Seagate Momentus 7200.4 thread

from where?

 

dell. but now it's been delayed till next week. the dell rep lied lol. it definitely is backordered.

 

It seems like they will soon have this drive with shock protection ("G-force"). The part number is:ST9500420ASG.

I don't think it is actually shipping yet. Vendors list it as "available soon". It may cost a few bucks more than the regular one. For instance, MacMall lists the plain one at $130, and the G one as $140.

I don't know how valuable that protection is, but it might be worth paying a few more bucks for, and waiting a few weeks for availability. Even if there is only a very small chance that it might help protect the HDD in an emergency, that might be worth the extra bucks.

Actually, my notebook has such HDD shock protection built into it, but I have that disabled. It involves a software driver and background app running all the time, and I don't want to use up more memory resources with extra background stuff like that.

To use shock protection built into the HDD itself (as in the G model), I don't think requires any additional memory resources from the computer. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

 

^^
what is your HDD that use software driver?
WD w/ Free-Fall Sensors?

Anyway, I really hope Hitachi make 500GB or more 2.5" drive.
Hitachi doesn't have built-in shock protection, but IMHO, it have better hardware reliabilitythese days. I guess they learn from their mistake (IBM Deathstar anyone?)

 

So, is this drive faster, as well as larger than the Seagate 7200 320GB drive? Or just larger?

 

This drive should be faster and larger. This is because it had two 250gb platters.
The 7200.3 series had two 166GB platters.
Since the 7200.4 has higher data density the throughput will be higher, so the drive will be faster and have a higher capacity

another_geek any luck with those benchies?

K-TRON

 

Please read my post (that I think you are replying to here) more carefully.

I did not say I have a HDD that uses a software driver for shock protection. I said that I have a notebook that does. There is an accelerometer in the notebook, that can park the HDD drive heads in the case of a fall, but it requires the software driver and background app. That is fairly common in these days, in a lot of notebooks (Lenovo, Sony, etc.)

That is why I would rather have the shock protection, if it might possibly help at all in an emergency, to be built into the drive itself, as it is in these Seagate G-force drives, as they do not need a driver and other software to work. I don't know if one works better than the other though (built into drive, or built into notebook). Anyone know?

The only thing I wonder about though---what if the mechanism goes wrong, and the drive head parks unnecessarily--and will not unpark? Has that ever happened with these shock-protected drives? Anyone know? In that case--if it was the notebook-software protection--I assume one could unpark the drive with the software. But if that happened to the drive with its own protection, like the Seagate G-Force, I don't know if that would be fixable--other than calling Seagate, and getting a warranty replacement. I don't know if that has ever happened with shock-protected drives though. Anyone know?

 

Sorry dude, the trial version of vantage didn't have an HD test. On another note my 3dmark was terrible, something like 2100, dx10 is useless And sys mark is out of the question...

 

maiki, how much RAM do you have in your notebook? Maybe you need to upgrade the RAM so you can run a few apps together.

 

It would be nice to have some PCMark or Vantage scores but essentially it is still a synthetic benchmark. One that simulates real use though.

What I would like to see is a direct comparison between 7200.4 and 3200bekt booting, opening up some applications and copying files. It would have to be done on the same system.

 

does any one talk about the battery usage?
I have a hitachi 80 5400 coming with my T400. once I replaced it with 7200.4, I noticed a significant drop in terms of battery life. It went from about 5hr30min to only around 3hr30.
Does anyone have the same experience?

 

2 hours difference on battery life?
I dont think thats possible from the harddrive. The harddrive only uses about 4 watts of power, which represents a very small part of the power your laptop uses.
Your cpu may have been running at a higher clock speed, causing your battery life to be less. You should check task manager and see if what cpu usage you are using next time you run on battery.

K-TRON

 

I agree in spades with K-TRON.

No way should a notebook HDD change make that much of a battery life difference. I think you'd be hard-pressed to see anymore than a single digit overall percentage change, if even that. And that may even be a change for the good, if going to a new generation drive from an older one, and would likely need controlled conditions to spot.

Something else is up.

 

not to rain in anyone parade, but the failure rate of Seagate HDDs is high these days. I prefer to wait and see rather than jump on the Momentus 7200.4 wagon immediately.

http://pchardwareblips.dailyradar.com/story/seagate_barracuda_7200_11_drives_said_to_be_failing_at/

 

Yes, everyone knows that the latest Seagate 3.5" hard drives had FIRMWARE issus. Nothing major. Just a bug. No hardware defect, no poor build quality, they just used a crappy firmware.
1. it happened and they fix it
2. we talk about 2.5" momentus drives, which use a different firmware

But I understand your concerns.
Still, I'll use it immediately, because it's the fastest and largest 2.5" HDD available, and Seagate produces, in my opinion, even after the firmware glitch, one of the most reliable HDD's.

 

maybe even THE most reliable.

 

I thought it's more than firmware issue on Barracuda 7200.11 (and 7200.12?) series, is it?

How about Momentus 7200.3? Is it safe to buy it now? It has been in the market for quite awhile. Has it also shown some defects?

 

If you read user reviews at newegg.com, the Momentus 7200.3 also plagued by failure although not as bad as the Barracuda series. I'm not talking about DOA units, but units that lasted only several months and died.

 

precisely when I cancelled my Dell drives pre-order. 1 year warranty is too risky. if it had been 2 years, i would have kept it, but it wasn't so...pass.

 

Dell drives??
You mean Seagate Momentus HDD?

 

I think ajreynol meant to say that Dell is currently using Momentus 7200.3 if we configure the notebook order with 7200RPM HDD.

 

ok, thanks for clearing that up.

 

no i think he's talking about the rebranded 7200.4 that dell has on their site. it has a 1 year warranty vs the 3 year one if bought from other etailers.

 

but the problem is, what good does it come with years of warranty if the HDD dies quickly?

not that warranty isn't important, what I mean is when your HDD dies, your data goes too. and warranty only cover replacement, not data recovery.
and that what make lots of Seagate HDD owner mad. Seagate didnt pull the defective HDDs from the market and only offer HDD replacement, not the data recovery which will cost min $1000 if i remember correctly.

PS: I'm not forgetting the fact that we have to backup our data every now and then to external HDD. but not all of us have the budget to buy 2nd same size HDD for full backup or RAID mirroring.

 

1.) No, aidil, I was referring to the Dell rebranded Momentus 7200.4. It's essentially a "Dell Momentus 7200.4", as they put their own variant of the firmware on the drives and replaced the Seagate sticker with their own Dell sticker. Momentus 7200.4 drives purchased from Dell are not eligible for Seagate's 3-year warranty. Only Dell's 1-year warranty.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=341-8658

2.) As for your "what if" xor01...as with any HDD, you should be backing up critical data on a regular basis. Such that "if" the HDD dies, they will replace it, you set up the new drive, migrate your files back onto the machine and keep moving. There is no guarantee that any HDD will last you to the end of the week. So if you have important files or anything else valuable to you, you should have some kind of backup plan that you are executing on a regular basis.

3.) Not being able to afford RAID mirroring is no excuse for not having backed up your data, xor01. You can buy an external Seagate 1TB HDD TODAY for $100 or less. You can't tell me someone can afford a $150 Momentus...and not be able to invest $70-$100 for an external HDD they can use to back their stuff up. It's inexcusable.

If you can't do a Momentus + a reasonable backup solution, buy a cheaper laptop HDD so that you can afford a reasonable backup solution.

 

@ajreynol
Just because you have unlimited budget and always backup your data is not an excuse to buy HDD with high failure rate either.

I'm not talking Seagate brand only, every major HDD brands had their good and bad moment.

I'm talking about HDD with proven high failure rate (currently Seagate 7200.11 series) that can't be justified to be purchased just because it offers long warraty time.

 

its good for you.

the speed of the 7200 rpm hard drive is more in comparison to others and it saves the battery .

 

How much "data" do you really need to back up?

About 75% of the space used on my HD is games, applications and the OS. The rest is mostly music or other media, of which I burn to CD/DVDs or to my iPod. That leaves maybe something like 20-50GB of data I don't naturally backup and I actually care about... which is dirt cheap to fit on an external HD.

 

the people who use the 7200.4 series already don't have problems at the moment, or? So it seems to be a HDD like every other which can fail or work.
The 7200.11 was a desktop series, which has, I hope, no much similarities with notebook hard drives (but I also use a few 7200.11 (since a few months) with the original firmware and they still work In a few weeks I will investigate more time in a firmware update for these drives)

Regardless of the HDD you use, you still need a backup.
You can use an external HDD, second PC, CD/DVD as backups for important and not frequently modified data. This way I backup about 50GB.
But the frequently modified data (which is about 3GB) do I store on a second PC (monthly update), 4GB USB stick (weekly update) and on MS Mesh (immediate update)

 

I have been using it regularly since the beginning of February and so far so good.

If you don't see any complaints in the forums you can safely assume that the users are happy with it.

--

 

ahh dell delayed me again.

 

Wow wow, guys, I never said I didn't backup my HDD.
In fact, I bought Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 (with external enclosure) and only turn it on several times a month to make full backup.

My point is:
Warranty won't do any good if the HDD itself have high failure rate.
If I given a choice right now between a 3-year warranty Hitachi/WD HDD and a 5-year warranty Seagate HDD, I would stick to Hitachi or WD. At least until I'm sure Seagate quality-control is back like they used to be.

 

ramgen:
7200.4, how's the noise rate? i have WD black and it's fast and dead silent. last time i had 7200.3, it has 'soft ticking noise' when the laptop is idle, which is really irritating.

 

i think it should be the settings inside Power Options. put Never for Turn Off Hard Disk.

 

No, I can't say the 7200.4 is dead silent. Especially the seeks (r/w head movements) are clearly audible in a silent room. However it does not have any ticking noise when the laptop is idle. It is almost dead silent in the idle mode.

Overall it is not irritating at all.

--

 

Anyone has benchmark for 7200.4 yet? How fast is it?

I currently use WD 320GB 7200RPM. When I import large file (2GB file) from external HDD into it, the speed ranges between 25MB/s - $30MB/s. Is this number about right? I assumed this is the write speed?

 

Yes, that is the write speed, and you are probably limited by the USB 2.0 interface in terms of data moving.

 

bigbulus, what kind of external HDD do you use?

If it's a USB one, then it is that port the one which limits the transfer rate to your WD around 30MBps max.

 

ok there seems to be a new seagate 500gb 7200rpm 2.5" with 32mb cache

Seagate Constellation 7200 500GB HDD, 2.5", SATAII, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache (ST9500530NS)

That is different to either of the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 models with (ST9500420AS or ST9500420ASG)

http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwave...ISVXR8JF3QS6QT3BOXPWGUUE1D36O6E9MK&catID=2207

But this is not listed on Seagate site?

 

it's listed on Seagate's site.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...383f110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&reqPage=Model


they are not designed for laptops. as in, they do not fit in laptops. don't let the 2.5" measurement fool you.

 

You're right. Seagate Constellation series is designed for server or NAS even though it's a 2.5" form factor. Its thickness of 15mm might be a problem to be put inside many notebooks.

 

not just "might be a problem". they won't fit at all.

Constellation drives are for blade servers, as I recall.

 

@bigbulus
my external HDD is a 3.5" Hitachi P7K500 SATA-2 and with USB2.0 interface, the max transfer speed is between 10-30MB/s. So yours is normal.

 

ah thanks. Because it was listed as new on that website, I jumped to conclusion it was a new 2.5" notebook hdd.

 

You might get it fit into a laptop that feature dual HDD (or more) with stacked rack system like Clevo D901C, Asus G71, etc.
Ofcourse this means you can only fit 1 HDD instead 2.

 

Now you cant. That drive runs SAS, which needs a 12V line. SAS and SATA may have the same port, but that is the only similarity. If you plug any SAS drive into a SATA port nothing will show up. You need a motherboard or a RAID card which supports SAS to use a Constellation series drive. Neither options are available for you to put in any laptop
Even if you get a SATA constellation drive it will not work because the drive requires a 12V line, which your laptop does not have

K-TRON

 

LOL...
I know SAS is not compatible with SATA, i just didn't read the Seagate Constellation spec. so i thought the problem is only the larger size. sorry

 

I honestly don't know why anyone would use a 2.5" as an external, unless they had one laying around already. But to purposefully buy a 2.5" for external use isn't the greatest idea, imo.

 

Well, I used to think that way. The price, capacity, and performance of 3.5" HDD really make them interesting to use as an external HDD for laptop users.

But after i bought my Hitachi P7K500, I kinda regret that I didnt buy 2.5" HDD instead. 3.5" external HDD is not as portable as the 2.5". it's big, heavy, and you have to bring separate power supply adaptor.

My Sarotech external enclosure have internal power supply and a nice small travel bag for the external HDD, but I still prefer 2.5" external HDD now.

 

It really depends on how you use your external drive. If you just want to store backups and other large media files on it that you occasionally use, the external 3.5" HDD would be better from a value perspective. But if you take your external drive with you all the time, the 2.5" would be better.

IMHO, I would rather just upgrade the internal hard drive to a larger capacity. Either that, or install a second hard drive if your laptop has an extra compartment.