Do I have a hybrid hard drive?

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I recently purchased a Sony - VAIO T Series Ultrabook 15.5" Touch-Screen Laptop - 8GB Memory - Silver Mist laptop from Best Buy. The specs tell me it comes with SATA (5400 rpm) and SSD (Solid State Drive), not on the specs page, but advertised never-the-less as 1TB Hard Drive + 24GB Solid State Drive. For what it's worth, or should I say, while it will last - here's a link to the item.

When I look at my available drives, I see the DVD drive and a single hard disk - C - corresponding to the 1 TB. Should I be seeing an additional drive of approximate 24GB? My bet is No, but I could be wrong.

The computer is new, but I 'feel' it should be running faster than it is. My old laptop had an i3 processor and this is definitely faster than that one. My work laptop has an i5 processor and this doesn't seem much faster. I don't remember the RAM contents of those 2, but this Ultrabook has 8 GB RAM. Oh, and I feel Visual Studio 2012, Quicken, and sometimes Chrome, are the apps that seem slow. I guess just Desktop apps, maybe Metro too, but that's probably internet related.

I'm currently optimizing the C drive to see if that helps. Also, I read that Superfetch should be disabled on solid state drives. It is currently enabled on the Ultrabook. Would disabling this help speed up the computer?

Mark

Posted 2013-03-19T02:08:31.437

Reputation: 155

1Describing a processor as just an "i3" or just an "i5" is not helpful. These are all processor lines with significant performance overlap -- there are plenty of high-end i3 processors that are faster than low-end i5 processors and vice-versa. For example, the i5-M430 is only about half as fast as the i3-3220. – David Schwartz – 2013-03-19T02:56:06.110

Answers

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Easiest way to tell, as the Sony site is not too helpful either, open a command prompt and run:

wmic diskdrive get model

Then either post here or google it. I suspect it is a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive.

Austin T French

Posted 2013-03-19T02:08:31.437

Reputation: 9 766

Model AXM13S2-24GM-B WDC WD10JPVT-55A1YT0 – Mark – 2013-03-19T02:22:21.443

Was that originally two lines? Based off the (two) model numbers it looks like a 24GB ADATA SSD (Possibly a card and not enclosed like a traditional drive) and a Western Digital Blue 5,400 RPM drive... – Austin T French – 2013-03-19T02:27:12.690

Yes, it was originally 2 lines. So it's there...how can I tell if it's working? Is there a way? – Mark – 2013-03-19T02:30:51.617

Sure enough, according to this it looks like they use a HHD + SSD setup. http://www.ultrabookinfo.com/ultrabooks/sony-ultrabooks/sony-vaio-t-series-svt-review/

– Austin T French – 2013-03-19T02:31:18.863

As for how to tell if its working, this is new to me from Sony. It could be setup as a hidden partition just for boot / hibernation and things of that nature. Short of calling Sony I can't say if its working. Your OS can see it, so I would venture to guess thats how it is supposed to be. Where did you look at available drives? My Computer or Disk Management? – Austin T French – 2013-03-19T02:33:39.497

I had looked in Windows Explorer, but now that you mentioned it, I checked Disk Management. It is there and I'd say it's safe to say it is functioning properly. I wish I would have read your link prior to the purchase - I found this comment: "Do keep in mind that with the hybrid HDD/SSD build the T series are quite a bit slower than the version with just the SSD". Thank you for all of your help. Do you have any input on disabling Superfetch? – Mark – 2013-03-19T02:38:31.710

I am not sure on a setup like that, its probably OK since it will not be constantly indexing the SSD like it would on a normal pure SSD setup. It doesn't hurt performance, it shortens the life of the SSD when Superfetch is enabled. – Austin T French – 2013-03-19T02:48:35.133

Asked: 2013-03-19T02:08:31.437

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Active: 2013-03-19T02:14:07.220