If you are opting for a new PC or a new system there are few specifications that you need to know about. Among which the Storage component of the PC plays an important role. Now you have a lot of options to choose from. Therefore making you fall in confusion about which one to choose for your system. There are basically three types of storage components, Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD), Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD). Here, we have a difference between the SSHD vs HDD.

Now the first question that will hit your mind is which one to choose. However, it depends on the purpose you are going to use it. Although here we have the comparison between the SSHD vs HDD and also discussion of Seagate FireCuda SSHD vs. 2TB Toshiba HDD, two popular gaming Storage components.

An Overview of Storage Components:

Storage components are one of the important necessities of a system. Therefore it is important to choose it wisely depending on what you need the most. So let us discuss a complete comparison between the SSHD vs HDD storage components.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD):

The Hard Disk Drive was introduced a long time back. Basically, it has a mechanical arm that rotates to read and write the data on a particular location of the storage components. Therefore when you need any information on a file or folder, the mechanical arm has to move around to that place and grab the data. This process takes a lot of time to gather any required information with Hard Disk Drive. So you can conclude that the HDD requires physical movement to gather any information. And thus the HDD is slower than the others.

How does the Hard Disk Drive Work?

If you just want to store more of your files or folders in the system, then you can choose the HDD. However, it is important to know how the HDD works. Hard Disk Drive contains one platter and on both sides of this platter, there is a coat of magnet on each side. This specific platter contains millions of small areas. Furthermore, all these areas of the platter basically work on magnetizing and demagnetizing the platter to gather information on a specific file. 

Apart from that, the information stays in the Hard Disk Drive even when the power is switched off. Just because of the magnetizing and demagnetizing mechanism of the platter this happens. Talking about writing data, Hard Disk Drive has the capability to write data on any location of the plate at any time. Therefore when you overwrite data, it can create some issues.

Advantages of Hard Disk Drive:

  • Hard Disk Drive is very cheap and inexpensive.
  • You can get a lot of storage capacity in Hard Disk Drive.
  • It is very common and thus easily available in the market.
  • The lifespan of Hard Disk Drive is long when it comes to the terms of the reading and writing cycle of the platter.

Disadvantages of Hard Disk Drive:

  • As you know that the Hard Disk Drive has moving parts thus chances of failure are common and can happen at any time.
  • As to get the information, the Hard disk Drive has to move around, resulting in making it slow in performance.
  • Hard Disk Drives are bulky and large in size, therefore, it cannot be used in small devices such as mobile phones, mini laptops or tablets
  • A large amount of power is used by Hard Disk Drive.
  • You can hear a noise while working on the HDD.

Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD):

Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) is the mixed version of the Solid State Drive and Hard Disk Drive. Therefore you can choose it for the ultimate solution for both performances as well as storage within a small budget. So you can choose it to get the best of both, that is to get the performance as well as storage.

Basically, it is a combination of fast and small NAND flash memory. Apart from that, the fast speed of the Solid State Drive (SSD) is equipped and also the reliability of the Hard disk Drive is equipped. Therefore, Solid State Hybrid Drive comes with the advantages of the HDD in terms of storage and SSD in terms of performance. 

How does the Solid State Hybrid Drive Work?

As mentioned above the Solid State Hybrid Drive works only by using a small amount of high-performance NAND flash memory to gather information of the files. Also, the SSHD stores all the most frequent files used by the user in the flash memory. For instance, a Solid State Hybrid Drive can access quickly as it has a drive which is 8 GB in size from the SSD portion.

Furthermore, the SSHD has a memory manager in the storage component which is used to identify the files and data that are used frequently by the user. In addition to that, the most frequent file used by the user will be kept in flash memory. Thus making it very easy to access the files.

Advantages of Solid State Hybrid Drive:

  • Solid State Hard Drive is more reliable to use because of its large storage with high speed.
  • The moving part of SSHD moves less compared to the other ones.
  • Solid State Hybrid Drive allows you to easily access the files that you have used frequently.
  • Solid State Hybrid Drive has a long life span.
  • Apart from all this, it is inexpensive, thus you can afford it easily.

Disadvantages of Hard Disk Drive:

  • There is only one disadvantage of the SSHD and that is the HDD portion is very fragile therefore it can get damaged very easily.

That is all with the comparison between HDD vs SSHD, so you are aware of them so depending on your choice you can opt for the one that fits your criteria.

2TB Seagate FireCuda SSHD vs. 2TB Toshiba HDD:

Now moving to the next, if you are a gamer then you probably have fallen into confusion to choose between the Seagate FireCuda SSHD vs. 2TB Toshiba HDD. These two are the well-known storage components for gamers.

Although there is no Framerate performance difference between the two. Although the games take a bit more time to load in the HDD then compared to the SSHD or an SSD. 

2TB Seagate FireCuda SSHD:

Seagate is a well known and popular brand known to all for providing Storage components for your system. However, with the new technology, they have upgraded the Solid State Drive (SSD) line up to Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD). With the FireCuda SSHD, the Seagate claims that you can play faster as well as work smarter. Also, they concluded in FireCuda vs SSD, that the FireCuda is 5 times faster than any other Solid State Drives but is very inexpensive to provide the performance compared to Solid State Drive. Perhaps, the FireCuda SSHD can perform its best when it comes to caching application/data in the system.

Specifications of the FireCuda SSHD:

  • Interface: SATA 6GB/s
  • Byte per Sector: 512logical and 4096 physical
  • Data Transfer rate: Up to 140MBps.
  • Reliability/Data Integrity: Load/Unload Cycles:  600,000 
  • Head-Rest Method: QuietStep™ Ramp Load 
  • Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max: 1 per 10E14
  • Limited Warranty: 5(years) 
  • Startup Current (+5V, A): 1.0.
  • Read/Writer Power, Average (W): 1.7/1.8
  • Idle Power, Average (W): 0.5 

2TB Toshiba HDD:

Toshiba recently launched its new line of an internal hard drive that is having a lot of new features. These are equipped with all new low energy power management that ensures that the HDD consumes low power. The new line of the internal Hard drive has an extreme performance which is helpful for the professionals. Especially it is particularly geared for the ones who are the real techies, for instance, high-end or professional users such as gamers and graphic designers. It is equipped with high storage density and capacity. In addition to that, it is equipped with enhanced real-time performance and data protection technology for better protection of your files. Besides, the Hard disk Drive operates with 128 MB data buffers and 7,200 rpm speed. Toshiba also provided the dual-stage actuator to realize reliable performance and high-speed of the HDD. Also, the hard disk drive is available in 4, 5 and 6 TB.

Specifications of the Toshiba HDD:

  • Interface: SATA 6GB/s
  • Byte per Sector: 512logical and 4096 physical
  • Data Transfer rate: Up to 140MBps.
  • Reliability/Data Integrity: Load/Unload Cycles:  600,000 
  • Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max: 1 per 10E14
  • Limited Warranty: 5(years) 
  • Startup Current (+5V, A): 1.0.
  • Read/Writer Power, Average (W): 1.7/1.8
  • Idle Power, Average (W): 0.5 

Benchmark 2TB Seagate FireCuda SSHD vs. 2TB Toshiba HDD:

As both the storage components were installed in the system, and it was noticed that there was not much of a difference in terms of performances. The SSHD cache functions are quite different from the other thus average estimation can be made. With respect to the gamer’s perspective, the gaming performance is not that different, as most of the games took the same time to load, although for a few games there was a difference between loading time. As the SSHD uses NAND flash memory, thus the performance is a bit higher.

Conclusion

So we can conclude that the results are nearly identical and also within the 1-3% of benchmarking margin. Also, the startup time of Windows is slightly different in both cases. So that is all the SSHD vs HDD.