Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD w/ built-in 4GB SSD

That's good news. Every user review out there says it's a quiet drive.

 

My 500 gig XT is dead silent and has no vibration that I can detect.

 

What's your notebook?

 

AW M11x R2

 

That is very interesting. I have the 500GB 7K500 and I don't think it vibrates much at all -- if the 250GB XT vibrates less than that, I am impressed.

I am quite tempted to buy the 250GB XT however given my 7K500 works fine . . . it is tough to justify.

 

my replacement XT is running for over a week now, still without problems. no vibrations, no freezes, no spindowns. it is even more quiet than my previous scorpio black ... so far so good.
the only thing i noticed is an rhythmic klack-klack when the drive is idle,but i think that has to do with the power management. the load-cycle-count doesn't rise wit these klacks. but it's gone when i set APM to max... so i suppose its normal. has anyone else noticed that?

 

The clicks can usually be resolved. There are several ways for it, QuietHDD is one of them.

 

yes, i know. thanks. i just wanted to know whether it is normal, as the "click" of the xt sounds different to the drives had before (more like a knocking noise) and moreover the load-cycle count doesnt rise with every click, which it did with e.g. my previous scorpio black.

 

Phil, what APM and AAM values should I use? I am experiencing a beeping or chirping type of noise (almost always when the disk is idle). It sounds just like the noise in this clip (but the beep from mine seems quite a bit louder):

YouTube - MacBook pro 7200rpm click + beep + freeze

I downloaded QuietHDD but before I go about doing command prompt settings with it, I wanted to know what I should be setting the values to.

Thanks

 

I don't know, I have zero experience with clicking hard drives. There have been many threads about it though. If you search you will find (hdparm too).

 

Could someone please confirm if this is the way to setup short-stroking. I'm not sure why I had a performance decrease when I tried it the first time, but I'd like to give it another shot.

1. Make only, say 50gb partition. Put OS on this.
2. After Windows is installed, creat the second (and more) partition for media files, etc (through the Win 7 utility).

This is how I did it. Is that it?

Thanks.

 

Are there any benefits to have this drive as a (second) Data drive for games, pics movies? I will have a SSD for my primary drive.

 

My Momentus XT is quiet and FAST! Wow, awesome technology. I have a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 for my boot drive and the Momentus XT for storage, data, games. This combination of drives has renewed my excitement for my aging Sager. Looking for it to get me through to next spring/summer for a new laptop with sandy bridge and latest SSD tech.

I was concerned about heat, noise, and vibration. My wrists are sensitive to vibration and usually puts my hand to sleep when resting above a hard drive. But so far so good. It's actually quieter than the older Seagate Momentus it replaced.

 

It's interesting to hear this. I've read every reputable review I can find on the XT, and I'm on the verge of taking the plunge. I only remain slightly reticent as I'm unsure whether the improvement in performance (in real terms) is enough to justify the cost.

 

it really depends on your usage pattern, but overall you will definitely feel the snappiness that everyone is talking about.
i for one use many different programs, so the NAND effect can be less at times. chrome, steam, photoshop, office, after effects seems to get a boost depending on my usage pattern. but adobe premiere pro and some games like empire total war doesnt seem to be affected by the xt's NAND even if i open it multiple times (still testing though). boot up and shutdown; and accessing of files and directories are definitely faster.

 

Have you seen my review? It shows you exactly what you can expect in real terms.

And unlike every other review online, this review was done on a notebook.

That's good to hear. I would be interested how it would be to use the XT as your only drive. I wonder if you'd really notice the difference between the XT and the SSD. After one day of using the XT I found it very hard to tell the difference.

 

im thinking of buying 8gig ram.
my question is will the additional ram just overlap the function of the the 4gig NAND of the xt by prefetching almost essentially the same thing?
of course the ram will add some snappiness to multitasking and will most probably make my 64bit programs faster.
however in this scenario would it make the 4gig of the xt redundant?

 

No prefetch is no where near as effective as the 4GB cache on the XT.

I doubt it. Unless you're running heavy VMware sessions or edit unusually large images.

 

Actually, they complement each other very well.

While the SuperFetch keeps things in its cache - it still has to see/check the HD to see if anything has changed first (and, this is where the 4GB nand comes in handy).

Working together, they make the computer feel very fast, fluid and 'snappy'.

 

wont superfetch make bootup less snappy by caching so many things to the ram during startup?

 

No.

Actually, with a properly configured and maintained (using PerfectDisk) HD SuperFetch is effectively 'invisible' during normal use.

Not only do things not slow down, they actually speed up.

 

Thank you for the QuietHDD recommendation, Phil. My Momentus XT is now essentially silent. I have tested it over three days and the beeping/chirping noise that occurred when the computer was idle is now gone and I'm confident it will not come back. The only negative is that this requires the program to load with windows and sit in the system tray, but the program is so tiny that it doesnt make any difference anyways.

 

Actually guys, in Windows 7 if you have the Momentus XT, the OS detects that the drive does not need superfetch (much like if you have an SSD, then Superfetch will be disabled in Win7), and sets the Superfetch attribute to false. I use the Momentus XT in a laptop and a desktop and both don't have Superfetch enabled. The laptop previously did, it had a 4gb PCI-e chip of the Intel Turbo Memory installed. Honestly I couldn't tell a difference with or without that 4gb of Intel Turbo Memory NAND.

 

Is the notebook and desktop a clean install of Win 7?

In my VAIO (clean (RTM retail) install of Win7 SuperFetch is enabled by default and offers considerable performance advantage.

For example, my SSD based Asus (i3 platform) loads PS CS5 in around 8 seconds - my last generation VAIO (P8400 platform) loads the same program in 4 seconds off the XT. Both measured off of a cold boot and waiting about 3 or 4 minutes for Windows 7 to 'settle'.

 

What happens if you have a decent amount of ram and turn off pagefile? Then everything gets cached in the ram and should be pretty fast right? This is what I've done and everything seems pretty snappy.

In the end, I'll probably pick one up and return if I don't see the gain. Otherwise I'd always wonder if it was that much better, even at >double the cost of my Scorpio Black.

 

for me the biggest advantage of the xt is the fast boot up you get from the NAND. shutdowns are also faster but not as dramatic a change as booting up. you will never get this from volatile memory and superfetch.

 

Interesting point, I also have my swap disabled but I am running on a crappy stock Fujitsu 5400rpm with 4GB ram. Hadn't considered whether that would take away some of the performance gain of the XT

 

tiller, yes they are clean installs. I also have another laptop with a 128gb samsung ssd, and superfetch is also disabled. Win7 automatically disables it for drives where it won't help or may actually slow it down. This is pointed out in Microsoft Technet.

 

Are there any benifits to using this drive as a data drive with the primary being a SSD? Or will it just act as a 7200rpm drive?

 

Yes, there will be all the benefits:

The nand will cache the directory information of the drives contents and therefore the heads/platters do not have to spin/locate these small, randomly placed files from the mechanical side.

And, you will still be getting the fastest possible transfer rates to deliver the data to the CPU.

If anything, with the HD being freed from being the 'boot/OS' drive, it will be even faster.

Cheers!

 

Hmmm... interesting...

Every SSD clean install I've done on my VAIO, and now my Asus has left SuperFetch enabled (I would disable it manually). As was scheduled defrag for C: drive.

I wonder what triggers one behavior or another?

 

Thank you, I think this will be a good combo, OZC Vertec 2 120gb (OS) + Seagate Momentus XT 500 (Data)

 

totally agree.. i'm using a 128GB C300+ 500GB Momentus XT and its been nothing short of awesome

 

If it were my money I'd probably get Vertex 2 + Seagate 5400.7 640GB.

The 4GB cache of the XT looses some of it's benefits when used as a data disk.

 

It does loose the program launching benefits except where a program is directory dependent. Like a program that reads picture or music folders etc. When I was using the XT as a data drive, pre FW release, it was totally awesome untill the drive spin up happened.

 

Tiller, Technet had some basic explanation, I can't remember the details but it said something along the lines of if disk performance met a certain criteria that was detected by WinSAT. Try searching "SSD and Windows 7" on Technet, I believe that's how I came across that article.

 

I can't speak for single SSD systems but with a dual drive system SuperFetch seems to be enabled which is fine by me..............

 

What benefits does it lose?

I think that it would even respond faster (as all other drives do too) when not used as the boot/OS drive.

 

The main benefit from the XT, in my opinion, is the SSD like speeds it reaches while launching applications and booting Windows.

If it were my data drive it would be used for downloading torrents, storing videos and playing music.

I would get zero benefits from it over a fast 5400rpm drive.

 

Phil, maybe in your typical usage it would be a minimal benefit.

But, if I had a second HD bay for my notebook(s), I would be transferring the full 500GB capacity (okay; 465GB actual capacity) every second or third day.

A 5400 RPM drive in that situation would be torturously slow when you know a HD like the XT is available for considerably more performance.

Also, with a second physical HD, I could/would be able to set up the PS Scratch Disks on that drive. Being freed from the burden of running an O/S it would again be vastly superior to any 5400 drive available.

There are many similar situations where the XT as a 'data' drive will prove itself to be the superior choice - including simply storing a ton of data on it and simply being able to search through it so much faster than even a normal 7200 RPM drive, let alone a 5400 RPM example.

My point: you don't lose any of the benefits of the XT as a data drive. As long as you want the most performance possible from your system, the fastest HD's whether boot/OS or data will always make a difference and a noticable one too.

 

If you're using it for storing 'a ton of data' the XT isn't any better than a WD5000BEKT. Actually the WD is quieter and causes less vibration, so I'd say the WD5000BEKT is a better choice for a data drive.

I'd prefer a 640GB Seagate 5400.7. Even more quiet and it saves my downloads just as quick. I leave indexing on, so I'm not bothered by slow searches.

Except for the most important benefits: boot and launch speeds.

Using a XT as a data drive is like using a quad core to surf the web.

 

Not if you want your data fast.


But, boot and launch speeds would be handled by another XT or an SSD - nobody will buy an XT and use their 5400 RPM HD to handle the O/S, right?

 

Also if you want your data fast.

On my HP DM3 the XT beats the WD, but on my friends Macbook Pro with Nvidia controller the WD beats the XT in non cached tasks.

On Tom's Hardware's testbed the WD seems also faster
Charts, benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts, PCMark Vantage

When used as data drives the WD and Seagate will perform the same, while the XT is almost twice as expensive.

 

I'd pick a 5400rpm drive too for the lower power consumption since it'd be sitting in the ultrabay.

Phil, why do you prefer the 5400.7 over the Scorpio Blue? The Scorpio Blue performs very well for a 5400rpm drive and has one of the lowest power consumption. And to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I'd be so comfortable having data on a Seagate with their reliability in the last few years.

 

WD5000BEVT is a good drive but the Seagate 5400.7 seems to beat it in performance.
Roundup: 2.5-inch Hard Disk Drives with 500 GB, 640 GB and 750 GB Storage Capacities (page 15) - X-bit labs

Going by several user reports the WD5000bevt doesn't seem to be the most quiet drive for a 5400rpm.

At this moment it seems that the 640GB Toshiba MK6465GSX and Seagate 5400.7 are the fastest 5400rpm drives.
Charts, benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts, PCMark Vantage

 

interesting discussion on the xt as data drive.
i myself plan on installing my primary xt as a data drive in an optical bay caddy when the intel g3's come out.
my inital testing with some of my programs (after effects, photoshop) bodes well for the xt as a data drive. however other programs like premiere pro dont seem to be affected.

 

Hello just jumping in here are the result of my hdtune bench for my xt 500gb compared to my wd black 500gb, worth pointing out the xt is my system disk while the wd is a storage disk

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 44.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 94.5 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 75.4 MB/s
Access Time : 12.2 ms
Burst Rate : 187.3 MB/s
CPU Usage : 3.1%

HD Tune Pro: ST95005620AS Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 23.5 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 105.6 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 83.6 MB/s
Access Time : 0.3 ms
Burst Rate : 187.2 MB/s
CPU Usage : 3.3%

I would like to point the the average transfer of the xt might be slightly faster if it wasnt the system drive and as its minimum was affected by background service the access time as you can see is were it shine, the cpu and burst rate are equal to one another, it is worth pointing out also that the bench was done 3 time for each drive alternatively (wd-xt-wd-xt-wd-xt) in the first test the wd and xt score about the same but as the test were carryed the xt started showing better and better performance over the wd probably due to its usage of the cache as hdtune was used more and more.
The test were done on a:
m2n4-sli mobo
athlon x2 64 4600+
2gig ram
7900gs
win7 32bits
hdd:
500gb momentus xt (sata2)
2x 500gb wd black (sata2)
hitachi 200gb (sata1)

PS: Was wondering could the hitachi which is a sata1 drive affect the performance of the sata2 drive.

 

ataxy, as long as your chipset can switch one port to SATA1 and the other to SATA2, there should be no problem. I believe that most chipsets can handle that requirement.

Of course, the other requirement is if you're not copying data between the two drives; then the one (slower) drive is directly affecting the speed of both.

 

cool idea but what would the price be SSD or HDD

 

That is interesting. One thing I've noticed about WD is that they're always much slower than others in releasing new models/revisions, but are great when they finally get to the market. The Seagate is the obvious choice at the moment; even power consumption is lower than the Blue.