A solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD) is a storage device that combines the best features of a hard disk drive (HDD) and a solid-state drive (SSD) . It is also known as a hybrid hard drive. An SSHD blends the capacity, cost, and performance of physical disk storage with the accelerated performance of flash. The key features of an SSHD are:

• Data allocation: An SSHD is, for the most part, a hard disk drive with a spinning disk and an actuator arm that writes data onto it. But the hard disk drive also has a solid-state drive attached to it. Data can be written onto either the HDD or the SSD, but it is allocated according to your habits. Data that you use infrequently is stored on the HDD, while data that you use frequently is stored on the SSD.

• Data placement optimization: SSHDs constantly monitor the data thats being retrieved from storage, and it automatically determines which data you open the most. It places the files that you use most often on the SSD so you can read/write that data faster.

• Types: There are two main "hybrid" storage technologies that combine NAND flash memory or SSDs with the HDD technology: dual-drive hybrid systems and solid-state hybrid drives. Dual-drive hybrid systems have physically separate SSD and HDD devices installed in the same computer, while solid-state hybrid drives have SSD and HDD functionalities built into a single piece of hardware.

• Capacity: SSHDs dont have a lot of SSD space - usually, the SSDs only come with an 8GB storage capacity. But thats usually more than enough to store your favorite applications, like web browsers and productivity software.

When choosing between an HDD, SSD, and SSHD, its important to consider factors such as capacity, performance, power efficiency, and price. While SSHDs will never deliver the same performance as an SSD, they are faster than a conventional HDD and offer a good balance between capacity and performance.