WD has released the WD Black dual drive, a storage solution innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a dual drive solution. It’s not yet Mac compatible, but this is planned for a later date, accord ing to WD.

It's designed for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity. The WD Black dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot. 

Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD, says aid Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. Users  maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage, he adds.

WD Black is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It's packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector.

Available at wdstore.com and through retailers such as Newegg.com, WD Black2 dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black dual drive, model is US$299. For more info go to http://products.wd.com/wdblack2 .