Monday, November 25th 2013
Western Digital Debuts World's First SSD+HDD Dual Drive
WD, a Western Digital company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black2 dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution. Perfect for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity, the WD Black2 dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot.
"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," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. "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."
2-in-1
Designed for enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders, the WD Black2 dual drive provides improved overall drive capacity, performance, and reliability, while offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black2 dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD. Users maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage.
WD Black2 is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It is neatly packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector, making the WD Black2 dual drive compatible with popular PC operating systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 8.1.
Price and Availability
Available at wdstore.com and through etailers such as Newegg.com, WD Black2 dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black2 dual drive, model #: (WD1001X06XDTL) is $299.00 USD. Additional information about WD Black2 dual drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at products.wd.com/wdblack2.
"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," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. "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."
Designed for enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders, the WD Black2 dual drive provides improved overall drive capacity, performance, and reliability, while offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black2 dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD. Users maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage.
WD Black2 is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It is neatly packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector, making the WD Black2 dual drive compatible with popular PC operating systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 8.1.
Price and Availability
Available at wdstore.com and through etailers such as Newegg.com, WD Black2 dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black2 dual drive, model #: (WD1001X06XDTL) is $299.00 USD. Additional information about WD Black2 dual drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at products.wd.com/wdblack2.
30 Comments on Western Digital Debuts World's First SSD+HDD Dual Drive
"Performance Specifications (SSD) Target Performance Internal transfer rate (read, max) 350 MB/s"
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It looks like the OS only sees the SSD part initially and then you have to install something to make the HDD part appear.
Right now it's Windows specific, and if its SSD part dies, your whole data is jeopardized ('cause you cannot access the other part from another computer which doesn't have specific WD software installed). Also WD says, that SMART software is incompatible with it - so you have to trust WD's word whether your two drives are OK or not.
Thank you, but no, thank you.
JMicron based 4-channel SSD...
I don't see this as an attractive solution over an SSD, even if it's half its capacity, it could have been a good product a couple of years ago when people were asking for more than a measly 8GB flash storage on hybrid HDDs.
Could make kinda sense for laptops but I'd still take that 512 GB ssd to be honest.
Big storage+fast boot time....
Wanna see how much is this new tech gonna cost.
this title is simply incorrect.
www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5903/western-digital-black-2-dual-drive-2-5-consumer-hdd-ssd-review/index.html
www.storagereview.com/wd_black2_ssd_hdd_review
The drive is mediocre.
To be critical though this isn't the first drive of it's kind as there is the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB PCI-E SSD which also has a 2.5" 1TB drive backed up by a 120GB SSD. That one does connect into the PCI-E slot which does offer some interesting performance.