Toshiba’s NAND/HDD hybrid drives  Toshiba is sampling two
2.5-inch form factor Hybrid Drives which integrate HDDs and NAND
flash memory in a single unit.  They come in two densities –
1Tbyte and 750Mbyte.  The drives use 8GB NAND flash memory as a
cache memory to support high speed data throughput.  As a
result, read and write times are about three times faster than
in Toshiba hard disk drives with equivalent capacities.  In PCs,
the new Hybrid Drive reduces application boot times by about
40%* With a 2.5-inch form factor and high capacity, the new
drives are positioned as a high performance alternative for
portable and desktop PCs.  In operation, data is allocated to
one of the Hybrid Drive’s three memory layers: DRAM buffer
memory, NAND flash memory or the magnetic disk media. This
process is enhanced by an algorithm that dynamically learns the
user’s data access pattern and stores data accordingly to the
appropriate tier. High speed access is achieved by storing
frequently accessed data in the NAND flash m