[Discuss] Hybrid drives and Linux?

[Anthony Gabrielson]

On Nov 13, 2013, at 3:59 AM, Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:

> So the recent discussion of SSDs and Linux has made me wonder about
> Seagate's hybrid drives.   I.e. Disk drives with a small amount of
> flash memory (typically 8gig).   In a desktop system, my tendency
> would be install both a traditional magnetic media disk and an SSD.
> However, in a laptop that may not be possible.   Does anyone have any
> experience with these devices in laptops?   My concern is that they
> might Seage may have "optimized" them for Microsoft Window's access
> patterns.   I tried a little web searching and didn't find anything
> that I would consider definitive on the subject.  Any thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Bill Bogstad

I ran a Seagate Hybrid in a 2010 Macbook Pro for about two years and then I upgraded it to Crucial M4 SSD.  I really thought the difference between a regular hard drive and a hybrid hard drive were negligible.  My wife now uses that Mac with the SSD and when she first used it she remarked that it is the fastest computer she has ever used.

Anthony