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WD, a Western Digital company, and SanDisk Corporation, a world leader in flash memory products, are announcing that the two companies have collaborated to bring to market SSD / HDD hybrid storage drives. These hybrid drives will combine best-in-class flash memory technology from SanDisk with best-in-class hard drive technology from WD. This powerful combination will greatly improve PC user experiences by offering increased speed, instant-on, faster application loading, and high storage capacity.
SanDisk will be supplying its iSSD storage device for the new WD Black Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD). This will represent the world’s thinnest 2.5″ form factor SSHD, and will utilize both WD proprietary hybrid technology and industry standard SATA interface technology. The SandDisk iSSD provides a balance of performance, low power consumption, cost and reliability in a compact form factor. The new SSHD will offer larger storage capacities that meet users’ growing appetite for digital content and flash-enabled speed, data throughput and system responsiveness in an ultra-slim form factor.
Kevin Conley, senior vice president and general manager of client storage solutions at SanDisk, states “I am delighted for SanDisk to team up with WD on these exciting new hybrid products. By combining SanDisk’s unparalleled flash memory expertise and technology with the hard drive know-how of WD, WD Black SSHDs offer outstanding hard drive-like capacity, and the slim form factor and the level of performance that you will get with flash memory solutions.”
According to Matt Rutledge, vice president of client computing at WD, “Working with SanDisk , WD realized our vision for products that combine the best of both technologies. WD’s SSHDs are a significant achievement in the continuing SSHD/Flash storage revolution.”
image source: thefutureofthings.com
As PC manufacturers design ever-slimmer devices, storage capacity often has to compromised to achieve integration into these thinner notebooks. The WD Black 5mm SSHD provides 500GB of storage capacity, while occupying almost 50% less volume than a current standard 9.5mm notebook hard drive. This is able to be achieved by virtue of SanDisk’s use of their 19nm flash process technology — the world’s smallest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process.
The WD Black 5mm SSHDs are currently shipping to OEMs, along with ultra-slim 7mm and 9.5mm SSHDs for other portable devices. The WD press release for the WD Black SSHDs can be viewed here.