Momentus XT 250GB vs 500GB, Noise Levels

I bought the 500GB XT, which hasn't shipped yet. I wondered if anyone had any evidence that the 250GB would run less noisy than the 500GB being that it's a single platter drive. I've got a SSD right now and it's silent, which I like, but if the 250GB is quieter, I'd go that way. I don't need need a ton of space.

 

I considered the 250gb , but the price per gb of the 500gb is 20p , the 320gb is 27p , and the 250gb is 32p , so unless the 500gb is really noisy i will be buy the best value one.

 

I don't care much about the cost per GB as much as the noise levels. I have a 1TB external for storage. If the 250GB is less noisy, I'll go that way.

 

What's was wrong with your SSD?

 

Here's 11 pages of what's wrong with my SSD.

 

I agree that the Momentus XT is an excellent HDD and quite affordable as well. I plan on getting the 250GB one soon as well.

And regarding your OP, here's a quote from Phil when I asked him a similar question:

 

Keep in mind though that I said "there's a good chance". Which means I haven't experienced it.

I can understand Zaz is asking for real life experience. I'd like to know too.

Newegg doesn't have any customer reviews yet.

 

if the platters are halfed , i think the noise should be less.. only way will be to see the seagate spec sheets for the drives..

 

According to the spec sheet they're the same. I attempted to cancel. We'll see if it goes through. If it comes I'll try it out. If not, I'll order the 250GB.

 

The XT's are an excellent HDD but they are just that a HDD. You will not get faster than the SSD you gave up. Even if the SSD were 1/2 as fast as advertised it would still be faster than the fastest of the HDD's..............

 

I have a 250 XT in my T500 - and its very, very quiet. I had a seagate 7200 RPM 500 GB Drive in here before, and an SSD, and in order of quietest to loudest, I would go SSD, XT, then jump up a few notches and go standard 500GB Seagate.

I don't need the massive storage, so thats why I saved a few bucks and went with the 250GB if anyone is wondering.

 

That may very well be true, but if my perception is I can't tell a difference between them, why should I pay more for a SSD or give up the space?

 

I just ordered the 250gb version for my ultra-portable 11.6" notebook , hopefully the single platter will preserve my notebooks 8hr+ battery life compared to the double platter version.

EDIT : I don't know why the specification for the 500gb,320gb and 250gb are identical for power and noise, when a single platter hdd must use less power and run quieter than a dual platter version.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_momentus_xt.pdf

 

The specifications are the same because items are built to a range of specs and not to absolute precision.

You may find a specific single platter with more power draw and/or more noise than a higher capacity dual platter version of the same (model) line.

Depending on what you use a notebook for, the battery life may or may not be affected adversely.

HD's draw so little power compared to almost all other components in a system AND usually stay at their highest battery use states for such short bursts that you would have to purposely set up the 'test' or be so unlucky that your use reflects the one negative of any particular HD to actually shorten battery life by any appreciable amount.

Because I partition all HD's in notebooks to use the smallest possible partition, a single platter version of a same model HD will almost certainly be slower than a dual platter one where I would be using half the outer edge of two platters to give me the same minimum capacity that I require for the O/S and apps.

Because of this, single platter designs have never been a high priority for me and in fact seem like a step backwards - for the small decrease in noise and vibration compared to their dual platter versions.

 

In a related question, is the 320GB a single platter drive? There's 320GB platters.

 

The 320GB XT uses two platters as far as I know.

 

EDIT: you just nipped in before me there Phil

According to the review below, the 320gb and 500gb have two platters.

Seagate Momentus XT review - PC Advisor

 

So I got to thinking, if my Intel SSD isn't really any faster than a platter based drive, then would the Momentus XT be worth the extra money? Perhaps I should just get a regular drive. I wish there was a 750GB 5400RPM besides the WD one. I'd love to have the extra space, but the WDs have the whirring sound, at least the ones I've seen.

 

Your Intel should be way faster than any platter drive, even if you're 'only' getting 14 MB/sec 4K random read. Aren't you noticing that everything starts much quicker like applications, Windows UI, FF magicbar, etc.?

Momentus XT will roughly give the same experience.

 

I received my 250gb this morning and have been using it for a couple of hours and with a semi-silent room it is totaly silent even during defrag and it idles at a 37c temprature which in comprison to my seagate 160gb 5400 which idled at around 27c the XT is 10c warmer.

I will have to wait till later on to see if i can hear any power saving clunks that most hdd`s i have had.

John.

 

Looking forward to hear how you experience the speed.

 

I definitely feels faster when loading applications, also my boot-time with the restart-time app is 42 seconds , when it use to be well over 90 seconds.

Also my maximum sequential transfer rate in hdtune pro is 103.4MB/s

It`s still running silent so far, I am just waiting for the dreaded power save clunk to spoil things.

 

First of all your SSD must be faulty, why not just use Intel's warranty and replace it?

Do you or don't you need a 'ton of space'? A 750GB 5400RPM is just a bad idea. The XT will run circles around it.

 

i don't get it... i just checked seagate's specs sheet and the momentus xt 250gb single platter has the same areal density as the 320gb double platter (which also has the same areal density as the 500gb double platter)..

like someone mentioned above, i understand noise and power consumption being stated as the same as long as it's within a certain range.. but it doesn't make sense to me for areal density.. is it because the two platters on the 320 are different sizes?

 

well my toshiba M3252GSX idles around the same... but one question.. why is the transfer rate so low? Shouldn't it be higher or is the transfer time in HD tune which comes in ms in hd tune lower?

 

Areal density is measured in GB per square inch.

The 250GB uses half the surface (one platter) of what the 500GB uses (two platters). So they have the same areal density and different capacities.

The 320GB only uses about 33% of the second platter. (While the 500GB uses the whole platter)

Is that clearer?

 

yup! thanks a lot, so they just artificially limit the 320gb?

 

Yes they leave a part unused. I have also read that sometimes a part of the platter has faults and they only use the healthy part.

Another example: the Seagate 7200.5 750GB has 2x 375GB platters. So that's a higher areal density than the Momentus XT.

 

ohhh

i also read somewhere that if data is closer to the edge of the disk, that the drive would perform better with that data? so.. is the 33% usable portion of the second platter on the 320GB the central 33% or the outer 33%? or does this not matter at all?

 

Yep you're right it does matter. The outer part is fastest because more data is read at each cycle.

That's why some 320GB have higher average read speeds than 500GB versions.

For the same reason it's good to make your first partition relatively small, so it's on the fastest part of the platter.

 

so.. if you had a 500gb 2 platter drive, and you made a 250gb partition and installed windows on it.. it would perform better than 250gb single platter drive that has the entire drive on one partition with windows installed on it?

hope that makes sense

oh, and from before, would the 33% be on the edge or the center of the platter?

thanks for your time

 

If you partition the 500GB to only use the first 250GB you'd only be using the first platter.

It would have the same throughput as a a single platter 250GB.

 

It`s a pity you cannot raid the 250gb 2 platters as one and get a speed boost.

 

what i find strange is why both platters spin even when, until you fill up 250gb of the 500gb drive, you don't use the second platter. wouldn't it make sense to somehow disable to second platter until needed?

 

Complexity, mostly. Both platters are mounted on a single axle, so when you spin the axle, both platters spin. Splitting them up would require 2 axles, and probably 2 motors (one for each axle) which would add weight, complexity, and more chances for things to go wrong.

 

This is not how partitioning (on mechanical HD's) work.

When you partition a two platter drive to 50% of it's capacity, you are using the outermost edge of both platters (the fastest part).

One platter does not fill up before the other one is used. They are both used from the outside (fastest) to the inside (slowest) concurrently.

 

I agree. Any HDtune plot shows a steady decrease in transfer rates. If the HDD used each platter in turn then the transfer rate graph would have several humps and dips.

Also, all the heads are on the same mechanism and the fastest way to read / write a lot of data will be to minimise the head movements by accessing each platter in turn through the relevant head without moving the head assembly.

John

 

Tiller is correct. There were some drives ages ago that worked on a platter level but it's inefficient.

This is a little dated, but shows how this works with a diagram. Pay attention to the cylinder concept.

 

Well I've learned something. Thanks gentlemen.

 

me again, was just wondering, if you use up the entire 500gb 2 platter drive in 1 partition, then does the hard drive write on the platters randomly? or does it fill up the edge first before going towards the center?

 

I think this is more properly the issue of an OS when it comes to HDDs, but in general, yes, it will try to fill up the edge and move towards the center. What confuses the issue is that as files are created and deleted, files get written to different places as the file structure evolves. This is part of the reason for defragmentation, to try to put files back together into contiguous batches. In fact, the sector map you often get with defrag programs is a pretty good snapshot of what is where on your drive; the blocks near the beginning are near the outer edge, while the blocks near the end are close to the center.