Lenovo RapidDrive

Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 5:09
Gadgets
50 views
View Comments

We have seen some very expensive SSD storage devices like external hard drive which are lightening fast but some important aspects of SSD technology such as extremely high price have restricted its growth in current computer market to a certain limit. Lenovo is bringing in something new that could change future of portable hard drive technology and could also help improving storage performance of notebook and laptop PCs. Currently only a handful of slate PCs and tablets make use of SSD technology.

Lenovo RapidDrive uses a hybrid storage system comprised of your normal hard drive and lightening fast SSD drive which is something that we have never seen before. Lenovo is offering such a product that will help you decide whether to permanently switch from HDD to SSD or wait for somewhat cheaper solution. Lenovo RapidDrive technology will be first used in their upcoming IdeaPad Y460 and Y560 notebooks. Lenovo has recently detailed the technology in simple form as making two different HDD infrastructures work together. You can install up to 64GB SSD PCI-Express enabled storage device work alongside normal SATA HDD of up to 500GB capacity.

There will be no visible difference in interface of the two drives as they will effectively work as one combined storage unit. RapidDrive makes use of a new algorithm which sorts data according to different parameters such as size and compression between SSD and HDD so that this hybrid could actually prove useful in high speed computing. Various tests have yielded an amazing result that up to 64% increase in Windows 7 boot speed is possible when you use SSD technology to its extent. Even in your daily life, considerable improvement can be seen in performing tasks and multimedia operations.

CES was set alight with demo performance of these two notebooks working with Lenovo RapidDrive technology. Interestingly, Lenovo hasn’t revealed price tags of the two notebooks, which are expected to be considerably higher than common notebooks. But, we can expect a fair return as lightening fast speed and reduced hardware errors due to the fact that there is no rotating component in SSD technology. We can expect these two notebooks in the market very soon and enthusiasts might want to pre-order the product as it may not last long if Lenovo decides to keep its price affordable enough.