 7mm Ultra think design. So I had linked the review below. In this we are going to discuss about a 5mm design which is thinner and smaller in size. But has the same kind of features.

Specification:

Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
Cache: 16MB
Seek Average Read (ms): <13
Seek Average Write (ms): <15
Max Data Transfer Rate: 600 Mb/s
Bytes Per Sector: 512/4096
Load/Unload Cycle: 600,000
Operating Temperature: 0 to 60
Non Operating Temperature: -40 to 70

**Raj** · 16-10-2013

The drive features the slimmest design. Due to a think design it becomes quite easy to use it on a netbook or like a portable hard drive. All you need is a good enclosure. Being a SSHD as per the specs the maximum data transfer speed you can expect is around 600MB/s. This is simply amazing. SSHD fulfill the demand of performance along with storage. It does not matter for what purpose you use your system. Either for gaming or for multimedia the drive is great enough to give lag free output. People opt for regular HDD due to affordable price range and high storage. Like at the price of Rs.5000 you can still get a 1TB storage drive. But that is for desktop. Those who own a netbook or laptop has very less choices. Instead of choosing a regular sleek hard drive, go ahead with an SSHD.

I do not really think there is a major price difference. What matters is a bit of reliability and performance. SSHD are not complete replacement for SSD or a full reliable solution. But it terms of performance it is lot better than the regular drive. SSHD comes with a chip which controls the drive storage a regular platter and MLC Nand chips. They are around 8GB which stores the most frequently used applications. And the regular platter is for the storage. The data which remains unused for long time. Like backup files. The drive somehow manages to give you stable performance. It is simply amazing to find that who Seagate has able to manage to create such a thin drive with extreme performance. It is unique. The drive is one of the thinnest in the world. 5mm is a very thin design.

The average data transfer speed on the drive is 100mb/s while maximum you can get 6times more depending on the system you have. To get a good speed you must connect the drive to the 6Gb/s sata interface. Still on older boards on which we had tested the hard drive, we receive a stable data transfer speed between 60 to 70 Mb/s. The operating temperature is also low due to which it does not gets heat up fast. there is no noise while using the drive. As I said before we has already reviews a similar model. So instead of extending this article more you can go on the below link and get a more information on the drive test. I had explained in detail about the design and technology used in this hard drive. Leaving the design other things are similar. There are no major changes or upgrade in this model.

SeaGate Laptop Think SSHD 500GB

Conclusion:

SeaGate 5mm Ultra-Think 500GB Laptop SSHD comes at an affordable price of Rs.5,300 (Excluding Taxes). The drive offer a budget upgrades solution for think net book’s and ultra books. It is great in terms of performance. Due to hybrid design, the drive is capable of offering you a decent SSD performance. It works well in all kind of system. You can use it for gaming, multimedia or for regular backup purpose. The drive is good enough to carry out day to day load of data transfer. Due to MLC NAND Chip the boot time is faster. SSHD can be an ideal choice for those who are looking for affordable upgrades. They are cheaper compare to SSDs and also provide larger space. You can also use it like an external hard drive.

Pros: