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

does it take a while for the OS and apps to get optimized?? like to start loading as fast as an SSD almost, you gotta use it maybe 10 times or something?

 

After 2-3 times it starts booting much faster than the initial launch, it doesn't (or shouldn't) take more than 3 for you to notice a difference.

 

It starts speeding up immediately. It fetches data and makes predictions as soon as you click anything - regardless of using it multiple times. When you use it multiple times it's faster because it can make more accurate predictions and the data in the cache may already be relevant.

 

you make it sound like it will be faster on the very first instance of you opening up the program ever....

 

Just to clarify, there's no "prediction" or data caching of localized data. Both Gen drives start storing data that only has been read in the SSD portion. If the data has NEVER been read, it will NEVER be cached.

Also, I'm uncertain what "clicking" means, but the drive will cache ALL files READ by your computer, including those at boot (which do not involve any mouse activity). This would go for any type of operating system, including those without a Graphic User Interface, so "clicks" are not necessary.

It won't be fast on the very first instance, but you may notice a difference after 2 or 3 starts of the same app.

 

Sorry, maybe it's stupid question..... Can I use it on Clevo M570TU? Now there is installed WDC WD5000BEVT-00A0RT0 with SATA2

 

You can use it in pretty much any laptop, except the ones that use 7.5mm drives. Your laptop uses a 9.5mm drive so the XT will fit.

 

Thanks for help!
I was curious about SATA interface. This H-HDD is SATA3 I believe and the one is currently installed in my laptop is SATA2

 

SATA is backwards compatible, i use both SATA 3 drives on SATA 2 ports and SATA 2 drives on SATA3 ports without issues

 

That's what I needed

 

"A couple of years" is a big stretch - the first truly great SSD was the original Intel 80GB drive, and that first appeared all the way back in 2008 !

 

Wish these were a little cheaper.

 

Sadly in some PCs (ASUS U24E) the BIOS will not support SATA3... we're waiting for an update.

Cheers. GPC.

 

Doesn't matter as long as it supports SATA of some sort. Won't get the full speed of faster SATA III , but it will still work.

 

If you check out the NBR "ASUS U24E Review and Owners Lounge" forum you'll see that several owners have tried various SATA3 drives in this PC (SSD & HDD) without success. The BIOS will not accept a SATA3 drive hence we're waiting for an update from ASUS.

I agree that the two should be compatible but there are exceptions.

Cheers, GPC.

 

Weird. Never heard of that. So, I guess I should modify my post and say it will work "in theory" or we can say ASUS is not fully SATA compliant. Either way, hopefully ASUS will fix the BIOS so my post would be true, but was just a matter of when it became true.

 

I seem to recall either xotic or gentech said that Asus had acknowledged the issue. There will always be one or two exceptions in the bunch, but the M4 i have on SATAII works perfectly in my Asus, so it confined to one model as far as i know.

 

I have ordered it today for 186$. On friday will know if it's compatible and I haven't just threw money away.

 

Does the store you bought it from have a good return policy? Even if they don't, I'm sure someone on NBR would be willing to take it off your hands.

 

That's a quite big and popular local internet store. So I think that due to local laws I can return it within 14 days without any problems. But who knows, never did this before

 

Just so I'm clear on the Advanced format: I just have to install from a Windows 7 SP1 disc and it's good to go?

 

Well, H-HDD receided and installed. Works good and quiet ))
By the way, it has compability issues with Intel Turbo Memory, Windows updater is not working, even Microsoft Office is't installing , maybe something else is not working.
Everything backs to normal only after Intel Turbo Memory driver uninstall.
Maybe someone knows how to fix it?

 

I think there's a conflict happening with the Momentus XT unable to decide whether or not to cache Intel Turbo Memory caches.

You'll have to take post the problem in Seagate's official support forum and also notify Intel of the problem.

Temporary/permanent fix would be to remove the Intel Turbo Memory for now and just use the Mementus XT's caching, you can also try to sell the Intel Turbo Cache module or wait for answers on a fix from Seagate/Intel.

 

I had some issues similar but not with this HDD.

I went and disabled the relevant item in my BIOS. Just disable Intel Turbo Memory and you'll get a temporary fix for now.

 

I just not installed Matrix Storage drivers So no Turbo memory for now...

 

Just bought this for my cousin's laptop, I will let you know how it works/turns out. He also uses 4GB Intel Turbo Memory, so it's still not compatible with the Seagate Momentus XT?

 

Hey im looking into this drive (dont like the $230cdn price) but found out i can get it for $170 through a friends discount.

The thing is, i have already a 7200rpm western digital scorpio black. Is the XT going to be noticable faster and better? I dont wanna go through the hassle of switching and taking a loss on my 500GB now if i wont notice any improvements or barely any.

 

I'll let the numbers speak for themselves: Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Hard Drive Review - Page 9. Writes will be unaffected, but you will see in that review that frequently used apps will benefit in load times, windows will too. If you get it, adding a 10 to 20$ for an enclosure to use your scorpio black as an external drive might not be a bad idea.

 

This drive will be used Mac OSX. Not sure that makes any difference. I asked a tech a couple days ago about the XT and he said i wouldnt notice any improvement and that hybrid drives are a gimmick.

 

using 7200rpm HDD as external drive is really bad idea. unless you take high risks. Using any drive in cheap enclosures is dangerous actually

 

That tech was half right, for anything that you don't frequently use or writes to the drive, there won't be a performance increase. However, for anything you use frequently (that includes the OS) it well get cached to the 8GB of NAND which will make a lot of difference. Also, the cache on the hybrid drive is independent of the OS. You can take a look at the reviews of the drive on hardware canucks and anandtech. Definitive performance increase for the OS load times and the frequently used apps. The performance gain won't be instantaneous as the drive needs to "learn" your usage patterns.

Hybrid drives are definitely not a gimmick, however, they are the middleman between HDDs and SSDs which means that they only have some of the advantages of a SSD and perform like any HDD would otherwise.

 

No my current 7200rpm drive is inside my macbookpro. For my ext i just stick with 5400.

 

I'm not sure the term "gimmick" applies, but I'm also pretty sure that the hybrid drive concept is a stinker after the Thailand floods inspired price gouging.

Basically, Seagate's hybrid drives weren't all that cheap to begin with, but with decline in SSD prices and the increases in HDD prices, not to mention the declining warranty coverage and the fear of falling HDD reliability, the time might be ripe for going SSD only.

Personally, my fear is that the 8GB of NAND will become corrupted, or the controller will fail, and I'd loose my use of the entire 750GB drive. I'd rather have a separate SSD boot drive from a quality manufacturer like Intel, and then have a 2 HDDs in RAID 0.

I don't have anything against past Seagate drives as far a reliability, but Seagate's response to the Thai flooding seem opportunistic and doesn't fill me with confidence in the future. All of the price gouging convinced me that the timetable for universal SSD adoption is a lot closer than I thought before the Thai floods.

 

that's not the problem of Momentus Xt and Turbo Memory. The whole problem is in Intel Matrix Storage driver. When you install it, Windows update and many other things do not work with advanced format disks. When you uninstll it, everything works except Turbo memory Maybe if Matrix storage drivers will be updated by Intel this problem will be solved, last version is almost 3 years old...

 

Oh wow, when are they coming out with an update, yeah 3 years is pretty old, not going to lie.

 

There's nothing to fear then. In case the NAND fails, the drive continues to act like a normal 7200rpm HDD. A VERY expensive one, but still, your information is there, still available.

 

Matrix storage Manager has been replaced by Intel Rapid Storage Technolgy

IRST

 

Exactly. last version is 10.8.

Here is How to properly install IRST drivers.

19 pages of discussion where many people don't even know so simple things, LOL.

 

Ofcourse you can install Rapid storage driver But this not solves the problem.... Turbo memory works only with Matrix storage drivers

 

If this is true then people you will never get it solved. I personally has never heard about this turbo memory but still alife.... even without Momentus XT. I doubt anyone will try to fix smth which is so outdated.

 

at $230cdn i agree the 750GB XT is overpriced. The 500GB is $160, how is 250more GB and 4GB more nand add another 1/3 to the price? Ridiculous. It should be $199 tops.

Still undecided if im going to get the 750GB XT for $230 or a 160GB Intel 320 SSD for $260. I wont go smaller than 160GB, would love 240GB but $400 is out of my budget. I had a 80GB Intel X-25M SSD on my previous laptop about a year and a half ago and i loved it. But sold it cause i needed more space.

Im going to be installing one of these 750GB XTs in a family members laptop this weekend so im very excited to see how it runs and performs. This will help determine if its worth it to me. Im anxious to find out how quiet it runs (a quiet HD is very important to me). But the only thing is, this laptop is a 2.2 AMD dual core whereas mine is a 2.3 core i5 with 8gb ram. So if anything it might make more of a difference on their laptop than mine since mine is already fast.

Right now Im using a 500GB 7200rpm WD Scorpio black. Havent done any tests on it but ive had it for a year and it seems pretty fast. My MacBookPro boots up in about 35-40secs and shuts down in about 5secs.

- i dont play games
- heaviest programs i run is Adobe CS5
- dont deal with video editing much, sometimes but not heavily
- on my current 500GB drive i only have 45GB used up so i dont need a ton of space but its also nice to have it there for piece of mind
- have an ext 2TB desktop drive at home

 

Newegg.com - Plextor M3 Series PX-256M3 2.5" 256GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Ahh thanks man, I'll have to install that. I suppose it's time to disable the FCM.

I was able to get the drive for $190 USD from BH Photo & Video so some people stock it for cheaper but you have to look for it though. I was shocked, I thought I would have to pay $230 USD for it.

 

Currently 189.99 at NCIX for us canadians: Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Solid State Hybrid SATA Drive 2.5IN - Seagate - ST750LX003. You can find the drive at a reasonable price if you look a bit.

 

Is someways I like the Momentus XT better than SSD's. Of course it's not as fast as real SSD but it's fast where it counts: boot up and application loads.

With the Momentus XT users not need to worry about writes and can leave hybrid sleep on, a feature I find very useful both on laptops and desktops since it saves everything both and memory and hard disk so in the case of a power outage (happens pretty frequently in my neighborhood during the summer) no data is lost or the worry for hard drive corruption.

The way I like to use my laptop and desktop is to turn it on at the beginning of the day and put into hybrid sleep mode (auto after 10 minutes) when not in use, hybrid sleep saves more energy then regular sleep and at the end of the day I shut down my desktop/laptop completely for refresh.

 

$179 at amazon

 

I just read this thread quickly from start to finish, and have a few questions:

(1) Regarding concern for using the drive in a computer with "only" SATA2 interface -- would that even be a concern regarding drive performance? i.e. The drive would come nowhere close to saturating a 3Gbps interface would it?

(2) I see references to the 8GB NAND Momentus XT drive being OS agnostic, i.e. not needing drivers. Did the original 4GB Momentus XT drive need drivers to perform well? I have a 320GB Momentus XT (4GB NAND) and never installed any drivers...

 

1) In general probably not, but in theory, if an extremely large, sequential file ended up in the SSD portion, then you could saturate SATA II/III for a short period of time if the entire thing was read. But at 250MB/s (SATA II) 8GB that would only last 32 seconds.

2) No. No special drivers. What you're probably reading about is that *normal* user files read by the 2nd gen drive will not invalidate any OS files from the SSD cache. In the 1st gen drive, if you had boot/OS files, multiple reads from non-OS/Boot related files could knock them off of the SSD, and the next re-boot would be slower than before.

HTH

 

Hi!
What's the temperature on this drives?

 

Ahhhh. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I went back and re-read the reviews for the drive, and now I can see that that is what they meant.