Apologies if I didn't search enough, but what's your experience of the Momentus XT?

A friend who I gave an alu Macbook to a while back came to me for advice on what to upgrade the stock drive with.

(Actually, what he really came to me for was clearly he was hoping I'd furnish him with an upgrade SSD / notebook for free. I don't do that anymore)

I did buy a Momentus XT a while back, gave it a cursory test and was momentously unimpressed. OK, so I've been practically 100% SSD since 09 so that is a biased opinion. I put it somewhere after I pulled it out and I've forgotten where it is - I'd have given it to him otherwise but alas. So I'm about to say to him 'get a Momentus XT' but how good would my advice be in his position?

He can't afford an SSD and would, I think, consider the gulf between a standard 500Gb drive and a Momentus XT a big leap in terms of price. So I'm looking for the opinion of someone for whom the drive would have been a slight stretch to buy. What did you think? Worth it? Any regrets?

 

I think it is a great drive. For slow laptops or limited laptops it definitely brings speed and space at the same time. I had it on my main laptop and it ran great; the OS loaded quick and the most frequent programs are loaded in the NAND caching area to be on par with the quick OS load.

Had a deal with an SSD so I swapped the XT out with the SSD, and placed it on my netbook, which made it even better. For a MAC, however, I have heard that the XT has freezing issues:

Seagate’s hybrid storage drive causing frustration for users | MyCE – My Consumer Electronics

Seagate Momentus XT freezing/stuttering & workaround » SSD Freaks

 

That doesn't sound good. It's also unclear whether that affects Windows machines to any degree as well (or indeed Boot Camp). Anyone shed more light on it?

 

My post from another thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...65226-2nd-drive-momentus-xt-scorpio-blue.html

 

If you're constantly doing the exact same tasks, the Momentus XT would be a decent choice. However, if you're running different applications all the time (games are a good example), you won't see any benefit.

A 500 GB Western Digital Scorpio Black or Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 is a better deal and will be cheaper. The former drive can be had on Newegg for as little as $60, as they often have promo codes for it.

 

I have a few XT's and have been very happy with them (Win7x64U).

However, the WD Scorpio Black 750GB is cheaper and faster.

If he really wants to upgrade his drive; the SB 750GB is my choice going forward. (Note: the SB 500GB is noticeably slower than the XT's).

 

I've included the XT twice in a review, I'm very impressed with it.

I think for the average user that uses web, office, messaging, music and video it's a great drive.

 

I've had 2 of them in different laptops, even had a Mushkin Callisto SSD in my current machine for a bit. For what I use my machine for I couldn't tell the difference in anything between the SSD and the hybrid, so I'd recommend the XT for a PC, Mac, with the issues that have been stated I don't know...

 

I use it mainly for its bootup prowess. I went from a 5 minute boot up time almost to about 30 seconds, plus the frequent programs i use (ableton live and chrome) load up instantly after boot and while i use those the rest boots, its nice. I like it. Im running raid 0

 

That's got to be a really terrible SSD.

 

Interesting.

There seems to be a lot of pros and cons with the XT, while the SB seems to be a more straightforward proposition. I'm more inclined to mention this to him as an upgrade - thanks. WD7500BPKT, right?

 

That's the one. As a bonus, Western Digital's warranty is awesome. They do advance exchange if you can provide them with a credit card. That way you're not out for the count for too long should the drive fail.

 

No it's not. It's actually one of the faster SATA II SSDs.

For normal notebook usage a XT feels very similar to a fast SSD.

Once when I was switching around hard drives very often, I thought I had an SSD in my laptop because everything was opening lightning fast. Then when I touched the laptop I noticed the vibration and realized it was actually the XT.

The XT will boot and launch applications way faster than a WD 750GB ... The WD 750GB is just a little faster than the WD5000BEKT. The review in my signature compares real world performance of the XT with WD5000BEKT.

This review compares somes SSDs with the XT and WD 750GB:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...pio-black-750gb-2-5-hard-drive-review-11.html

 

I just built my friends computer today and we had some issues with the XT.

It would NOT let me install windows on to the drive with afresh install of Win 7 Home Premium x64 with a brand new retail copy of the OS.

Kept giving an error that a new partition could not be created or something like that even though I was able to format/delete partitions on it just fine.

I searched google and found one or two hits with similar issues but nobody found a resolution.

I just as a latch ditch effort decided to update the firmware because I had planned on doing that anyways (lucky I had my laptop with me) and the drive was on SD23 and it was updated to SD25.

After the firmware update the OS was able to install without error, so it seems it was a problem with the firmware but what a strange one and I am surprised there are not more people that had this problem.

 

How suitable is the XT for use as a data storage drive and general application running? I'm thinking of using an SSD as the main OS drive and to store the most frequently used applications and games. The XT should be capable enough to store music, pictures and video and some legacy games without hardware incompatibilities, shouldn't it?

 

You're loosing the benefits from the cache that way, unless you run the same games all the time.

A WD Black 750GB makes a lot more sense as secondary data drive.

 

How so? I would have thought performance would be slightly weaker in the 750GB drive because it lacks the SSD cache...

 

The 4GB cache only stores the most frequent accessed files.

If you use it as a data drive it's just a 7200rpm drive. WD 750GB is slightly faster that way.

 

Wouldn't the cache store most-accessed files other than games? I suppose if my usage profile was between a few select legacy games and my favourite music then the XT cache wouldn't be "useless"?

 

Is it worth it to you if those games boot a little faster? then an XT could make sense to you.

Personally I would pick a nice 750GB drive for less money. Maybe a 5400rpm drive with lower power consumption and vibration.

By the way, I read Seagate doesn't recommend using it as a data drive.

 

Now that you put it that way, it seems getting a regular large capacity 7200rpm drive for regular storage might be a smarter idea. I suppose the latest, most demanding games can stay on the SSD for the faster performance.

 

That's not been my experience, albeit limited to a day of 'meh'.

 

That's strange. All the real world reviews confirm that the XT comes pretty close to SSD experience for booting and launching applications.

Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

It could have also been a bad drive. Supposedly if the NAND failed it would opperate like a 7200.4 with larger cache. There could always be a few, just like with regular SSD's, where the NAND portion is essentially DOA. Maybe they should confirm the NAND is working first?

Now the only way I know to do this is with say HDD tune where on the subsequent runs you may see some faster seek times after some consecutive runs. This though does not confirm the entire 4GB NANDS health.

Edit did 4 runs to show on my storage drive.............

 

I take everything Anandtech does with a pinch of salt. There's very little real-world experience in any of their posts, especially these days.

 

Almost all of the other reviewers come to the same conclusion: for booting and launching applications the XT comes very close to the SSD experience. It's an experience that's shared by the large majority of users in the XT thread. In my signature you can find two more reviews with the same hard facts.

I don't know for sure but it looks to me like you negate all the evidence that says it's close to an SSD experience and you jump on the one user that says it's slower than a WD Black. That one user is Tillerofthearth who's mainly talking about sequential writes and large file copies, the areas where the Black is a little faster than the XT.

By the way, the alu Macbook is very unforgiving for vibration coming from the hard drive. Both XT and Scorpio Black aren't the best choices for people who like silence and lack of vibrations. Hitachi 7K500 is a bit better in that case.

 

I updated to SD25 from SD23, and all I got for my trouble was a drive that idles at 50c.

Definitely go with the WD 750 gig. It idles at 32c.

The Seagate drive is a big FAIL. IMO.

 

My XT with SD25 idles 35c................

 

Momentus XT's are junk. The hybrid SSD thing sounds good and all, but those suckers are unreliable.

I had one, thought it was quick, then I heard it clunking the next day. Sent it back and went back to my Western Digital Caviar Black.

Then, a friend asked what he should get, I told him to stay away from the Momentus XT, he bought 2 of them for both his laptops. 3 days later, I got a call 'My computer won't boot.'

Never again will I buy a Seagate.

 

So as a coda to this thread, I told him to go buy a Momentus if the various issues on the web weren't a problem, and the Caviar if a fast hard disk was all he wanted.

He picked the Caviar...

...And then I found the Momentus XT in a desk drawer.

So he's sending the Caviar back when it arrives. We'll see if he has any issues.

A few moments ago I tried sticking the XT in, and you're right. I'm sure the Jobsian answer would be 'Buy an SSD, what are you, a poor person?'.