Samsung new MH80 HDDs

While Fujitsu may have snagged the headlines on Monday for its 7200RPM 160GB SATA/300 2.5" hard disk drive (HDD), Samsung is looking to make a few headlines of its own with the availability of the world's first hybrid HDDs. Samsung new MH80 Series hybrid HDDs will be available in capacities of 80GB, 120GB and 160GB.

Samsung new MH80 HDDs will be fully compatible with Windows Vista and will offer OneNAND Flash onboard in capacities of 128MB or 256MB. The onboard flash allows for up to 50% faster OS boots, quicker resume times and increases in battery life of up to 30 minutes.

"As a leader in both hard drive and flash memory technologies, Samsung brings to market a unique hybrid hard drive that is sure to revolutionize the notebook computing experience," said Albert Kim, National Sales Manager, Storage Systems for Samsung Semiconductor. "The MH80 hybrid hard drive provides the ideal solution for two major issues that notebook PC users continually face: faster boot and resume performance and extended battery life."

Samsung claims that the MH80 Series offers five times the reliability of traditional HDDS while consuming 70-90% less power.

Hopefully, Samsung's claims will pan out in real world testing. Internal testing by Lenovo engineers has shown that hybrid HDDs aren't all they're cracked up to be.