Seagate Momentous XT as a second drive?

Hi, I'm planning to replace the standard 750GB 5400RPM drive in my new Dell Inspiron 15R N5110 (8GB with Core i7 2670qm quad core CPU) with a Kingston 128GB SSD (I realise this means dismantling the unit but have done this with other laptops in the past).

I also have a Seagate Momentous XT 750GB drive and need to choose between than or the original 750GB to be housed in a 2nd HD caddy that will replace the optical drive. My understanding is that the BIOS doesn't enable a HD connected to the SATA port that was used for the optical drive to be a boot drive, even if you make it the top priority drive in the boot device list.

What I don't really know is if the hybrid SSD performance of the Momentous XTdrive will be fully realised simply as a second drive. Can anyone advise me? I suspect it's best used as an OS drive (though not as fast an SSD) but I am not sure. I do have a spare Seagate Momentous (non-XT) 500GB 7200RPM drive which I could use as the 2nd drive. If the XT drive is wasted as a second drive I can use it in another system as the OS drive.

The second drive will be used for Adobe CS6 (Photoshop and Premiere Pro) scratch disks as well as general file storage (images, documents, video files).

Thanks in advance!

Ian

 

While the XT will not be 'wasted' as a data drive; considering that you have another system to use it as the boot drive - that is the way to go.

Also, it seems like you've decided what SSD you'll be using already. But if you can still change your mind; I'd recommend an Intel 520 Series or an M4 at 240GB or larger instead of the Kingston 128GB SSD.

Especially for the workload you're considering.

Good luck.

 

A Momentus XT is designed as a boot drive, I don't know if the catching mechanism would be of benefit as secondary drive.
As owner of a 128GB SSD I would aso suggest to get a least 240GB of SSD storage.
As for what SSD drive to get I would also prefer the Samsung 830 or Plextor M3P above the Kingston SSD.
For some information you can read the thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...v200-having-serious-performance-problems.html

 

No, it doesn't have to be a 'boot' drive - any workload that is given to the drive will be cached as optimally as the capacity of the SSD portion allows it to be.

(If you work mainly with very large video files (4GB and larger); an XT may not be quite as suitable as to a user who works and creates with many (smaller) PDF files, for example). (For all the range in-between; an XT will still show it's worth whether it is used as a boot drive or not).

 

My OS and applications only use about 50GB. I run a 120GB SSD on my existing laptop. With a secondary HDD I will have ample space.

I already have the Kingston, so that's what I will use. It will be much faster than the standard HDD. I know others will be faster but the difference will be smaller than the benefit of having a mid-spec SSD to start with.

Ian

 

Just looked at the Kingston SSD thread - there is obviously something not normal there. If I experience the same problem I will be in touch with Kingston as it was supplied to me by them for testing. I have the 128GB V200, not the 120GB version that I think he had. I see that there is updated firmware for the 128GB V200 as well.

We will see - I will certainly update this thread if I experience similar problems.

Ian

 

There is no 120GV vs. 128GB V200 versions - I think that could just be a typo.

 

There are a couple of different facets to this question:

a) In general, would someone gain any benefit of using the Momentus XT as a data drive? The answer depends on what you place on the drive, and how you will be accessing the data on the drive.

If you have a library of files read over and over again, the XT makes a GREAT secondary drive for data retrieval.

I've talked about this in some other threads too:
+ http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-5-750gb-7200rpm-benchmark-5.html#post8191656

+ http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...t-upgrades/655634-ssd-hybrid.html#post8426727

+ http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/649060-ssd-vs-hybrid-3.html#post8355218

So, if you have some stock photos you use over and over again, in general, the XT would work like a champ.

b) Now let's get to the nuts and bolts (hardware implications) of your question. If you are using your optical drive's connection, then you may NOT want to use the XT. Most optical drives are hardwired to the driver controller over SATA I. Since the SSD READ speeds would best be seen over SATA II and on the newer drive SATA III, the SSD NAND cache won't break a sweat over a SATA I connection.

So, if you can verify the optical drive is over a SATA I connection, and the other machine is using a SATA II or SATA III controller, my suggestion is to use the XT in the 2nd machine as it has enough throughput to really allow the SSD cache to shine.

 

Nope, there have been both 120GB and 128GB editions in the V200 range. Google to verify.

Ian

 

Adobe Lightroom is based on an SQL database which could be situated on the second drive. There are lots of thumbnail and full size images being accessed frequently. I'll probably shuffle the combinations of drive and find out for myself if there are noticeable benefits.

Ian

 

Keep in mind that 8GB is honestly not that much space when dealing with photos.

if you have 3 repeatedly-used albums where the sum size of the thumbnails is greater than 8GB, you'll likely thrash the hell out of that cache (depending on the specifics of the caching algorithm)

 

Yes, while you're technically right...

the V200 is the one with the problems and the V+200 does not.

The '+' makes it a different model...

 

As far as the XT and LR use goes; if you turn on your system and work for a few minutes in LR and then switch tasks for the remainder of your work session; the XT is wasted.

If however, you turn on the system and start LR for a few hours of straight work, you will enjoy a performance improvement with the XT - what is still unknown though is if this performance will be easily noticeable in you use. (To me, it was and the XT was kept in that configuration).

 

OK, fair enough. I see that the 120GB V+200 has a Sandforce controller but the 128GB V200's controller is not identified by Kingston. But the V+200 actually has 128GB although 8GB is used as a security cache. I wonder if the hardware is identical but the security cache feature is not enabled.

Also, I read that the latest version of the V200 has new firmware which fixes a lot of issues.

Ian

 

Interesting - is this using the XT as the OS drive or as a second drive with the database on the XT drive?

Ian

 

Different controller:

See:
AnandTech - Kingston Releases SSDNow V200 Series



'Security cache'? No, it's just how SF based controllers affect capacity.


Yeah, seems like a lot of issues fixed, but not for all people (or not fixed 'enough')....

 

XT used as a second/data drive with the LR database installed in the first 100GB partition.