Samsung Ships First Hybrid Hard Drive

Mixing flash memory with the traditional spinning disk, Samsung's Latest News about Samsung new hybrid hard drive for Vista-based notebooks will improve boot-up speed, extend battery life and increase reliability, said the company. The hybrid drive, the first of its kind, according to Samsung, is currently being sold only to notebook manufacturers. However, Samsung said it will soon be available from retailers. Prices were not released. The new units mix solid-state One NAND flash memory, which responds nearly instantly, with a 2.5-inch disk magnetic memory drive. The hardware relies on Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft ReadyDrive software and is designed to work only with Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system. The drives come with either 128 MB or 256 MB of flash memory, and are shipping with three levels of storage capacity: 80 GB, 120 GB and 160GB, said Samsung.