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Hitachi-LG Debuts HyDrive, Optical Drive With SSD

Posted by kdawson on from the two-in-one dept.

MojoKid writes "A fairly new Hitachi-LG joint venture announced the world's first hybrid optical drive, called the HyDrive. This unique device is a notebook optical drive with an SSD built in. When you slide it into your machine and it connects via SATA 3Gbps, your computer recognizes not only a DVD burner / Blu-ray drive, but also a 32GB or 64GB SSD. This configuration allows you to have an SSD without taking up the single 2.5-inch storage slot within your laptop, so you could then have an optical drive, an SSD, and the standard hard drive as well. There are also a few nice tricks you can play in caching with the on-board SSD. Error-correction techniques can be employed that allowed a damaged disk to be be playable." The HyDrive will ship to OEMs in August; a smaller version usable in netbooks is planned for 2011. The Register has some more technical details and specs.

17 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Cost? by IDK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's the cost? Every feature in the world for infinite cost doesn't make a good product...

  2. "error correction" by Speare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Error correction techniques can be employed that allowed a damaged disk to be be playable.

    And since it's a Blu-Ray device, always remember that "DRM techniques can be employed that allow a valid purchased commodity disk to become unplayable."

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    1. Re:"error correction" by Pojut · · Score: 4, Informative

      Because Blu-Ray players require firmware updates.

      --
      Living With a Nerd
    2. Re:"error correction" by frozentier · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Too bad there isn't a way to ship the firmware update on a data part of the disc itself. Then you insert the disc, firmware is upgraded (the first time you insert), and no internet connection is ever needed.

  3. Darn... by Manip · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I first read the title my mind thought about a really kick butt cache drive that allowed you to throw in a DVD/Blu-Ray disc, read in its entire contents in one pass - saving power, increasing performance, and that annoying buzzing sound. Shame what they've created here is nothing remotely that interesting or creative. In fact I'd even go as far as to say the Optical / SSD combo drive is a useless concept on the face of it. As if USB slots are hard to come by or laptops lack SSD/MMC card slots?

    1. Re:Darn... by Ephemeriis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I first read the title my mind thought about a really kick butt cache drive that allowed you to throw in a DVD/Blu-Ray disc, read in its entire contents in one pass - saving power, increasing performance, and that annoying buzzing sound. Shame what they've created here is nothing remotely that interesting or creative.

      What they've created here is a piece of hardware. Exactly how it gets used will largely be determined by software. There is absolutely no reason it could not be used in the way you envision. Maybe Hitachi doesn't plan to implement anything like this... But that wouldn't stop some other manufacturer from developing what you suggest. Or you could write your own software to do it.

      In fact I'd even go as far as to say the Optical / SSD combo drive is a useless concept on the face of it.

      Space is generally at a premium in laptops. If you can cram an SSD and an optical drive into the same space, you no longer need room for that 2.5"/3.5" laptop HDD/SSD. You can use that space for additional storage... Or you could fit in a bit of bulkier hardware on the motherboard... Or bigger speakers... Or a larger battery... Or better cooling...

      As if USB slots are hard to come by or laptops lack SSD/MMC card slots?

      Both of which are poor replacements for your internal/primary storage device.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:Darn... by drachenstern · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know about you, but I have no problem using a [32|64]GB SSD on my laptop as my root drive and using a 500+GB rotating disk as my primary data storage mechanism (especially since laptop drives are getting up over 500GB into the terabyte+ range) thus giving me the performance boost of SSD for booting and program launching. Since it's rare that I'll be launching a program AND watching a BD movie, I can't see too much contention on that one interface (although I'm not saying there won't be contention, that's just silly) so I think combining the two could be a very smart move. Provided I can use both drives independently and simultaneously.

      If it's an either/or then they have created the world's least useful device, I think.

      --
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    3. Re:Darn... by Animaether · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When I first read the title my mind thought about a really kick butt cache drive that allowed you to throw in a DVD/Blu-Ray disc, read in its entire contents in one pass - saving power, increasing performance, and that annoying buzzing sound.

      And have their Blu-Ray license revoked; the licensing party would be none to please with essentially making a copy of the blu-ray onto the SSD.

      Of course you, yourself, would still be free to do exactly this using any one of the blu-ray ripping tools.

      In fact I'd even go as far as to say the Optical / SSD combo drive is a useless concept on the face of it.

      They already give the main advantage 'on the face of it' in the story: you don't end up taking up one of (and often, the only), 2.5" HDD slot in your notebook.

      As if USB slots are hard to come by

      No, but when's the last time you opened up a notebook to connect an SSD to a hidden internal USB connector and still get the case closing properly?
      If you're referring to the connectors for external devices - I'm pretty sure part of the point was to -eliminate- the need for an external device.

      Finally, USB2 is nowhere near as fast as SATA3. USB3 gets closer, but it still leaves you with the downside above.

      or laptops lack SSD/MMC card slots?

      given their a slow interface, I'm not sure why you're even trying to compare them to an SSD.

      If I were in the market for a laptop right now and my options included...
      - Blu-Ray, HDD 750GB
      - Blu-Ray, SSD 64GB
      - Blu-Ray+SSD 64GB, HDD 750GB ...I'd say it'd be a pretty easy choice if pricing is kept competitive.

      Of course there's downsides as well.. such as, presumably, not being able to upgrade the SSD portion easily.
      ( aside from pricepoint / performance / etc. which remain to be seen )

  4. Re:one SATA port, two devices? by ThoughtMonster · · Score: 3, Informative

    Obviously, it does. ;)

    Related: http://www.serialata.org/technology/port_multipliers.asp

  5. Re:one SATA port, two devices? by Eil · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes.

  6. Bus bottleneck? by VincenzoRomano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As there will only be a single SATA interface, it will be shared between the SSD and the optical drive.
    What if you need to burn data that's on the SSD?

    --
    Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
    For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
    1. Re:Bus bottleneck? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      An optical drive is barely noticeable on a 3 Gbps SATA connection. Unless the SSD is really saturating the interface on its own, that won't be a problem. And that's only if you do tons of other stuff, if you just burn something the SSD will be idle 95% of the time.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  7. Limited Life of SSDs? by ATestR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not going to try to track it down now, but I seem to remember reading about SSDs having a limited life time. High read/right operations would effectively use that lifetime up more quickly. This doesn't bother me too much with a normal memory key, since the one I get this year will last at least a couple of years, and by obsolete in a couple of months anyway. But an internal SSD? What do you do if/when that sucker dies? A key I can toss, and buy a new one. An internal chip will require surgery on my laptop.

    --
    âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
    1. Re:Limited Life of SSDs? by LordKronos · · Score: 3, Informative

      Reading has no wear effect on SSDs. Writing does, but it's a very high limit. Intel set the bar pretty high with the the X25-M, and it was something like 20GB per day, every day for 5 years the enterprise version is even higher, since it uses SLC instead of MLC flash memory). I haven't tracked the latest releases from other brands, but I imagine they are pretty similar.

    2. Re:Limited Life of SSDs? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bullshit. They can state all they want. But until those 5 years have passed, and we have actual data on a significant amount of SSDs, it’s all just wild guesswork right out of the marketing department.

      Oh, and others are not pretty similar, but much much worse. You know that, because you deliberately picked Intel. The only manufacturer to have the balls to make up numbers that are in the acceptable range. (But they are still made up. Unless they got a time machine.)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  8. optical drive failure? by LordKronos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Over the years, if I've had 1 component fail more often than hard drives, it would probably have to be optical drives. I just cannot see tying my SSD to an optical drive.

    1. Re:optical drive failure? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can not see why I would need a optical drive at all anymore...
      The OS installs from an USB stick. And the rest goes over the network.
      Optical drives are the new floppies. Except that in this case, some anachronistic companies think they can put stuff on them, and actually sell them. Lol. Sell data. Now that’s just silly...

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.