Momentus XT flaw?

I found this review on NewEgg and wondered if it could be true. Has anyone experienced this issue?

Pros: Fast, large, & would be perfect storage companion to accompany my SSD. However, it crashes Mac and PC regularly because it has a fatal design flaw, which remains unfixed by FW as of 11/2010.

Cons: Requires power to be held down after idling and crashing system all the time. The power settings of the operating system are ignored by the drive. It will still spin down, resulting in a system crash, regardless of the power settings being set to never spin down. The system may appear to be functioning correctly at times, but the drive still does not obey power settings in a stable or consistent manner. At best, I had the system running without any crashes for up to 3 days with constant spinning/disk activity and it still wound up crashing eventually due to the inopportune spin down. At worst, it crashed countless times throughout the day, literally dozens.

Other Thoughts: I always prefer Newegg, but competition beat it to stock this at launch in June. Reviews are positive based on great specs & technical performance, but what completely ruins its usefulness is that regardless of your OS power settings the drive will spin down on its own accord at random! This locks up & crashes the system! The flaw is largely attributed to its own faulty Advanced Power Management (APM), & thus far CANNOT be remedied by software settings, utilities, scripts, etc. to remain stable. This effects both Mac & PC. Both firmware releases for the drive fail to correct it.

If you think this is an isolated incident, take a look at the Seagate forums with HUNDREDS of other posts consistent with my description. I wasted many hours troubleshooting other variables being the cause of the crashes too. If you have problems with Momentus XT, please come... - Seagate Community Forums

 

Got mine from NewEgg as the other vendor who claimed to have them in stock did not have them. I went through two orders with them that I had to cancel, so I know about who really had them!!!!!!!!!

I have two and both are FW upgraded. they do not spin down. The LT3103 is up for months at a time without incident and I've got weeks at a time with my U81.

The problem is when you get a drive that vibrates too much. How much is too much I am not sure. My first drive vibrated as much as my phone when it rings and of course was returned. since the platters are off ballance when assembled the amount of vibration can vary wildly by sample according to each platters heavy side.

When they are on top of one another you have a DOA or a drive to give to your favorite lonely person. when the off ballance points of the platters are on opposite sides of the assembly you have a whisper smooth drive. This was and is the problem with the 7200.4 as well, amazingly they are the same platter assemblies.

So if you get a sample with more than normal vibration, RETURN IT! follow that guide and other than the MAC issue you are golden with the new FW...............

Edit; this is the only reasonable explination I can come up with from my diagnosis of my bad XT and 7200.4 and from other people I have talked to and read about with issues!!!!!!!!!

 

Some people seem to have these problems, some Macs in particular. I have been running two of these in RAID, and another one (different laptop) as the system drive for months without any issues. In any case, the analysis of this poster makes no sense. Even if the drive spins down, it should spin back up when the OS accesses it; in this case you would see a delay, but no crashing.

As an aside, you might think that, with a "fatal design flaw" like that, sales of the drive should be limited...

 

If you have the FW the drive when it vibrates itself out of being able to read WILL spin down to try and reset. At least with the old FW. That is what my returned one did at least........