The company’s latest release is the 2.5-inch Momentus 5400 PSD. The new HHD features SATA 1.5 interface, 8MB of cache, and 256MB of flash memory to buffer cached write requests to disk. The device will be available in three capacities: 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB.
According to Seagate, the new line will reduce boot time from 40 to 32 seconds. The average power consumption is also said to be as low as 0.45 watt, instead of 0.78 watts.
While it sounds good, it no doubt less than what the Hybrid Storage Alliance used to promise a while ago, when the devices were thought to be able to meet a power consumption of 30-10%, while boot times for Vista were supposed to be halved.
How come these devices missed their goals? According to Seagate product manager Melissa Johnson, the problem lies with the the BIOS and Vista device drivers, which can’t use the flash as they should.
The Hybrid Storage Alliance was formed by Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, and Samsung.