Microsoft’s mobile Vista will encourage notebook users to change to hybrid hard drives, which combine spinning disk and flash memory, according to a Microsoft requirements’ document.“Hybrid disk drives or systems that implement a hybrid disk drive must meet the requirements outlined here. This requirement will go into effect for premium mobile systems in June 1 2007,” says the document. The requirement is: “A minimum of 50-MB NV Cache must be implemented in the H-HDD and exposed to Windows.”Both Samsung and Seagate are developing such hybrid drives. The idea behind them is that the notebook’s battery life can be extended as the disk is spun up only when data in the cache needs refreshing or writing to the hard drive.Another benefit is that system boot time can be significantly speeded up. The Microsoft document, available by zip archive download, states that: “Specific information is available in the white paper titled “Hybrid Hard Disk Support in Windows Vista.” The white paper can be obtained by sending e-mail to mshybrid@microsoft.com.”The document also notes changes to parallel SCSI support for a Windows Server failover cluster: “The way in which storage is managed on a Windows Server failover cluster is radically evolving. Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and SAS storage must support the new SCSI-3 persistent reservation commands to work correctly with failover clustering because the legacy reserve/release/reset mechanism is no longer used. Parallel-SCSI is no longer a supported storage type for shared failover cluster storage. This section outlines the set of requirements for using storage for failover clustering.” -Chris Mellor, Techworld.com (London)Related Links: Q&A: Microsoft Security Chief Sees New Vistas Computex: Vista Could Bring Secondary Laptop DisplaysCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content News ServiceNow continues workflow platform expansion with Utah release The company also doubles down on its customer success automation efforts, but bucks the trend by omitting GPT. By Peter Sayer Mar 22, 2023 7 mins CIO Build Automation Enterprise Architecture BrandPost Don’t buy into the hype of network observability to realize digital transformation success Just collect the right data and follow it to where it leads you. By Jeremy Rossbach, Chief Technical Evangelist, Broadcom Mar 22, 2023 3 mins Networking Feature How culture and strategic partnerships help fuel transformation Marc Hale, CTO for AIA New Zealand, recently spoke with Cathy O’Sullivan, editor for CIO New Zealand, about navigating the complexities of digital transformation, and focusing on culture to enable healthier outcomes for customers. By CIO staff Mar 22, 2023 7 mins CTO Digital Transformation Change Management Feature 10 things CIOs wish they knew from the start Go slower. Network. Tell stories. Get training. Be kind. CIOs have plenty of advice they’d give to their younger selves if they could. By Martin Veitch Mar 22, 2023 7 mins CIO Careers IT Management Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe