With all the attention on hybrid cars that save fuel, it’s not a surprise that a hybrid drive would appear on a netbook. Currently, netbook hard drives are divided into two types: traditional hard drives, and newer flash based ones.
The traditional hard drives have the advantages of larger capacities and lower costs. The standard is currently 160 gigs. However, they use more energy and can have mechanical failures.
Compare that to a flash based drive. While they have smaller capacities, and cost more, they use less power, and can help prolong the battey life in a netbook.
However, MSI is designing a new netbook around a hybrid hard drive. The approach is to have flash memory integrated into a mechanical hard drive. This should theoretically extend battery life, while still allowing a larger capacity.
Expect the 160 GB hard drive to feature either 8 or 16 GB of flash memory. This should allow the netbook to have a 12 hour battery life in a 6 cell battery (which sounds almost too good to be true). At any rate, expect the MSI U115 to debut next month.
Leave a Reply