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    New Seagate Momentus XT 750GB w/ 8GB NAND (and more)

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by sgogeta4, Sep 4, 2011.

  1. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Samsung 7 series sports stylish aluminum casing and hybrid harddrive

    "An interesting bit is the harddrive, and a qualified guess is that it is a not yet launched version of the Seagate Momentus XT with 250, 320, 500 GB capacity and 4 GB SSD for cache. Considering Samsung is selling off its harddrive division to Seagate, and as the deal closed Seagate announced it would provide Samsung with harddrives. The new harddrives will sport 750 GB capacity and 8 GB dedicated NAND memory that acts as SSD cache, with advanced algorithms that memorizes the users data pattern."
     
    sgogeta4, Sep 4, 2011
    #1
  2. Risco

    Risco Notebook Deity

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    Nice find! I am convinced that SSD tech is too expensive per GB and not reliable enough currently. Once I see the benchmarks, if they are good I will get one in a heartbeat!
     
    Risco, Sep 4, 2011
    #2
  3. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    While SSDs are expensive, I wouldn't generalize reliability based off of current consumer SSDs. SSDs in general have been around for decades and their underlying technology makes them much more reliable than any HDD. While there are a few bad lemons, ie. OCZ, performance is still untouchable by mechanical HDDs.
     
    sgogeta4, Sep 4, 2011
    #3
  4. TANWare

    TANWare Just This Side of Senile, I think. Super Moderator

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    would be nice...................
     
    TANWare, Sep 4, 2011
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  5. Mr_Mysterious

    Mr_Mysterious Like...duuuuuude

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    How about any news on the new generation of XT's?

    Mr. Mysterious
     
    Mr_Mysterious, Sep 5, 2011
    #5
  6. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    I wonder if the new Momentus XT 750GB's are going to AF (Advanced Format).
     
    Nemix77, Sep 8, 2011
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  7. TANWare

    TANWare Just This Side of Senile, I think. Super Moderator

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    8GB SSD NAND cache will help those that see little benefit with the present XT series. Since the normal seagate 750's are AF most likely a 750 XT would be as well................
     
    TANWare, Sep 11, 2011
    #7
  8. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    Nemix77, Oct 3, 2011
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  9. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Nice find Nemix!
    [​IMG]

    I think it's now known that these Samsung laptops don't use an XT. They use 8GB separate HDD cache.
     
    Phil, Oct 3, 2011
    #9
  10. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    That does look pretty tasty. Too bad it it won't fit my bay.
     
    ZaZ, Oct 3, 2011
    #10
  11. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    I would be all over that, hell I would buy 2, raid1 them just to test them, probably raid0 them also to do some tests.....assuming they fit in a normal laptop drive bay.
     
    wwoods, Oct 3, 2011
    #11
  12. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    ZaZ, is that because of your 7mm ThinkPad requirements or are these new XT's bigger than 9.5mm?
     
    tilleroftheearth, Oct 3, 2011
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  13. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    The new XT is 9.5mm standard hight.
     
    Phil, Oct 3, 2011
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  14. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Is that bigger or smaller than the old one?

    I really want to get this...
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 3, 2011
    #14
  15. RayDawg

    RayDawg Notebook Consultant

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    Wow, I was going to buy a 500 gb xt, but now, I'll wait for the 750. Hell, my m11x r1 still has the stock 160 gb hdd...
     
    RayDawg, Oct 3, 2011
    #15
  16. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Bigger (750GB vs. 500GB), smaller (size of each 'bit' recorded) and the same (9.5mm is the 2.5" 'standard' for most notebooks. :)
     
    tilleroftheearth, Oct 3, 2011
    #16
  17. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Thanks.

    Any ideas on pricing? If it gets down to 100 I'll probably buy one.
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 3, 2011
    #17
  18. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    I'm guessing it'll retail for $130 US considering the Momentus 7200.5 is only $80 now and 8GB/NAND is much cheaper than last year.
     
    Nemix77, Oct 3, 2011
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  19. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    Hope this hits US markets soon....keeping a eye out on newegg
     
    wwoods, Oct 3, 2011
    #19
  20. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    I'll probably buy one when they hit 100~
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 3, 2011
    #20
  21. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Woot! Wonder if the 8GB will be two chips instead of just one? Will that help performance at all?
     
    HTWingNut, Oct 3, 2011
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  22. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Not for reads - that would take a different level/spec of nand to accomplish. (ONFI 2.2?).
     
    tilleroftheearth, Oct 3, 2011
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  23. TANWare

    TANWare Just This Side of Senile, I think. Super Moderator

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    Well if it is two chips run in a simple raid (2x4gb nand) it will increase the pipe speed but not access times. The nand raid would be a natural configuration as the drive should be advanced format to begin with. This will be a wait and see though.

    The nand is read only for our concerns. We still do not even have the algorithm of the original XT's or that the same will be used on the new, although again that is likely.

    Now the original seems to match the pipe speed closely to the HDD section so there is a good probability the same will be done for the new drive as well. This of course is all pure speculation..................
     
    TANWare, Oct 3, 2011
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  24. rsatmans

    rsatmans Notebook Enthusiast

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    rsatmans, Oct 3, 2011
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  25. LaptopNut

    LaptopNut Notebook Virtuoso

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    I am not excited about this, 8GB is still not enough to make a difference.
     
    LaptopNut, Oct 3, 2011
    #25
  26. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Based on?...
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 3, 2011
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  27. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    I assume that's based on nothing (and I'm including common sense here.)

    Consider what moving from 2 GB to 4GB of RAM does. If you really think that even 4GB does nothing you probably don't understand how caches work.
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 3, 2011
    #27
  28. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    Just look at his system...he's just trying to show off or look down at people who cannot afford his system specs.

    Regardless, his CPU and GPU is a bit weak considering he's got a 512GB M4 SSD.
     
    Nemix77, Oct 3, 2011
    #28
  29. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Now come on guys, play nice.

    The Momentus XT is no replacement for an SSD. But 8GB is plenty enough to make a difference for Windows boot and lots of apps.

    What would be ideal is having an 8GB read cache and 8GB write cache. This way it could transfer to the hard drive at the slower pace, but not be noticed by a user. And who writes more than 8GB at a time anyhow?

    Ultimately just slap 64GB of NAND in there and have it be seen as a separate drive and let users use it as a standard SSD or configure sizes for write or read caches if they desire.
     
    HTWingNut, Oct 4, 2011
    #29
  30. Nomgle

    Nomgle Notebook Geek

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    Erm, the existing drives with just 4GB already make a big difference....
     
    Nomgle, Oct 4, 2011
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  31. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Phil, Oct 4, 2011
    #31
  32. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Uhm, slowly raises hand... :D
     
    tilleroftheearth, Oct 4, 2011
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  33. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    You write more than 8GB files at a time?

    Either way, it shouldn't make a difference how large the file is. It grabs chunks based on usage.
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 4, 2011
    #33
  34. GamingACU

    GamingACU Notebook Deity

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    Will 8gb even be enough? I was really hoping the new model would have 16gbs.

    In order for it to be effective for load times, wouldn't the flash space need to be at least as large as the application, therefore, any games over 8gb won't see any increase in performance?
     
    GamingACU, Oct 4, 2011
    #34
  35. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    I have a funny feeling these drives are going to surprise a lot of people with their performance, power consumption, noise, heat and price.

    All that's left now is an official announcement from Seagate and reviews with benchmarks online.
     
    Nemix77, Oct 4, 2011
    #35
  36. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    In a good way right :)
     
    wwoods, Oct 4, 2011
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  37. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    Yes, sir. :D
     
    Nemix77, Oct 4, 2011
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  38. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    I am actually looking forward to running some tests on this new drive, I plan to run raid0 tests, then some raid1 numbers.....
     
    wwoods, Oct 4, 2011
    #38
  39. seiyafan

    seiyafan Notebook Evangelist

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    They maybe saving the 16gb version for 2013, it's a way to do business.
     
    seiyafan, Oct 4, 2011
    #39
  40. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    No, not at all actually. A game is not a single file first of all and even if it were it would still be able to see a benefit.

    Games are made of tons of little files, usually a few MB. Most programs are the same.

    The only files that are going to be more than 8GB are HD videos.
     
    Hungry Man, Oct 4, 2011
    #40
  41. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    I'm sure the algorithm weeds out the larger files because sequential read speeds of a hard drive (as long as its defragmented regularly) are reasonably fast. It's mainly the smaller files that hard drives struggle with. I wish they'd stop calling it a hybrid because it's not really. It's just a large smart read cache.
     
    HTWingNut, Oct 5, 2011
    #41
  42. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    I think the term hybrid is appropriate because the cache is made of MLC NAND. If it was just normal cache it would be a different story.
     
    Phil, Oct 5, 2011
    #42
  43. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

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    Not targeted for gaming, but for normal use.

    IE
    Windows Boot Time
    Launching Applications

    Even full on SSD's dont really help many games load any faster. I have C300 and X25 in my computers and most of my games load about the same speed as my friends with HDD's and I have to wait for them to load into the game or for the server to start anyways.

    Gaming & SSD just are not a natural couple yet, give it like 5 more years. Having to give up the raw HDD space was a much larger loss than the gains I got in speed for games as now I have 2-5 games installed and when before I had my entire steam library of main games.

    Even if it was 16GB just simultaneously playing more than 1 game would cause a recache if the game uses more than 8GB.

    So hope that the learning of the drive learns your OS files and programs and ignores the game so it wont flush out the more important stuff.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, Oct 5, 2011
    #43
  44. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    Yes, that would be the reason. I could put it in there without the caddy/rails, but I don't want to mod my X220i and if I were going to do that, I'd use a 1TB as I've already got the mSATA drive.
     
    ZaZ, Oct 5, 2011
    #44
  45. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    JUst wondering, when may see these at newegg or something simlar
     
    wwoods, Oct 5, 2011
    #45
  46. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    ^ No one knows. Could be next week, could be the end of december. Seagate said before the end of the year.
    Check out how many apps are boosted by 4GB cache.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8n3fraKjHE
     
    Phil, Oct 5, 2011
    #46
  47. wwoods

    wwoods Notebook Deity

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    wwoods, Oct 5, 2011
    #47
  48. ninjaturtle

    ninjaturtle Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'll probably get this instead of SSD. Can't wait til this comes out.
     
    ninjaturtle, Oct 15, 2011
    #48
  49. jeremyshaw

    jeremyshaw Big time Idiot

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    The 4GB used SLC, did that change for the 8GB?
     
    jeremyshaw, Oct 15, 2011
    #49
  50. JohnnyFlash

    JohnnyFlash Notebook Virtuoso

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    I everything I've seen says it'll still be SLC, MLC would wear too fast in this environment.
     
    JohnnyFlash, Oct 16, 2011
    #50
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