Hitachi-LG hybrid drive does away with HDD

On Tuesday, Hitachi-LG Data Storage announced a hybrid optical drive that can obviate the need for a hard disk drive in thin laptop designs.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) disclosed a second-generation Serial-ATA (SATA) 6.0-gigabit-per-second (Gbps)-based "hybrid drive" at Ceatec 2010, held this week in Makuhari Messe, Japan. The drive is meant to eliminate the need for a separate hard disk drive in laptops, allowing PC makers to bring out optical-drive-equipped systems with only one drive.

Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technology also announced today that it is supplying 25-nanometer NAND flash chips for the drive. The initial capacities for the solid-state drive will range up to 64GB, with higher capacities in the future.

In a hybrid optical disk drive (ODD), a solid-state drive, based on Micron flash chips, is built into the ODD and serves as the primary device for storing the operating system and applications. Solid-state drives are typically faster than hard disk drives when reading data.