WD 1tb +SSD Combo

[SpeedTester]

Black²
An interesting idea WD has came up with.
It operates as two different drives on one channel, not to sure how that works.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/wd_seeing_double_with_twofer_one_drive

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1190

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8460

WD hopes to whet the appetites of laptop owners and serious gamers who have the need for speed AND capacity: it has launched a 1TB Caviar Black spinning disk drive with a 120GB SSD stuffed inside its case.

The Caviar Black2 has a notebook 2.5-inch disk drive form factor, with a 9.5mm z-height and will bring joy and delight to Windows notebook owners who find their laptop to be a little on the sluggish side. Feed it some Caviar Black2 and the rejuvenated beast should zoom along like a MacBook Air-class machine.

WD Caviar Black 2 dual drive.
Apple notebooks are not supported, this being a Windows-only upgrade option for notebooks, small form-factor PCs with a single drive slot, and enthusiast/gaming PCs. This drive probably signals the start of a running down of the Velociraptor line for these users.

Ironically, the setup resembles the iMac’s Fusion drive, where there are separate disk and flash drives which the system presents as a single drive. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 versions are supported. It is said to be Windows 8-compatible.

In the case of the Black2, Windows presents it as two drives, unlike the hybrid disk drives we are seeing where there is a relatively small stash of flash used as a cache – Seagate’s Momentus XT, for example, and Toshiba’s MQ01ABFH.

WD SVP Matt Ruttledge, who runs the Storage Technology business unit, said" ”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 SSD uses 20nm NAND. The Windows OS and applications can be put on the SSD so that boot, application load and app execution can all be speeded up. Large files can also be migrated to the SSD to speed up data access to them. WD points out that the spinning disk can be used as a backup for the SSD although it’s generally a better idea to have your backup separate from the host system.

WD’s Black2 has a 6Gbit/s SATA interface and comes as a full upgrade kit including:

Software (USB Web Key),
USB 3.0 to SATA adaptor cable,
Quick Install guide,
Warranty guide,
Acronis True Image WD Edition is available for data cloning.
A USB key (stick) is included in the kit. You plug it into the host machine to get the WD Software downloaded, the product download page automatically comes up. The software is downloaded and installed to activate the drive.

There some caveats. Be aware that:

A partition may not span across the SSD to the HDD.
Some physical 2.5-inch bays will not fit the drive (mounting tabs).
OEM recovery partitions generated at factory by computer manufacturers cannot be replicated.
When drive security is enabled, only the SSD portion is considered secure (ATA/BIOS lock).
Drive can't be used in RAID environments including Storage Spaces.
Nvidia storage drivers are not supported and the software won’t install.
The ASMedia controller chipset cannot detect the drive. It's out of spec.
The product has a five-year warranty and its MSRP is £249.99. It’s available at wdstore.co.uk and Etailers like Amazon. WD says additional information about WD Black2 dual drives and the limited warranty terms may be found on the company's

 

[PliotronX]

That's kinda hot. I've had better luck with WD than Seagate so there'd finally be a HSSD (though not seamless) I can recommend.

 

[SpeedTester]

That's kinda hot. I've had better luck with WD than Seagate so there'd finally be a HSSD (though not seamless) I can recommend.

I hear ya, I have 2 dozen WD Blacks at home and even more at my work and only had to replace 1 so far. I have replaced more than 50% of the Seagates I used to buy.
I'm interested in if this Black² drive would work in my laptop. I have a 64gb SSD in there
now that isn't cutting it anymore.

 

[86waterpumper]

I think this is a cool drive especially for people who are trying to build in a small form factor. Lots of small itx cases have space for two 2.5 drives, so this would let you have this drive for a boot drive, and then if you mounted another 2 tb 2.5 you could have over 3 tb storage in a small footprint and still have some os speed. Looks like the ssd write speed is a little slow but that will probably improve on future versions.

 

[KingFatty]

I hope they come out with a lower-priced, sort of 'OEM' version that doesn't have the fancy box art and USB key thingy, just the drive in a plastic bag and you roll your own USB installation key by downloading the software from WD. As-is this seems like a great thing to have, but it's premium product pricing and packaging currently. I want the price to be lower than buying separate hard drive and SSD, with some increase in price for the convenience of fitting both into one 9.5 mm slot.

Also, they need to come out with another version that hybridizes both drives into one logical drive like the Seagate hybrid SSD/hard drive, so it's one logical drive that uses cashing algorithms. Or maybe just include a setting to do that, sort of like how Intel SRT offers that option. Currently it's neat that it's accessed as two separate logical drives, but would also be neat to let you combine them into one drive that caches to the hugemongous SSD.

 

[Dahak]

Hmm wonder why you have to use the web key to download the partitioning software to activate the 1tb portion of the drive. from the FAQ it does not say why only that it does.

Once the HDD is enabled, will I have two disk volumes?

Yes. The SSD will be the boot volume, which is typically the C: volume, but the WD Black2install software is required to enable the second volume.

From the pipeline comments, Storage Review has a tear down and review up at
http://www.storagereview.com/wd_black2_ssd_hdd_review

 

[Elixer]

This is a terrible design, that requires special software for it to work.
Worst part is, if one part fails, then you end up losing both the SSD & HD...and the price

Pass.

 

[Arkaign]

This is a terrible design, that requires special software for it to work.
Worst part is, if one part fails, then you end up losing both the SSD & HD...and the price

Pass.

True, it sounds like a convuluted mess right now.

The only thing is has going for it is 1TB+120GBSSD in a single 9.5mm 2.5" form factor for a laptop.

For desktop use, this is insanely bad value and logic, unless you are one of those people that loves building tiny PCs. I personally hate anything smaller than mATX, just far too limiting in choice, value, and performance, which are the primary reasons I still build desktops. Most of the time when space is a real issue I just go with a notebook.

 

[Scarpozzi]

True, it sounds like a convuluted mess right now.

The only thing is has going for it is 1TB+120GBSSD in a single 9.5mm 2.5" form factor for a laptop.

For desktop use, this is insanely bad value and logic, unless you are one of those people that loves building tiny PCs. I personally hate anything smaller than mATX, just far too limiting in choice, value, and performance, which are the primary reasons I still build desktops. Most of the time when space is a real issue I just go with a notebook.

At a $299 pricepoint, it's not a bad deal though if the configuration isn't too brutal.

 

[BFG10K]

This is a terrible design, that requires special software for it to work.
Worst part is, if one part fails, then you end up losing both the SSD & HD...and the price

For a minute there I thought you were talking about SSDs in RAID-0.