Today Western Digital or WD launched the world’s first dual drive that combines a 120gb SSD and a 1TB mechanical hard drive in a small notebook sized drive enclosure. I was surprised when I saw the price of only three hundred dollars, I was expecting it to be more. Early reviews are in and from what I’ve read it’s well worth the cost for sure. The drive features the SATA 6 gb/s interface so it should be nice and fast and of course an improvement over regular drives.

WD, a Western Digital company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black²™ dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution. Perfect for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity, the WD Black² dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot.

"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."

2-in-1

Designed for enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders, the WD Black² dual drive provides improved overall drive capacity, performance, and reliability, while offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black² dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD. Users  maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage.

WD Black² is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It is neatly packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector, making the WD Black² dual drive compatible with popular PC operating systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 8.1.

Price and Availability

Available at wdstore.com and through etailers such as Newegg.com, WD Black² dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black² dual drive, model #: (WD1001X06XDTL) is $299.00 USD. Additional information about WD Black² dual drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at http://products.wd.com/wdblack2.