WD Black2 is a 2-in-1 SSD, HDD Combo Drive

Western Digital (WD) introduced on Monday a "hybrid" drive for consumers that combines a 120 GBSSD with a 1 TB HDD, thus cramming the high-speed performance of the former and the cheap, high capacity of the latter into one 2.5 inch 9.5 mm form factor. This combo solution is designed for enthusiasts, system builders, gamers and creative professionals.

Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit, said on Monday that although the company provides Solid State Hybrid Drive solutions, "tech savvy" customers asked for more control over where data is stored. Thus, enter the WD Black2 dual drive, which offloads data usage from the SSD to the HDD, thanks to the company's "Shift_Technology," and it is free of caching algorithms.

"The WD Black2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD Black2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products."

According to WD, Shift_Technology allows users to migrate larger files to the hard drive, providing the SSD with less system drag. With less caching involved, there's less waiting and a longer-lasting SSD. The SSD portion is based on a 20 nm architecture with quad channel NAND processing for increased speed and performance. There's also a custom controller for increased efficiency, and 8 GB of space dedicated for provisioning.

"WD Black2 combines the shock and vibration resistance of SSD with the proven technology of the HDD for one truly agile and highly reliable dual drive storage solution. Advanced firmware and intelligent algorithms assist in heightened performance, resulting in cooler temperatures with nearly inaudible operation," reads the product sheet.

The specs show that this unique dual drive connects via a SATA 3 (6 Gb/s) interface, provides read speeds of up to 350 MB/s, and has a minimum of 600,000 load/unload cycles. The drive uses a minimum of 0.90 watts and a maximum of 1.80 watts, and measures 0.374 x 3.95 x 2.75 inches. The Black2 ships as a full kit with a web key, quick install guide, USB to SATA transfer cable, and warranty information; software download and Internet connection are required for installation.

The WD Black2, model WD1001X06XDTL, is available directly from WD and through other retailers like Newegg for $299.99 USD. This should be an ideal gift for PC gamers this Christmas, which is exactly one month away from today. Wasn't it just Halloween?

WD Black2 SSD/HDD Review

The WD Black² is a combination drive for portable users that presents both a 1TB HDD and 120GB SSD to the host system leveraging only a single SATA port. Rather than only enhance their hybrid HDD portfolio, WD Labs came up with the idea to essentially sandwich two drives together. The architecture is both novel and pretty impressive. Each drive is managed by a controller that plays traffic cop, directing the IO to each drive from the single SATA port. The drive comes in just the single 1TB/120GB capacity point and has a 9.5mm 2.5" form factor. 

Breaking down the two components, WD is using a 5400RPM 1TB hard drive (WD Blue Slim) that takes up most of the physical space. Glued on top and bridged via the controller chip, is a 120GB SSD that's powered by a JMicron controller. This obviously marks the first SSD effort WD has embarked on since their unsuccessful attempt with the SiliconEdge SSDs in early 2010. WD quotes performance figures for the SSD of 350MB/s read and 140MB/s write through the SATA 6Gb/s interface. Compared to modern dedicated SSDs these numbers are well below industry norms, but that's attributable largely to the split interface limitation in the WD Black² architecture. WD does not quote performance figures for the HDD portion of the drive, however they should be in line with the Blue Slim HDD.

Understanding exactly what the Black² is, is critical to understanding where WD hopes it will play in the market. This is of course a drive designed for the mobile market; specifically full size notebooks that house a 9.5mm drive bay. The addressable market is actually smaller than that though; it's really just notebooks that have the 9.5mm drive bay and no other expansion options for an SSD via second drive bay, mSATA slot or removable optical drive bay (should the user decide to remove it for storage). WD is banking that many users would appreciate the simplicity of a single drive sandwich solution, but as this is targeted largely to enthusiasts, market acceptance for the design will be the deciding factor in the success or failure of the Black² idea. Beyond just the hardware adoption challenges though, WD only supports Windows with this release. As a result, Mac users are entirely left out, slicing off a good number of the enthusiasts WD hopes to attract.

The Black² comes in a retail package that includes the drive, SATA cable for external connection and USB key that provides web access to the requisite drivers (offline drivers are not included in the retail package at the time of launch). The 1TB/120GB Black² carries an MSRP of $299 and comes with a five year warranty.

The WD Black² Specifications

• Model Number: WD1001X06XDTL 
• Interface: SATA 6 Gb/s
• Form factor: 2.5-inch
• Performance (SSD): 350MB/s read, 140MB/s write
• Load/unload cycles: 600,000
• Non-recoverable read errors per bits read: <1 in 10¹⁴
• Limited warranty (years): 5
• Average power requirements (W)
  • Read/Write: 1.8
  • Idle: .9
  • Standby/Sleep: .9
• Temperature (°C) Operating: 0 to 60
• Non-operating: -40 to 70
• Shock (Gs)
  • Operating (2 ms, write): 30
  • Operating (2 ms, read): 65
  • Non-operating (2 ms): 350
• Acoustics (dBA)
  • Idle: 20
  • Seek (average): 21
• Physical Dimensions: 9.5mm x 100.20 x 69.85
• Weight (lb./kg, ± 10%): 0.28/0.125

Design

The WD Black² is a hybrid SSD/HDD with a 1TB HDD and 120GB SSD merged together. The HDD side of the WD Black² is the Blue Slim (down to the white product label visible after dismantling the drive) which had an additional SATA bridge added to combine both drives. Another difference compared to the Blue Slim is the Black² has a larger 9.5mm height with the SSD sandwiched on top.