Momentus XT vs. 7,200

So I am getting the M17x R3 within a month or two, and I was looking at the HDD options. There is a new SSD/HDD combo... thingy... the "Momentus XT". I know it was made to be faster, BUT... I have also seen a lot of people talking about the trouble they have had with their SSDs. Is it just better to get 1.5TB with two 7,200rpm, or 1TB with two 500GB Hybrid Solid State Drives?

Note - the two Hybrid Solid State Drives are only $75.00 less... so I dont care about the price.

The System I Am Going To Order:

CPU - Intel Core i7 2820QM 2.3GHz/3.4GHz Turbo Mode 8MB Cache
RAM - 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz 4DIMMS
Video Card - 1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
LCD Panel - 17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 120Hz WLED w/3D Bundle
HHD - 1.5TB Raid 0 2x 750GB 7,200RPM OR 1TB Raid 0 2x 500GB Hybrid Solid State Drives
ROM - Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Wifi - Intel® Ultimate N WiFi Link 6300 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO Technology
OS - Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

$3,788.98

 

The Momentus XT pretty fast, so two of those in RAID0 would be more desirable to me than regular HDDs in RAID0. You could also get an SSD with a secondary 750GB for storage. That's your fastest option.

 

+1 small ssd for boot and large hdd for storage

 

Hmm, I did not know you could mix and match the Hard Drives without conflict. That is what I will be doing then. I will get an SSD for Windows/Programs, and a HHD (7,200rmp) for Documents.

Thanxxx for the help guys! I am really looking forward to my new R3.

 

Yeah you can definitely have a SSD for booting the OS/apps and then a backup for storage.

You can even save money and get a small SSD for the OS and install programs on your backup. I hear that works though I've never had the chance to try it.

 

I had a small SSD to begin with. Erasing one game or app to make room for another one gets really old really quick. I would not get anything below a 120GB SSD. Remember that the OS takes up a bunch of space, so does the page file. It's all gone before you know it.

 

well I have Adobe MS-CS4, SCII, Crysis, FFXIV, AVP2010, all the Silent Hill games, and more programs/games on my R1 at the moment, and it is all taking up about 140GB, I am sure a 250GB SSD would do the trick.

 

new ssd's should be coming out soon, so perfect timing for you. bigger drive space and cheaper pricing, man i can't wait.

 

I am currently running a SSD to boot off of and a XT as storeage...works great

 

I saw a video on youtube, I think I will be going with the dual Momentus XTs, (Link at the bottom of this post). The XT seemed to be just a tiny bit slower than the SSD, but SO much faster than the 7,200. I hope I don't end up regretting this in the future. I am not usually one to get new tech without seeing it in action for a while. But hey... I have two 500gig 7,200s in my R1 if I find the hybrids are crap.

YouTube - Seagate Momentus XT

 

I've got a Momentus XT in my system, and it feels much faster than a standard 7200 drive in terms of loading times.

You don't get the full advantages of an SSD, because obviously it can only pre-load 4GB at a time onto the cache. Even then it only affects reads, writes go at normal speeds, and as well as that overall system responsiveness won't be as fast.

But for the minor price increase over a 7200...I'd highly recommend it.

 

I have a Corsair Extreme in my R1 and to tell you the truth no Momentus XT or HDD Raid setup is faster than this baby.

 

Put the page file on a different drive

 

That's what I've done, but the average Joe doesn't know that's even possible.

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5818&p=2


Nice graphic's here for the Momentus XT


Anyone have a good link on how to make a newly purchased ssd or momemtus xt the boot drive and the original dell drive the document drive. Putting or transferring Win 7 fresh on the ssd or ghosting the original drive onto the added ssd???