Hybrid SSHD Drive Upgrades For Mac
Seagate was first to enter the Solid-State Hybrid SSD Drive market with their Momentus XT series - initially in 250 to 500GB capacities. Their latest generation of 2.5" SATA III hybrid FireCuda drives now up the capacity to 2TB with improved controllers and firmware. They incorporate up to 8GB SSD flash memory combined with high-speed 7200RPM spinning platters to deliver the Best-Of-Both-Worlds storage performance.Offering some tradeoffs in speed of a full-blown SSD, they make up for it in VERY AFFORDABLE extra capacity. Typical SSD's cost $0.15 per Gigabyte, whereas a Hybrid SSD for your Apple computer costs a fourth of that. It's a fair tradeoff: Afforability and higher capacity for slightly lesser performance than a completely flash-based typical SSD drive.
USB 3.1 USB-C and USB 3.0 USB-A Compatible
Hybrid drives offer better peformance than ANY traditional spinning platter drive made! A Hybrid SSD for your Mac may be a great alternate option. Doing the drive swap in many older SATA drive Mac models like MacBooks, or iMac and Mac mini desktop can be fairly easy to perform.
Buffalo offers a unique desktop external Hybrid backup drive that combines DDR memory modules with a conventional hard drive for SSD-like performance. LaCie offers a D2 hard drive that features USB 3.0 and ThunderBolt 2 - but offers an _optional_ 128GB SSD module backplane upgrade that removes the USB 3.0 port, but provides vastly better performance with it's ThunderBolt 2 PCIe SSD module.
| Upgradeable ThunderBolt 2 Drive | DDR Hybrid EXTERNAL Drive |
|---|---|
ThunderBolt2 Hybrid Drive 128GB SSD Module OPTIONAL 
|
DDR RAM + USB3 Hard Disk Faster Hybrid Backup 
|
Mac mini - MacBook SSD Hybrid Drive Upgrades
Many models of the Mac mini and MacBook can ideal candidate for a 2.5" Hybrid SSHD drive. As the low-end of Apple's desktop line, in some ways a mini can benefit the most from the speed boost a Hybrid drive will give. Apple tends to use rather slow 5400RPM drives in it's low end models. So the stock drive performance is less than impressive. Even if you didn't opt for a full SSD, a Fusion drive option -- or Hybrid drive, if you ever have to replace your hard disk - go for a 7200+RPM mechansim with large cache. The performance boost will be significantly better than the stock drive.
Unfortunately, Mac mini dissassembly may be a bit daunting for those inexperienced with drive swaps. For some, paying a qualified Mac computer tech who can perform the swap is wise - and they can also assist with cloning your Mac mini's conventional drive to transfer the data. For the more courageous DIY types, plenty of online How-To Mac mini take-apart videos can help you navigate the finer points of a hybrid SSHD drive upgrade.
3.5" Hybrid Drives for iMac or Macintosh Pro?
There are full-size SSD Hybrid drives for Mac systems like Macintosh Pro towers and older iMacs. Initially, drive manufacturers were focused on the smaller 2.5" Hybrid SSD for MacBook Pro or Mac mini type systems. With over two thirds of all computers - both in the Windows PC and Macintosh market now portable laptop systems - there's simply far more demand for smaller drives. As such, the initial Hybrid storage solutions were targeting the highest volume disk storage market.
Note - Apple and the Apple logo, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, MacBook Pro and Air, iMac or Mac mini, OSX and and any others are a registered trademark of Apple Inc. in the USA and other countries. Any other computing accessory, peripheral, add-on, upgrade or gizmo and gadget manufacturers, products and brand names that may be referenced at this web page are officially registered trademarks of their related corporation.