Seagate Launches Third-generation of SSHD Products, Including Desktop Model

We reported just earlier about Seagate’s intent to cease development of its 7,200 RPM mobile hard drives, and now, with an announcement of the company’s third-generation “SSHD” products, the blanks have been filled.

Previously, Seagate’s hybrid drives fell into the Momentus XT line, but because of recent name change-ups, that’s now renamed to “Laptop SSHD”. Also, while Seagate has never offered a desktop variant of its hybrid drives in the past, that changes today, with “Desktop SSHD”. Finally, in addition to its standard 9.5mm-thick mobile drive, Seagate will also be offering a 7mm-thick option to its customers.

The last iteration of Seagate’s hybrid drives included 8GB of SLC NAND, and nothing changes here. I had hoped to see a boost in that regard, as I tend to consider 20GB to be a “minimum” for caching purposes, but given the fact that this is SLC, and Seagate wants to keep pricing low, I guess it’s understandable.

While not much seems to have changed on the surface, Seagate claims that its third-gen drives prove up to 40% faster than the previous, and where laptops are concerned, overall system performance can experience a boost of up to 30% – regardless of which processor is being used.

One of the greatest benefits of Seagate’s hybrid drives is that there’s no need for software for the caching to work. That results in a drive that can experience the same benefits regardless of which OS you’re using.

Pricing hasn’t yet been announced on these new drives, but densities have been. On the desktop front, 1TB and 2TB models will be available, while on the mobile side, the 9.5mm-thick option will come in at 1TB, and the 7mm, 500GB.