Western Digital launches the worlds first SSD+HDD Dual Drive

Today Western Digital announced the launch of its all new WD Black2 Dual Drive, a unique smashup of a SSD and HDD combo. The new Black2 Dual Drive is the first of its kind and manages to pack in a 1TB HHD and 120GB SSD into a single 2.5-inch form factor case. This allows for easy integration into notebooks, small form factor PCs, and much more where the speed of an SSD is desired, but massive storage is needed.

"Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. "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."

Western Digital says that the Black2 is free of caching algorithms and greatly benefits from the SATA 6GB/s interfaces speed. The new Western Digital WD Black2 Dual Drive is covered by a five-year warranty, and retails now for $299. Our own Tyler Bernath has just finished up his review of the drive and you can find out how it performs by heading over to the review right here at TweakTown.