This IDC study reveals the performance differences between traditional HDDs, SSDs, and H-HDDs. IDC partnered with a third-party testing firm to run a complete array of tests to document the performance of these different storage technologies. The results are vendor agnostic and are meant to highlight the differences between technologies, not vendors. In addition, IDC offers up its analysis of the results and insight to the future to help industry participants understand the future direction of these storage technologies in order to assist OEMs in choosing the most appropriate storage device for their products.

"The results are in! After months and months of debates and speculation, we've finally put six different drive technologies to the test. Two traditional mobile PC drives, two solid state drives, and two hybrid hard drives were put through a battery of tests to determine where they excel, and where they don't. The results were both predictable and unexpected, but in the end, our results have led us to several significant conclusions that we believe will be eye-opening for those that have anything to do with storage device technologies in PCs." — Dave Reinsel, group vice president, Storage and Semiconductors