If you've built or upgraded a rig recently, you probably struggled with whether to spend your money on oodles of storage (mechanical hard drive) or raw speed (solid state drive). You're not alone. Ultrabook makers find themselves in the same boat, and rather than choose one over the other, hybrid hard drives may provide the compromise between cheap(er) storage and fast performance they're looking for.

If the high prices of mechanical hard drives has you feeling blue, perhaps you should use it as an excuse to kick a little green at a high performance solid state drive instead. You won't save any money by going that route, but if it's a matter of principle, or if you've been shopping a fast SSD anyway, SanDisk is hoping you'll consider its new Extreme SSD line.

Mum's the word on what controller Hitachi has attached to its new enterprise-class Ultrastar SSD400S.B family of solid state and whether it skipped Intel's chipset in favor of something from SandForce, just like the Santa Clara chip maker recently did, but we at least know the new SSDs are rocking Intel-produced 25nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory chips, a fact both companies are quick to boast.

A high performing solid state drive at a reasonable price is something every enthusiast wants, but they're harder to find than a needle in a mountain of hay. Kingston believes it's found that balance with its new SSDNow V+200 line. Featuring a SATA 6Gbps interface and SandForce's SF-2281 controller technology, the SSDNow V+200 offers some serious speed for "performance minded yet cost-conscious business or home users," Kingston says.