Our plain old hard drive is getting increasingly replaced by SSD, now Seagate is soon going to announce Hybrid drives (Momentus XT) which take advantage of both these technologies to give you the best of both world. Here is a summary.

Hard Drives (spinning Disk drives)

Advantages:

  • Lowest cost per GB
  • Easy availability
  • Fairly reliable

Disadvantages:

  • Not drop proof
  • Generates Heat
  • Slower than SSD
  • Consumes more power than SSD

Solid State Drive (SSD)

Advantages:

  • Fastest speeds today
  • Drop proof, as there is no moving parts, hence rugged enough to be used in extreme environements
  • Low power consumption, so increases your battery life
  • Light weight so reduces weight of your portable device

Disadvantages:

  • Most Expensive

Hybrid drives:

Advantages:

  • Uses both SSD and spinning disk drive
  • Gives cost advantages of spinning disk drive
  • Provides performance of SSD
  • Dynamically moves more often accessed file from spinning section to SSD

Disadvantages:

  • Still not drop proof like the SSD
  • Power consumption will be higher than SSD

Read full review and speed tests.

Seagate Momentus XT 320 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive for Laptops available for $125