There is a new class of disk drives that combines a standard cached hard drive with an on-board solid-state disk (2-level cache) with the intention of providing near-SSD performance at the cost of a regular hard drive.  An example of such a drive is the Seagate described here:
http://techreport.com/review/25425/seagate-desktop-sshd-2tb-hybrid-drive-reviewed
 
It provides 2 TB of disk space combined with 8 GB of SSD space.  The algorithms on-board the drive are supposed to automatically move the most frequently accessed data to the SSD.  For the average desktop user, this should mean that big parts of the OS are in SSD, allowing very fast boot time.  When using a DAW, we have such large sample libraries and we create such large audio files, that I am guessing this could really overwhelm the drive's algorithms.  If they made one with 64 GB of SSD, I bet that would be a very good fit, but I don't think anything like that exists yet.
 
Can anybody share any practical experience with a SSHD in a DAW setting?

The Seagate solution is plug and play.  The SSD portion is transparent with data migrated automatically under hardware control.
 
WD has a different take on the problem.  They squeeze a separate 128 GB Sandisk SSD into their 2.5" hard drive package.  Here's a reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Black2-Dual-Drive-2-5-WD1001X06XDTL/dp/B00GSJ9X4Q
 
It literally is two separate drives, but they also provide special software drivers that allow you to operate as if it were a hybrid drive.  This might work better for the amount of data a DAW uses, but it sounds like a bit of a kludge.  Is anybody running with the WD dual drive?

You might want to post this in the X series forum as there are 100's of users there. This forum is a bit dead now things have moved on. Also there is a good Computer forum where this really belongs. But personally using the X series forum is what I would do to reach more people. It's all for the common good. 

Thanks.  I got confused.  That's where I thought I had posted it.
 
Here is the thread on the X Series forum -- please respond there:
http://forum.cakewalk.com...-m3012025.aspx#3012025