Alternative to Momentus XT

I'm having problems with my Seagate Momentus XT, it lags on start up (during splash screen) and takes 10-15 minutes to start from hibernation/sleep. Weird thing is, works perfect on my desktop.
So anwyays, I was thinking of maybe slapping on a Western Digital Raptor, will WD6000BLHX fit on a G73?

Newegg.com - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

Nope, problem with the WD raptor is that it's got a huge heatsink, IIRC. I don't see an image on the link, but I'm sure it'll be too big. If you want something speedy, you can get a good sandforce disk for ~150, in the 90gb range.

 

try updating your firmware first.

ProTip: Download the firmware updater, throw it onto a cd or flash drive, and before running it, go into the BIOS and set the SATA controller to IDE. Then the installer should run w/o needing a commandline mod. When done, reset the SATA back to AHCI.

 

Damm I was hoping for a speedy HDD. I did update thenew firmware, i think the new one is d24, it made it so that instead of taking 10-15 minutes, takes 10 minutes. If it makes a difference I flashed it in windows.
I wonder though, if I had it in SATA instead of IDE, would that MAYBE fix it? One way to find out I will try it.

 

You really think there's anything normal about 10 minutes? The slowest drives from 1990 would be faster than that!

I personally would try and diagnose the real problem before assuming it's inherent to the drive model...

(above based on the fact that I haven't seen posts all over the place claiming Momentus drives are a complete joke, which they would be if they all took 10 minutes plus to reload from sleep/hibernation...)

And did you mean AHCI instead of SATA? I would definitely use AHCI whenever possible over legacy IDE...

 

Dude,

If your thinking of spending 300 on that, buy you a 3rd bay and an SSD to boot from. You can spend 200 on a ssd and 100 on a 1tb drive for the 3rd bay.

 

The Momentus XT shouldn't be as slow as described. During boot/resume from hibernate is it hanging anywhere in particular? It could be drivers (possibly NIC drivers) or services that are installed.

 

Like I said, I hooked it up on my desktop, work as described, it's fast, spacious, overall its good. But as soon as I hook up to my G73, during the boot splash screen, lags for a few seconds, pauses before the windows logo forms for only a sec or 3, then continues normally. Takes longer to boot into windows on my g73 when it's on a desktop by a minute. On the G73, after the system goes into hibernation, waking up from that takes 10-15 minutes, splash screen takes its sweet time to form the windows logo. Overall anywhere between 10-15 minutes.
I will try AHCI (sata typically means AHCI in certain mobos) and see what happens.

I tested the HDD using seatools, tested fine.

 

Pretty sure the momentus xt also takes some time to "get used to" usage patterns.

 

You're suppose to be using the drive in AHCI mode.

 

This. Apparently you have to use it for a couple weeks so it gets used to what you use, eventually speeding up its performance.

 

Yes but 10 minutes is still a sign of something else amiss. Unless he's vastly exaggerating there, which is possible.

Coming out of hibernate does take a bit longer than sleep.

 

Well your right, I set this thing up on AHCI then I reinstalled windows and all be damm it works, not only does it work but its incredibly fast.
And no I was no exaggerating, it took anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes to wake up.

But yeah seems like it solved my problem, I mean it works FAST!

However, I did notice that the CPU fan is running full blast and a lot of heat is being blown out. Which is weird because when I take it out and use the default HDD, doesn't blow that much air out, also, battery life also drains literally by 30 minutes as appose to an hour+.

What are the benefits of using AHCI over IDE?

 

AHCI enables NCQ, which depending on the HDD/SSD controller varies in the speed difference it makes. Here's a decent article with some numbers:
SSD Benchmark Tests: SATA IDE vs AHCI Mode | AHCI vs IDE,SSD,AHCI,IDE,SATA,Solid State Drive,Benchmark Performance SSD Testing AHCI vs IDE,Benchmark Performance SSD Testing: Intel ICH10 SATA AHCI vs IDE Mode Speed and IOPS Comparison

 

Any explanation on the extra heat?

 

Maybe your power management settings are different since you did the windows reinstall. Have you checked to make sure power4gear is set the same way, and your graphics drivers are set to conserve power (not sure which model you have)?

 

Sounds like you got it working right? Good to hear. I thought that sounded really messed up. I threw a 500GB Momentus XT in my Asus back in November, and it doesn't do anything like you were initially describing. It's definitely faster than the 320GB normal Momentus I replaced-especially noticeable on boot up.

The only weird thing with it is I've heard it on multiple occasions spin down. I have Windows set to never spin down the drive, but I suppose that doesn't stop the drive from spinning itself down. I also suppose it's even possible that it's more LIKELY to spin down than my old drive was, since it's got that 4GB SLC cache and double the RAM cache of my old drive...so maybe it's firmware is able to do that.

As far as I know it hasn't caused any issues yet, and I do weekly backups, so so far I can definitely recommend the XT. The only part that really bothers me for hard drive speed is boot time, and while I should have timed this to see, it FEELS like its twice as fast, like I can stand in front of my computer while it boots to type in my password and not have time to be annoyed, while before I'd sit, and sit and sit and sit... and then once I type my password, often one of the two programs I have launch at startup is already loaded before the desktop's even displayed, and I can launch Firefox almost imminently (instead of like 45 seconds later or whatever on a normal drive).

Definitely seems like Seagate created a neat product with these, and they're practically free, and are big enough for me to use as my only drive.

Now that parts still weird. I don't notice any difference with heat or anything, and the drives shouldn't use much different in the way of power.

IDE is kind of emulating the old interface. I won't even remember all the advantages of the new method, but among other things it allows drives that support it (as this does) to reorder incoming commands to handle them more efficiently. I can't remember what all else, but you'd always want to use it, unless you're using some ancient hardware that doesn't support it, or I guess an ancient OS, or something like that. I don't know, it would be sort of like using Intel graphics when you have a Geforce GPU sitting there! :-D

 

xt wrks ok,,,

 

I believe that is solved with the SD24 firmware update. Before, the XT would sometimes spin down with a slightly pitiful noise (as if it was drowning) then immediately spin up again. With SD24, that has never occured again.

 

Oh wow, thanks! I just grabbed the firmware and am going to reboot with it now (*crosses fingers*)

It never even occurred to me to check for updated firmware...I've never updated a hard drive's firmware before. I don't think I even knew you could!

 

Update the firmware and get a new WEI score down from 6.9 to 5.9!

Weird...

 

It just means the cache (4GB SSD region) was just cleared. If you run WEI again, you'll be back to 6.9. So run it twice (although thats cheating).

 

No matter how many times I run WEI it's 5.9

Boot time from ASUS splash screen is 43 seconds with login adding 13 additional seconds. The drive is very very fast in real use. No issues at all with any pauses or delays. Still on original sd23 firmware on C drive sd22 on D.

Cheers,

 

Nope, had it at 6.9 the first 6 months, then I discovered this forum, read about XT stutters etc., updated to firmware SD24 a while ago, WEI down to 5.9, and it stays there...

 

Just means the drive is being properly detected as a spindle HDD as opposed to a SSD type. WEI maxes spindles to 5.9

 

Well, that is nice to know, thanks!

That WEI is useless anyway me think, haven't seen any perf. difference from 6.9..

 

Yeah, WEI doesn't really mean anything, it's just sort of a SUPER generic performance indicator, useful for people who aren't really in to computers and just need something simple to grasp.

Regarding the firmware update, I did it a few days ago, went fine, and have had no issues.

Haven't heard it randomly spin down since then either.

 

I posted in a new thread - I bought a new Momentus XT - it came with SD23, soI upgraded to SD25 (latest available). Drive seems stable, but I now get marked stuttering (esp audio) on HD video playback that was not present with the original drive or when playing video over USB 2.0. I have posted on the Seagate forums - no clear response yet. If I don't find another solution, I will be looking for an alternative.

Any thoughts?

Joe

 

Dumb question, but the drive is in DMA mode, right?

Dang...didn't know there was a new update, I've still got 24. I wonder if I should update, just in case there's some issue with 25 :-O

 

If you have no problem with your drive, then don't update, you never know what would happen with the new firmware.