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Western Digital Corp., a global storage industry leader, is announcing the release of their new WD Black2 dual drive, which is a uniquely innovative storage product that combines a 2.5″ 120GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) in a single 9.5 mm enclosure. The WD Black2 is ideal for consumers or service providers desiring to upgrade a notebook, small form factor desktop, or all-in-one system to both SSD performance and HDD capacity.
Enthusiasts, creative professionals, PC builders and gamers alike will appreciate the flexibility to choose how and where data is stored. By utilizing the benefits of both magnetic and flash storage, WD Black2 users maintain greater control over their data storage. The ability to offload storage from the SSD to the HDD as needed also increases the endurance and lifespan of the SSD, and can eliminate the need for cloud storage.
According to Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD’s Storage Technology business unit, “Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data. The WD Black2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD Black2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products.”
The WD Black2 is not a caching solution, and does not utilize any caching algorithms. It benefits from a single SATA 6GB/s connection, and is housed in a standard 2.5″ x 9.5mm form factor. The only performance specification provided is an internal transfer rate of 350 MB/s. It is compatible with Windows operating systems from Windows XP up through the latest Windows 8.1. WD is backing the WD Black2 with a five-year warranty.
WD has the WD Black2 available at either wdstore.com, or through etailers such as Newegg.com. MSRP for the 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD WD Black2 (model # WD1001X06XDTL) is $299.00 USD. The product page for the WD Black2 can be viewed here; and the press release can be viewed in its entirety here.
Watch for our upcoming review of the WD Black2 SSD/HDD combo drive.