INTRODUCTION

   Solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs for short) may not pose a real threat for normal SSDs in terms of performance (not yet anyways) but they are already gaining ground against regular HDDs and that's something that has gotten the attention of many people in the industry ourselves included. We don't really need to point out that it was the latest Desktop SSHD 4TB by Seagate that really changed things since being the very first 3.5" hybrid drive in the market means that manufacturers are finally turning towards desktop drives that offer both higher performance levels and larger capacities. Of course that doesn't mean that manufacturers will just cease all development of 2.5" hybrid drives, far from it especially since such drives are quite popular especially amongst laptop and HTPC owners. Today we will be testing one of the latest SSHDs to hit the market the brand new MQ01ABD100H 1TB by Toshiba.

   Toshiba Europe Storage Products Division (SPD) has remained at the forefront of the storage industry for over 40 years and is the world's only storage supplier that owns design, development, manufacturing, sales and other infrastructure functions spanning the enterprise, mobile and retail environments for both HDD and SSD products. Customers are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), system integrators and distributors within the EMEA region. As a leading provider of integrated storage solutions and as the principal inventor of NAND flash storage, Toshiba sets many of today’s industry standards for storage technology. Throughout its history, Toshiba SPD has revolutionized the design and development of storage devices and its drives can be found inside the world's leading GPS navigation systems, consumer electronics, computers and enterprise solutions. In addition, Toshiba Storage Products Division offers an extensive range of advanced technology drives such as high durability 24/7, extended temperature and SSDs for the consumer, industrial, enterprise and automotive sector.

   Since Toshiba is the creator of NAND Flash memory when they announced the MQ01ABD100H i was expecting to see something slightly different compared to other 2.5" SSHD solutions but for good or bad the end result is actually quite similar. So just like in the case of the Seagate Laptop/Laptop Thin SSHDs (and even the Desktop SSHD) the 9.5mm thick MQ01ABD100H by Toshiba wears a total of 8GB MLC NAND Flash which this time over are paired with 32MB DRAM buffer and two 500GB plates (for the 1TB model) spinning at 5400RPM. Manufacturers have to think about the cost of such drives so i didn't expect Toshiba to offer something unique compared to for example Seagate and lose the price game in the process but i really do think that it's about time we saw SSHDs with more onboard NAND flash. Now as some of you may recall we did reveal a long time ago that manufacturers have received the green light for the development of SSHDs with 32GB of onboard MLC NAND flash but we can't really tell with certainty the when these will be available for consumers. Our job however is to test what we have in front of us so let’s see what Toshiba has brought to the table with their MQ01ABD100H 1TB 2.5" SSHD.