The future of hard disk drives will be flash hybrids, according to a high ranking Seagate executive. The statement regarding the predicted popularity of the hybrid drives coincides with the release of the company’s new Momentus XT drive, which is being billed as the world’s fastest 2.5” hard drive.
David Mosley, Executive Vice President of product line management at Seagate believes that the majority of product offerings by Seagate in five years will consist of the hybrid drives.
"We feel really good about the [Momentus XT] product and I think as I have said on occasion looking out five years I would not be shocked if 80% of our portfolio is hybrid. [...] We believe that the hybrid drives [...], the drives where you basically utilize silicon technology in combination with HDD as probably by far in a way a better solution for the vast majority of client computing," Mosley stated during a quarterly financial conference call.
Seagate’s Momentus XT hybrid drives combine SSD memory with HDD platter capacities. The end result is moderately-priced, high-performance storage device that can boost boot times up to 100% faster than a standard 5400 RPM HDD. Additionally, the Momentus XT uses a new technology, called “Adaptive Memory”, which customizes faster access for each user by moving frequently accessed data to the flash memory portion of the drive.
While the hybrid drives may have better performance than traditional hard drives, Mosley acknowledges that enterprise customers may still lean toward SSDs for the added benefits of speed and reliability. However, he believes that the majority of consumers will begin to prefer the hybrid drives for a balance of performance and affordability.
The Seagate Momentus XT drive is now shipping in 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB capacities with MSRPs of $113, $122, and $156 USD, respectively. For more information and in-depth technical specifications, check out the product information page over at Seagate’s website.
So will hybrid drive really be the big thing five years from now? Technology moves pretty fast, and if cloud computing ever really takes off there likely won’t be the demand for internal storage capacities that exist today. The future is really anyone’s guess.
