Apple engineers are always working on something new and this time the company from Cupertino intends to "revolutionize" the hard disk industry by launching a product that combines the components of an SSD and those of a platter hard disk. A request for the registration of a patent for the Apple company presents us with a hybrid device that would include both the components of hard disks and the internal components of SSDs, all with the idea of keeping data safe and offering high performance for users.
On September 29, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a next generation Hybrid Drive that includes both a hard drive and Flash. Intel will be pushing their Smart Response hybrid drive systems for consumer systems in 2012 and Apple's patent would indicate that they intend to have their own solution for future hardware. Uniquely Apple's twist to this drive is that it will handle different types of storage media based on an environmental state of the hybrid drive. If the drive undergoes temperature, vibration or acceleration variances that could cause the hard drive to temporarily fail, the system would save the volatile data to the Flash drive.
Basically, Apple describes a hard disk that would work based on the system that keeps the raid arrays running. The hybrid device would have in it the components of a hard disk and the components of an SSD, but the information would mainly be stored on the platters of the hard disk, but they could be transferred to the SSD in case of shocks or in the event that there is a threat regarding to data integrity. The transfer to the flash storage medium would ensure the saving of the data, but would of course also provide much faster access to them, until the hard disk components are replaced.
The idea from Apple is interesting and very very useful, but the biggest problem would definitely be the high price of developing such a product. It would be interesting to see the system available in future storage units in MacBooks and they would certainly give Apple an advantage over its competitors. There are already a few similar hard disk models on the market, so Apple should come up with a unique product to conquer a developing market.
Apple's invention generally relates to a hybrid storage device that includes the following: a hard-disk drive (HDD), a flash memory, an interface circuit, and control logic. This control logic receives a request, via the interface circuit, from an external device to write a block of data to the hybrid storage device, where the request includes a logical address for the block of data in a first portion of an address space which maps to the HDD. In response to the request, the control logic writes the block of data to the HDD. Furthermore, if there is a change in environmental state information of the hybrid storage device during the write operation, the control logic writes at least a portion of the block of data to a logical address for the block of data in a second portion of the address space which maps to the flash memory. Note that the address space may be common to the external device and the hybrid storage device.
