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    Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by scottdx, Apr 21, 2011.

  1. scottdx

    scottdx Notebook Enthusiast

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    scottdx, Apr 21, 2011
    #1
  2. katalin_2003

    katalin_2003 NBR Spectre Super Moderator

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    Look for a disassembly video guide and I'm sure you'll be just fine.
    Everybody here had a first time, just be patient and go slowly.

    my 2€ cents: that drive will be faster than the 320Gb one and you might want to use it as a primary drive (run Windows off it).

    Cheers
     
    katalin_2003, Apr 21, 2011
    #2
  3. SchneebalL

    SchneebalL Notebook Consultant

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    what he said !! , i would run it as your main drive ! just swap the drives . have a look on youtube loads of guides on there
     
    SchneebalL, Apr 21, 2011
    #3
  4. BigBlondeViking

    BigBlondeViking Notebook Enthusiast

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    I just got my M17x R3 today, and will have my Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB + my HyperX ram by tomorrow... ( good to have Newegg in state sometimes... )

    I will be doing this operation over the weekend... Momentus as Primary drive...
    might relegate the included 320 to my PS3... she needs some love too.

    The Momentus will allow me to wait out the newest full SSDs and see which Sata3 SSD comes out on top... then plop in the SSD into primary and Momentus into 2nd~
     
    BigBlondeViking, Apr 21, 2011
    #4
  5. katalin_2003

    katalin_2003 NBR Spectre Super Moderator

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    Good choice! But remember: keep your original parts for warranty purposes ;)
     
    katalin_2003, Apr 21, 2011
    #5
  6. shadowyani

    shadowyani Notebook Deity

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    Very easy. I'm running 2x momentus XT 500 gb in raid0 right now. It appears that the SSD on board does in fact work in a raid configuration even if the Seagate doesn't officially support raid on these drives. Multiple runs of Crystal Disk Mark show improvements, indicating that the SSD cache does work.

    However, don't be fooled into thinking you have SSD performance by any measure; its more like a speedy HDD; the best I've seen in sequential reads are 200 MB/s.

    There seems to be a large discrepancy between the running temperatures of different XTs. I have one that idles at 35C and another that approaches 48C. Both are safe temps and Seagate has mentioned that they are performing to specification and I shouldn't be worried.

    So its a good drive. What you'll want to do is clone your 320 GB HDD using acronis true image or something so you can use the XT as your OS drive to reap the speed benefits to the fullest or even run 2 of them in RAID for some decent performance and storage. But definitely you should not be using the 320 GB stock drive as your boot drive once you receive your XT; that'd kill much of the benefit off.
     
    shadowyani, Apr 21, 2011
    #6
  7. orionz

    orionz Notebook Consultant

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    I'm running one as my boot drive.....loading time for Win7 down by AT LEAST 50%. Loading time for programs also a bit faster but drive seems optimized for speedy start up!
     
    orionz, Apr 21, 2011
    #7
  8. scottdx

    scottdx Notebook Enthusiast

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    How does the Acronis cloning system work? Again, I am very novice at most of this. Thanks.
     
    scottdx, Apr 22, 2011
    #8
  9. scottdx

    scottdx Notebook Enthusiast

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    Failing miserably at getting this hard drive in... :(
     
    scottdx, Apr 22, 2011
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  10. hhairplane

    hhairplane Notebook Enthusiast

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    Installed this drive yesterday, running really fast, but applied latest firmware today and being really, really slow.
     
    hhairplane, Apr 23, 2011
    #10