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

Do yourself a favour and choose the better option not listed. Do a clean install!

Although it may be more time consuming, it ends any possible problems migrating to the new drive. Once you get your system set up how you like (progs & tweaks) just image it with either W7's built in imaging or a free 3rd party like Macrium Reflect. Now if you switch hard drives or want to start fresh it's a simple and painless job that takes very little time or thought.

 

In both instances when I transitioned from a 7200rpm 320GB drive to a Seagate 7200.4 500GB drive to the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, I used the DiscWizard software to clone the data from one drive to the next.

I had Win7/Drivers/apps all working fine (having initially performed a clean Win7 install away from Vista) so I saw no reason to do a re-install. The cloning/mirroring process went smoothly and the notebook rebooted with the new drive intact. I had the benefit of a NotebookReview forum thread that guided me through a clean Win7 install for my particular notebook model from the get-go.

I don't have experience with the CMS kit, but can vouch that going the DiscWizard route worked fine and hardly involved any risk for my setup. My 7200.4 drive stayed in the notebook. Installed DiscWizard (making a boot CD with DiscWizard is also an option). Plugged-in the Momentus XT in an enclosure. Began the cloning process. When completed, powered everything down and swapped drives. Computer booted up with the new drive without skipping a beat. If the cloning failed, I would've had the original drive intact to start again from.

IF the old drive with its OS and drivers was suspect in giving you problems, it then might be a good reason to do a clean install. Having done clean installs in the past, it was realistically a week-long process for me; installing the OS, updating it, hunting down all the latest drivers, updating acrobat/java/flash/etc, installing programs, hunting for serial numbers, migrating all the personal data files/pictures/etc, reauthorizing software like iTunes. I no longer have the contiguous chunks of time to do this all in one session like I used to.

On the other hand, IF you consider your current drive as a perfect setup, I haven't seen any downsides to cloning. It'll save you a LOT of time upfront, and IF you ultimately find that you've cloned over some problems dormant from the old drive, you'll still have the option of wiping it all for a clean install.

Good luck!

 

I'm definitely cloning... I have wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much stuff configured just how I like it.

 

Like Carter said below, I did a clean install when upgrading to Windows 7 and have kept my computer very clean and updated since then, so I would not like to have to do that all over again. The cloning route is better for me.

Thanks for the response! I agree and plan on doing the clone.

I've read good reviews about Seagate's Disc Wizard software and you seem to agree.

I'm leaning towards using that software with just the enclosure from the kit rather than using that CMS software.

Any one else have any suggestions?

 

hey guys what's the verdict on this I've read about 10 pages and a bunch of Newegg and Amazon reviews. Seems like 85% really like it and 10-15% hate it. I have a machine I use for work so reliability is really important.

 

where are you finding it for $99? Also anyone know the newegg coupon code?

 

Dude that was ages ago.

 

My XT has been on (and off) the road for the last 4 months or so; no problems. I would not use ANY one (1) drive for work or fun as I have all backed up.

Yesterday my main backup drive, WD triple interface 1.5TB, took a dump. WD is replacing the drive but not the contents..that are on my second older 1Tb drive

So, if any work files are mission critical..

 

When my XT drive arrived, I used Acronis True Image to Clone my old disk directly to the new one. it took about 4 - 5 hours over night because I have a single partition. My laptop is used for gaming only and that was around 500GB or more (NTFS) compressed data. Cloning is the way to go for sure, especially if your system is quite clean.

In general, I do images of a basic clean install and then another image after everything has been installed. Due to this, I rarely have to do any clean installs.

 

OT

Does anyone know for sure, that when a drive is cloned, will the files to be recreated on new drive be in a defragged state or exactly as cloned? I last used the free version of True Image but did not RTFM.

TIA

 

How does cloning differ from using DiscWizard and the HDD enclosure?

 

The last time (about a year+ ago?) that I used Acronis to clone a drive it did not do a true 'mirror' of the data - not that the data was (highly) fragmented, but it was not laid out exactly like how PerfectDisk (v10) wanted it.

Worse, many programs needed to be re-registered/activated/etc. for use on the new drive - this defeats the purpose of cloning for me.

A clean install may be very labour intensive compared to the 'one click' aspect of cloning - but the end result is time-wise; very similar and stability-wise; the clean install still leaves any other method far behind.

If you spend a few minutes/hours each month to keep a current 'clone' up to date, you can spend the same amount of time doing a clean install if/when your hardware (specifically; your storage subsystem) changes once a year or so.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...e-partition-strategy-better-than-cloning.html


Note in the second link above, not only do the partitions help push performance to consistently high maximums - but the use of my 'Recovery' partition ensures that each time I need to do a re-install; I am using the latest drivers, software, utilities and apps to really bring the system up to a 'clean' state.

What may not be obvious is that the install order is 'written in stone' and can used to isolate issues/programs that may be making the system unstable.

I have used all manners of 'systems' to get a computer up and running in the least amount of time - the above methods allow me the flexibility to install the O/S, Drivers, Apps and Utilities in the optimum order (or quickly change that order if new info is discovered) and with the latest, most stable versions at the time of the install.

I have not yet seen a cloning program that will do a 100% bit for bit (in the exact same location on two identical drives) copy of a drive. Worse, now with SSD's (and the newer 4K sector format HDD's) coming out, ensuring alignment with cloning is even more of a roll of the dice - and performance will suffer because of it.

 

Yes, Cloning does sometimes result in a few programs needing to be registered again but I have found doing Drive images using Drive Snapshot to be 100%.

 

seagate released a new firmware update for momentus XT drives a few minutes ago: SD24

Momentus XT Firmware Update

 

^^^ Nice find. More progress already. Is there a changelog available somewhere?

 

no, theres no changelog unfortunately. i asked for one but all i got from the seagate admins was the link to the update...

 

so who's gonna try first and brick their drive? lol. It doesn't sound like it's a destructive update, but who knows... backup backup backup!

 

I tried the SD24 FW update, on both my systems with XT drives, it said unable to update on both drives after about 5 mins....

 

The update went without a hitch for me. No problems to report yet.

 

Same here.

 

so it didnt delete the drives contents?
what benefits have you noticed?

 

It is my boot drive and it didn't delete anything. Booted right back up...

Nothing noticeable thus far.

 

Just finished the update myself. SD24 is the new FW version. No issues to report!

 

I got an error that said unable to execute program, when I tried the update by running the executable in Windows. That error occurred after a few minutes in the Dos window after automatic reboot

I decided to try the bootable ISO firmware update method instead and it worked fine.

 

i'm running SD24 for several hours now and no freezes, lags or anything like that. i experienced random freezes with SD23, maybe on or two per hour... these problems vanished... speed is still good and temps are OK.

but i experienced two minor things with SD24:
- with the old FW SD23, in the list of SATA features it said: aam "not supported". with SD24 aam is supported and enabled now.
- some hdd benchmark programs are not working anymore. especially HD-tune does not work, it crashes during start because of some unknown error. even after a fresh installation.
- the FW update resetted all of the smart values, but i guess this is normal when you flash a new FW. ( according to smart i have a brand new hdd now ;-))

 

What is aam?

 

Automatic acoustic management

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Automatic_acoustic_management
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/terabyte-hitachi-acoustic,2084.html

 

I have upgraded to SD24 on win 7 64 bit. I had performance gains with this tweaks:

Firmware: Sd24
Intel rapid storage technology version: 10.1.0.1008 (recently released)
I checked both aam and power options to maximum performance.

 

Anyway to upgrade the firmware on Mac?

 

Do you mean the stutter cases reported by various people(mainly MBP users but occasionally other models) ?

 

no, i'm ruinning my XT in a acer notebook with win xp and with sd23 i experienced random freezes, maybe two per hour. the HD led stayed lit and the whole system froze for like 20 seconds. and after that the NB worked normally again.
these freezes have vanished .... for now, but ill keep an eye on that...

 

thanks for the info. that actually is very similar to what I have seen on seagate's support forum that is widely reported but as I said mainly from macbook users.

Glad to see that they seem to have this problem fixed, it was the reason I have chosen a scorpio black instead of the XT.

 

updated without any issues, so far so good

does automatic acoustic management add anything significant? i hear alot of people use tools to set AAM, whats the differences and advantages of setting AAM to 128 or 254? i've never played with it in HDtune before and now it doesnt work after SD24 update lol

 

I ran the exe without any issues in my Sager. Updated, rebooted, and bam, good as new. It's clear the NAND cache was cleared though.

 

Just updated with no problems on my M11x.

 

Hi fellas,

I don´t want to create a new thread so I´ll post my question here.

I have a Vertex 2 E 60GB and was thinking about selling it to get a Momentus XT 500GB, it´s the space issue that is killing me, I can have only 2 games installed at a time tops. Plus itunes doesn´t seem to like to play my music from my external drive.

What you guys think? Is it a good move?

P.S. My laptop doesn´t have USB 3.0 or eSATA...

 

in your sig you have a 640gb scorpio blue paired with your ssd. imo thats a good boot/data drive combination already

 

Problem is that using the external drive when using iTunes is a pain in the a** bacause it´s skips everynow and then.

I still don´t know why Acer decided to ditch the eSATA/USB combo port when the model prior to the 5740G (5930G) had it.

 

hey guys, got a question about load cycle count, whats a normal cycle-per-hour for this drive? only reason i ask is because i did a defrag last night after the SD24 update, and it went from 2 to 42 when i came back after dinner, after some idle time probably, right now im @ 50 with 3 hours of usage after update.

is it bad if its high? manual says its good for 600,000. i dont hear any clicks or anything so idk why its doing it, and people say they can change how it works with HDDscan or quiteHDD but im not sure which settings i should be messing with

 

I have upgraded to SD24, less noise, heat and more battery life.

 

So has anyone been able to do a side by side comparison with a momentus xt 250GB vs the 500GB? Mainly concerned about vibration and power consumption. I'm debating between the $200 120GB Intel G2 or the $95 250GB Momentus XT.

I'm almost tempted to go with the SSD, for improved battery life and no vibration, but it's hard to justify the $200 for half the storage of the XT at half the price.

 

Why not go for the 500GB model which is $25 more on newegg?

I don't think it matches any latest generation SSD. But if you need the space...

 

any performance benefits to SD24 other than lower noise, temp?

 

Chip.de did. More performance, less noise, more battery life.

Good idea.

 

ok i thought that WD was an internal hdd with a caddy. in that case then the xt is a good move as phil has said

 

Power and vibration...

Do you happen to have a link to the article? At their site I can't seem to find it, all I see are specs and links to vendors. Thanks.

Just as a note, I had the opportunity to try a 7200.4 momentus (non-xt) 250GB and 500GB side by side in same computer (M11x). The 250GB exhibited no noticeable vibration. The 500GB was very noticeable. I'm assuming that the same would hold true with the XT variant? Still like to see power consumption numbers though.

 

I have the Seagate momentus xt 250 and what bothers me is some faint scratching sounds. The drive was lightning fast when I first bought it. But now, 2 months later, it seems slow and loud with the clicks and scratches. .

I'm wondering if this one isn't good? Also, I cloned my old hd to this one. Should I have built from scratch?

Thx.

 

i dont have any issues with my 500gb xt. should i still do the sd24 update?

 

well just tried to update using the windows program and it didnt work for me

 

Try the ISO.