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

I wonder what good it does with applications. Looking at photoshop 30 seconds is normal, my stock drives are probably that fast or faster, not until you boot the application again is it faster, but that also seems to hold true for me without the hybrid technology because I think photoshop stores itself in the RAM of the system.

So the real question is, those tests are they run back to back, or do they mean full reboot of the machine? If it stores in the SSD portion between reboots then it could definitely have an advantage, but I guess it depends on your work flow, it probably stores the most recent stuff in there so if your doing a lot of stuff after you open photoshop it could be wiped from the SSD and have to read from the HDD portion again thus being 30s again.

 

I don't know exactly but I think over time the SSD will contain a few files that are important for booting and a few files that are important for your most used applications. They will remain there after rebooting.

Btw, for photoshop this looks very good:

 

phill where are u getting these charts? I want to see if there are any more..

 

Here: Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

..and not in stock at Tiger Indirect.

 

I think the credits go to anandtech

 

Photoshop CS4 64bit on the system in my sig opens first time in 10 sec flat. Between 3-4 sec second time.

I believe that chart shows the combined time to open all six applications indicated at the top of the chart in sequence (such as in your Programs>Startup folder). Decent times but still not exceptional.

 

On the way!

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Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive - OEM
Your Price: $129.99

 

Factory Refurbish already on Fleabay here.

 

LOL. That's scary! Two bids already up to $101? I guess a five year warranty not worth much? My old free agent has been replaced twice so far due to junk interfaces.

 

Care to share where you came by this info?

Im in the market for a G73 and would like to be sure to get one with this drive.

 

8 customer reviews on Newegg now. Some very good stuff, some very bad.

The good: Boot time in win7x64 went from 58 Seconds to 32 Seconds. SiSoft file system drive score went from 61.25MB/s to 117MB/s. BadCompany2 maps load twice as fast and all applications load twice as fast. Old drive was a 500gb momentus 7200.4 16mb

The bad: "The thing vibrates very badly" "-If you are sensitive to vibrations, this drive made my 13" MBP turn into a vibrating beast." "Made questionable chirps others describe"

Customer Reviews Of Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive

 

This is why I'm buying from Newegg..no hassle returns if drive not satisfactory.

I've noticed a bit more vibration in my last 5400 rpm Seagate compared to my WD's. The chirps may be head retraction? I've noted this as well when quickly changing axis on a running drive in my external USB case.
Oh well, waiting on delivery man..

 

I can't imagine why it would be any better/worse than a standard 7200.4 as far as noise and vibration. Isn't it basically the same drive? My 7200.4 that came stock in my Sager NP8662 would vibrate and chirp then someone here pointed me to a firmware update and it took care of it. Hopefully they can do the same for this one.

 

I think it's an improved version. Benchmarks that aren't influenced by the cache are noticeably faster.
Benchmark Results: Throughput And Interface : Momentus XT Review: Seagate's Marriage Of The HDD And Flash Memory

 

read the news release on engagdet.. and even in this thread... G73 is one getting it first.. .i can confirm that too..

 

That's complete nonsense of course. No modern drive vibrates in this way, unless it's broken. Otherwise, the actual mechanical drive in those XTs is the exact same drive as the regular Momentus ones. I have a bunch of these in various machines, and none of them vibrate.

That's why you need to take those user reviews with a grain of salt, and sometimes a whole sack of salt...

From the information that is available, it is impossible to find a read benchmark that would not be affected by the SSD cache. It all depends on exactly how that cache is used.

 

so it is, at worst, the best performing 7200RPM HDD on the market...and a Seagate.

and at best, a drive that can help you realize near SSD performance, depending on your uses.

sounds like a winner for just about everyone. save, maybe, the dual-booting crowd.

 

I can't see how any read benchmarks ran for the first time could possibly be helped by the SSD. Same story for every write benchmark, no matter how often they are ran. As you can see on the page I linked to the XT outperforms the 7200.4 in every benchmark.

Do you have a source?

The statement "vibrating beast" is obviously exaggerated, but I don't doubt the point he makes because the Macbook Pro is very prone to vibration.

I'm hoping he got a faulty drive, as is often the case with Seagate's first shipments.

Exactly. If it wasn't for the power consumption I would have already ordered.

 

Do you have a statistical source for that ?

I didn't notice the 250GB 7200.4 vibrating, being noisier,clicking any more than any Hitachi 7k I've had does, also have a 5400.6 thats quiet and vibration free.
I do have an old 7200.1 that you can notice a fair bit of vibration in a USB enclosure though.

Whats your experiences with failures on new seagates?

 

I was going by the numerous experiences in the Seagate 7200.4 thread. As far as I know it's not the first Seagate drive that was plagued by problems. I'm not sure what the other drives were though, they might have been desktop.

 

As far as I can tell, all of these were run on a standard multi-tasking OS, so there is no way to prevent the OS from staging additional requests to the drive that may affect the performance readings slightly. For example, during the write tests, if the standard Momentus has to do a few reads in between which the XT could service from its SSD memory, then the latter would write faster, since it didn't have to move its heads for the reads.

Only an indirect one: Seagate said nothing about any other improvements to the drive.

Well, yeah, if the Macbook is designed sloppily enough to have a resonance near 120Hz, then I wouldn't be surprised. The solution would be to either use SSDs, a 5,400rpm drive, or get some decent computer, and not an Apple toy...

 

I don't believe that to be likely. HDTune is a simple straight forward benchmark and going by the access times Tom's hardware measured there was hardly any multi tasking going on. Also look at the CPU utilization in the table below.



This review shows the same picture:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1310/4/

The real difference between Momentus XT and 7200.4 may be in the better controller or firmware. It's clear though the performance of the XT is better, even w/o help of the read cache.

I'll let the benchmarks speak for themselves.

 

Well, in the end one may ask why we are even arguing this point, noting that we are really arguing in empty space here, without much of any real information to decide the argument on. The XT is faster than the regular Momentus, period. Who cares really how much of the performance gain comes from which particular difference between the two drives?

 

Ah, the ol 7200.4 thread, I don't know about you, but when I start reading things on the internet like "OMG, I've had to return 4 of them" I tend to get that far away glaze in my eyes, if you know what I mean

Despite the above rampant fanboy ranting and a couple of others, I went out and bought one, it was fine, just not a speed improvement over what I had, plus smaller, being 250GB.

This XT actually has me chomping at the bit to try....just not to the point of paying $60 US for INTL freight.
Where were you planning to buy if you do?

 

Well I'm sure the Seagate 7200.4 is fine by now. There were inital problems with the first batches and firmware. I got the impression Seagate releases products quite early, maybe too early.

If i buy I'll probably buy from the cheapest one in these lists:

I care. The 7200.4 is significantly slower than my current hard drive. If the Momentus XT was really a 7200.4 + SSD cache, I would gain some performance in cached tasks, and loose performance in all the rest.

 

With the chart above it looks like Seagate has addressed some of the issues from the 7200.4. Better reads and write speeds. I doubt it will catch up to the 7K500 let alone to the 320 Black.

It would be nice to see a real world comparison with the 7K500. Alot of sites are comparing it to the SSD's but I look at its main competition being the larger HDD's. They compare it to the Velociraptor but who is using these in a laptop.

 

Well, as far as I am concerned, there is no real-world difference in performance between any of the conventional 2.5" 7,200rpm drives. If you or Phil, or anybody else for that matter, feel such a difference in their everyday work, be my guest, but I am simply not bored enough to worry about meaningless differences in the single-digit percent range.

Don't get me wrong, it may well be that people who worry about such differences have good reasons for doing so (although I am not sure what those reasons might be), but I don't. The work I do on my computer is typically CPU-limited, and a few percent in disk performance, one way or another, here or there, make no difference at all to me. Other than in my imagination, such differences really are not noticeable at all.

 

Define "significantly". I am genuinely curious as to why you feel this way.

 

I ignore all synthetic benchmarks. I only look at real life performance tests.

If you look at this Techreport review it can be gathered the 5400 (!) rpm Scorpio Blue is generally faster than the Seagate 7200.4.

If you look at another Techreport review it is shown that the 320GB Scorpio Black is faster than the Scorpio Blue 500GB.

If you look at my review on Storagereview you'll see that the Hitachi 7K500 is mostly faster than the 320GB Scorpio Black.

This Xbitlabs File Copy test confirms the mediocre real life performance of the 7200.4. Unfortunately the rest of their benchmarks are all synthetic.

Conclusion, real world performance:
Hitachi 7K500 > Scorpio Black > Scorpio Blue > Seagate 7200.4

 

I agree but my real qualm is that the 7200.4 drive in it might still have high failure rates so i would be careful.. what really stops u from buying this revolutionary contraption is the drive..

 

I am usually very wary of Seagate drives , but this one has a 5 year warranty so am going to give one a go once i can find some retailer with stock in the UK.

 

The drive doesn't seem to have landed in Europe yet.
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, SATA II (ST95005620AS) Preisvergleich bei Geizhals.at EU

 

Insight UK is supposedly getting 2 in on Monday but a bit pricey at £109 for the 500gb version , if you can believe it.

 

Well you could probably save £10 if you're patient but I guess you're not

I'd like to get one too but am waiting for more user reports. Especially on noise, vibration and battery life.

 

What failure rates? Maybe I should say first that I really don't care what brand of drive I use and I neither prefer Seagate over others nor do I do the opposite. Having said that, however, as far as the negative vibes regarding Seagate drives are concerned, I have never personally seen any evidence of problems with these. Matter of fact, I never had any of my laptop hard drives fail on me, no matter what brand. I have seen that long thread about problems with Seagate drives, but, frankly, a lot of the posts in there seem to have been "me too" posts from people that did not seem to have any real problems with their drives, other than in their imagination. Some interesting group psychology going on there for sure...

So, in my personal experience, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Seagate drives in general. YMMV, of course...

 

If I remember correctly the Seagate 7200.4 thread had a lot of reports of issues. Far more than other hard drives.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...es/271131-seagate-momentus-7200-4-thread.html

 

I agree. I was leary about my Seagate in my Sager/Clevo because of all the negative response, but after nine months of continued use, it's been solid. Other than an annoying clicking and chirping issue, it was remedied in a just a couple minutes with a firmware update. After using my Seagate I wouldn't hesitate to use this hybrid drive either.

Granted, I've been partial to WD for the most part over the years, and hope WD does something similar, hopefully better, but until then, this is your only option.

I don't know that I'll run out right now and buy it to replace my existing drive, but my next laptop will definitely have whatever is the best with this technology. Considering that will probably be in the next few months, most likely going to be Seagate.

 

You may have noticed that I commented on this very thread.

 

I wasn't reading very well. Now I noticed.

 

What are you talking about ?

Seagate's Momentus XT hard drive - The Tech Report - Page 10

It's power use when idle is excellent !
It's power use under load is only slightly higher than the standard no-flash Momentus 7200.4, and it's a bit less than the WD Scorpio Black.

 

I am talking about this:


Source

I am aware of the Techreport review. Anandtech measured different idle power.

We'll see what the real life experiences say.

 

Unless you've jammed a WD Raptor into your laptop, the 7200.4 is most definately not "significantly" slower
The real-world performance differences between modern 7200rpm drives are miniscule - without benchmarking, you wouldn't even notice the differences between most drives.

Except that page 6 shows the 7200.4 loading Windows and a DOOM 3 level quicker than all the other drives on test...

Five 2.5-inch hard drives at 500GB - The Tech Report - Page 6

Whilst that may well be true, it needs to be made clear the differences are very small indeed.

 

You might be surprised. Some members have reported the Seagate 7200.4 took twice as long as the Hitachi 7k500 to install Windows. Let me know if you want the link for that, I can probably find it.

Copying a folder will go almost twice as slow. I call that significantly.

Read performance of the Seagate 7200.4 is not bad, agreed. Hitachi 7K500's read performance is even better though.

 

Lots of threads on vibration problems with the Seagate's constantly taking high marks there. Valid or not search the forums..

Between my 5400-500G drives, Seagate vs WD, the Seagate had more vibration. These were sitting side by side in USB cases but there was not a huge difference. I tried to measure noise by resting my RS sound meter directly on cases but could not get solid repeatable measurements between the two. I will try different weightings, later in the day, inside a box if the wife does not have me killed?

Today the postman is to deliver my XT. Before I do a clean install I plan to do a noise and vibration check using my 5400 rpm drives as a bench by swapping in and out of my thin and light and side by side on the desk. If there are any major mechanical differences, not speed, then I won't bother with an install.

If I get that far; any suggestions for software bench marks when OS installed?

 

Update...drive noise appears less than my Seagate 500g-5400.6 but with that 7200rpm tingle .

I just did a quick format and quick Error check so now going through a 6 to 9 hour clone using free Acronis that comes in ether WD or Seagate flavors. I'm not sure if there is a free version for the Hitachi of Toshiba drives.

 

6 to 9 hours? For how many GB's? I use the free Windows Backup incl. in Win 7. Full HDD image, 116 GB: about 1:20 to create the full image, 0:55 to install on new HDD. Via eSATA, i7-720QM.

I have 2 Seagate 7200.4, they both work fine.

 

Show off!!!

Ah, how I wish I had eSata. I should have mentioned this will be using USB, the UL30vt does not have the port. I only have W7HP nor is the SU7300 particularly fast.

Having a single drive bay, needing the space and not wanting to deal with two drives on flights..well, you can see where I'm going with this.

 

You can't use an Expresscard/34 or a HDD caddy in the ODD bay? They are both pretty cheap on Fleabay. When running on battery: remove HDD caddy or disable via Device Manager.

 

The UL30vt has no stinking ODD! Just 12 hours of fun on battery..well maybe 9 after this upgrade

 

OK, 8 hours of USB cloning complete.

Overall performance is similar to published reviews. If the catch kicks in, it’s fast, particularly on repeated runs. Your mileage will depend on your work flow and which drive you previously used. I’m coming from a 5400RPM drive so, of course, I’m happy.

Noise;

As the resonating MBP owner, I’m now aware that I have a 7200rpm drive. However nowhere as severe as reported! When holding my thin and light in one hand, you can just feel the very slight vibration from the drive. Unless you place your ear within 2 inches of notebook, all is quiet but you may get strange looks from others.

Added bonus for you ultra lights, I noticed that unlike the chirping noise on my 5400rpm drive, this one sounds like a light saber! This effect is when notebook quickly changes axis as in handling. You feel in more than hear it.

All in all it’s a keeper. When drive matches my work flow, it’s quick(er) and responsive. The drive has a 5 year warranty. Hopefully at sometime during the 5 years, SSD prices will be less insane for the larger drives.

The bench was performed on a cloned drive @70% full., 1st run.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 94.339 MB/s
Sequential Write : 89.775 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 28.394 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 35.042 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.298 MB/s [ 72.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.724 MB/s [ 176.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.733 MB/s [ 178.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.676 MB/s [ 165.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 67.5% (314.2/465.7 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2010/06/08 10:36:05
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)