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

Got mine. Did a fresh install of 7. Seems to be faster booting and opening programs-Photoshop, VMWare. Now, any special things I should do to optimize?

 

My came with 23 firmware and I updated to 24 since from reading all these
forum and seeing how many people were having issues. I thought I would go
ahead and update the firmware so I would be issue free ^_^ Did the update
and everything is running fine.

 

will it wipe the drive to update the firmware?

 

I was thinking of getting the SSD upgrade on my g53 that im ordering soon


I don't play a lot of games, but I do a lot of work on Photoshop/illustrator and video editing do you guys think it will be worth it?

 

No, it wont.

 

When people talk about videos messing up because of the hard drive, is that when the video has like a lot of tearing? Can't tell if it's possibly due to my new laptop's videocard without an external monitor or what you're talking about.

My Momentus XT (500GB) also makes a loud BEEP sound sometimes randomly which is fairly annoying, and yes I updated to SD24 instantly when I got it.

 

I havent yet heard this noise. And I'm under SD24 as well.

 

beep ? would need a speaker or something for that kind of sound i assume.

 

Nope! Built into the drive. I've heard it before myself but never in the laptop. Only when I had it connected to an external trying to clone my other drive(which didn't go well).

 

Hmmmm.?? Mine came with 23 FW but when I try to upgrade the utility will not complete. Any ideas???

EDIT: Just DL'ed the ISO and made a bootable disc. Worked fine that way.

 

People have complained on the seagate support forums about the beep or chirp noise that the drive can sometimes make. QuietHDD will solve that problem, google it and install that small program.

 

This beep noise, is it from the system speaker? If so, how could quietHDD fix that? quietHDD looks like it only fixes the clicking noise from when the hard drive starts after being parked.

 

can anyone confirm the WEI score of this drive? i've seen 5.9 which is the standard for platter drives, but i've also read that it can exceed that due to the ssd addition..

 

It doesn't go over 5.9 in any of the three Win 7 x64 systems I installed them on.

 

huh.. alright, that's cool i guess. over 5.9 is only for ssd's then? i guess the wei isn't the best representation of performance though

 

Of course it isn't, it isn't much of a benchmark at all, especially with unique devices like the momentus XT that only has advantages for certain things. Mine reads 5.9 also.

 

The noise sounds like a beep, it is coming from the hard drive itself. Look at the Seagate support forums, search under beep or chirp for more info. QuietHDD solves the problem.

here is an example of the same noise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5WPNwtlwd0

 

I get this beep on my M17X, I am using the Moumentus XT as my data drive, I hear it every once in awhile.
Thank you for your post, that is what I hear, it beeps just once, every so often.

 

Glad I could help. I don't know what exactly are the variables causing it, but I noticed that the same drive was perfectly quiet (in terms of beeps) in one system, but when moved to another it did it somewhat often (maybe once every hour on average). QuietHDD solved that problem, what it does is it keeps resetting the APM mode in short. You can read more about it on the QuietHDD page. It's a perfectly safe program and consumes hardly any system resources (less than 1mb).

 

Yeah I get that same beeping noise. I remember reading about some problem with videos - is that like a screen tearing type thing (which I am getting) or could that be caused by my laptop itself? Wondering if this HDD is at fault or not.

 

No, tearing isn't due to the drive

 

when you defragment the disk the nand is reset. takes about 4 boots for it to relearn.

 

I changed the APM setting to 255 with quietHDD and the HDD definitely makes LESS noise, but it's all not GONE yet - are there any other tweaks or ways to do anything about it? Also, what does AAM do?

 

thanks for that

the apm is what you want to disable in seagate drives.

 

Here is the essence of AAM from Wikipedia:

... Though there is no definition of the function implemented to provide acoustic management in the ATA standard, most drives use power control of the head-positioning servo to reduce vibration induced by the head positioning mechanism. Western Digital calls this InteliSeek(tm) which uses only enough head acceleration to position the head at the target track and sector "just in time" to access data. Previous seek mechanisms used maximum power and acceleration to position the head. This operation induced the familiar clicking vibration emanating from a seeking hard drive. Western Digital provides a demonstration flash movie illustrating just-in-time head positioning on their web site. ...

Based on my experience with other Seagate drives, setting AAM to 128 (the default set by SD24) from 254 might reduce real world performance by up 20%.

There is a significant tradeoff you make in order to have a more quiet drive IMO.

 

@regli,

Would you buy this drive again? I am really tempted, but I read there were reliability problems.

 

I actually don't own this drive. I visit this board because I consider the XT concept the near term future of large capacity hard drives and am very interested in peoples' experiences with the drive in real world applications.

That said, now that Sandy Bridge has hit the street though in rocky fashion, I am in the market for a new laptop and will likely get the cheapest available drive from the manufacturer and then install the XT or its descendent in place of it. Teasing problems, it seems, have been worked out with the newest firmware and I therefore won't hesitate to get one.

 

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I own this drive and I actually RMAed the first one I got from Newegg because it failed one of Seagate's own diagnostics. I returned it directly to Newegg and not the manufacturer, so I am not really sure what was wrong with it. However, my current momentus XT drive has been working fine for a number of months without issue, and it makes my laptop a lot more responsive than my desktop with a samsung spinpoint F3 drive.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have several laptop hard drives, WD, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi, etc...some internal some external. Never had a bad one so I cannot say which brand is better or worse. The grapevine is that WD is the most reliable but I really don't have any data to support it.

I am lucky enough to have the Intel X25-M 128GB. That one is flawless so far except that SSD is still too expensive for the storage capacity.

I am interested in the Seagate Momentus XT for a while. I am hoping to put it in a SB laptop in the near future. Amazon has it at a really good price right now so I just pulled the trigger. I just hope that I am not setting myself up for some aggravation. As the saying goes, put your money down and take your chance!!!

 

So I just got one of these and everything worked fine for a while but now I am getting a weird crackling noise whenever the hard drive is active. It is not that loud, I can not hear it over average room noise and I can't even hear it while I am typing, but it is worrisome. Is this normal for this drive or should I RMA? This is the sound except mine is not as loud or continuous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBpZ3bp18w

 

Here is an article that reports a problem with the drive. Have many users here experienced that problem? If so, has it been fixed with firmware updates?

Good idea to get this drive, or better to wait until Hybrid drive version 2 comes out?

 

That is an old issue, not sure why they would be addressing it now. With 23 version of the FW spindowns were eliminated totally and 24 supposedly alows spin down but much lesss frequently and controlable where as the default 22 FW version spin down was not controlable.

There are some people stating something about beeps but I have yet to encounter this with my two XT's................

 

So you would recommend the drive?

When one does a firmware update, does that reformat the drive, or is all one's data intact?

 

I have experienced spindowns with 24 and 23.

It happens when the laptop is in suspend and i move it around.

It also happens with the seagate 5400.6 i used to have, never happens with my toshiba or hitachi or any other hds ive had.

I think its annoying.

 

When the notebook is in suspend, why would the HDD be running at all?

 

My daughter uses the U80a with an XT. She loves the system as it is super fast. She does not seem to suffer spindowns with SD24 at all. I have one also in the P7805 but it is a DTR so I can not confirm it spinning down under movement. The U80a almost never sits on a desk and is moved around quite a bit.........

 

I know what you are saying. Mine will make noises when I move my lappy. Not suspended, but active. Say, surf the web-then I move the lappy and the drive makes a noise like something is loading or the head is searching for something. We all know that surfing the web isn't really HDD intensive, especially when you aren't going from page to page often. Oh well, it's barley noticable, but it's there.

 

Not HDD intensive but usually need to write to the disk.

Actually, I am wondering why laptop HDD need a spindown mode at all for say Windows(that is 90%+ of the notebook market). Windows frequently write small little things to the HDD all the time.

 

when the laptop resumes, it will bsod because the hdd will not start back up.

It is locked down and wont restart until all power is cut off from it.

This is what the spin down is.

It would probably do the exact same if it was not in suspend however i dont move the laptop around unless its closed

 

Under suspend with both of my systems I have spun down under suspend with SD22, SD23 and SD24 and not recieved a single BSOD. Both are Windows 7 machines though.................

 

Agreed-for cookies and maybe some images, etc. But I wonder why, doing nothing, just showing the desktop-when I move my lappy, the HDD makes the spinning/searching sound?

 

How often are you guys defragging?

 

On a system I use heavily (copy, create, edit and otherwise manipulate RAW photos...) I defrag my 'T' partition two or three times daily (during breaks) if I notice the system lagging.

The 'C' partition is normally defragged once a month on Microsoft Update Day - the second Tuesday of each month; right after all the security fixes have been installed.

 

Alright thanks. I didn't do separate partitions so I'll probably just stick to defragging once every month or two.

After about 5 or so reboots, it should relearn the SSD portion right?

 

I just bought an XT.. question? is there any difference from cloning my 500gb seagate to the XT vs. just doing a fresh install? (reason I'm asking is I just did a fresh install of Ultimate and don't want to do it again lol... but I dont want to mess up the performance)... will it affect that?

 

Cloning will work fine. It will start caching files as you use them whether that is from a fresh install or a cloned image.

 

What cloning software would people recommend?

Would you use cloning (at any rate cloning of a system partition) as part of a backup strategy?

 

I would recommend Acronis products.

Though, I still wouldn't recommend cloning as part of any backup 'strategy'.

If you are making clones consistently enough that they can be used as true backups, you are also cloning the conditions that will lead to the need to re-image the system.

A backup strategy includes backing up data on a timely schedule (i.e. when data changes enough to warrant a backup...) and a way to re-install an O/S and any needed utilities/apps in a streamlined fashion as possible.

There are too many professional software titles that will not work properly on a cloned system - a re-install will still be necessary for full functionality.

Cloning may be convenient, but it will simply not measure up to a proper clean install with the latest drivers, integrated SP (like Win7 SP1, for example that is now available) and the ability to change the order of the installation if/when some hiccup occurs in any specific program.

Here is an overview of my strategy (that needs to be updated since it was posted, btw):

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


This seems over the top for many, but when you're managing a couple of dozen systems it is the only sane way I've found to do it.

I have a complete list of drivers and programs and the exact order to install them for each different type of system I have - updating the install is painless and straightforward (something that can't be said of cloning, without a lot more work than simply copying a new/updated driver in my ordered list).

When the computers are ready to be sold, I install a new HDD, install the O/S and drivers and the buyer has invariably mentioned how rock stable their 'new' system is for them - even years later.

Cloning is a great idea with little practical value (to me).

Treating a re-installation as an ongoing excercise is more real world and much more beneficial (to solving any problems that a re-imaging/re-install indicates) than cloning ever offered (not only do you have to do a complete new fresh install while varying the order of drivers/utilities/apps to try to solve any problem, but once solved, you now needed to do a clone of that too (and hope it will actually work next time and not need each driver to be manually installed (like some ThinkPAD utilities a long time ago).

Good luck.

 

Maybe I'll get slammed here but I just use what's built into windows.

Backup and Restore lets you create a system image, which saves a .vhd of your disk (read: 7Zip can read it!) and then I boot into the system recovery menu from a Windows disk (can be a Windows 7 DVD/flash drive, or if you have a spare flash drive Windows can make it into a bootable recovery drive!) and then tell it to restore from the system image.

No 3rd party stuff to install, you can use your computer while it's backing up everything, very straightforward and, dare I say it? ...easy.

EDIT: Tanware noted this doesn't work well for multi-OS systems (because of bootloaders), so if you dual boot Linux and Win7, this might not be the best idea.

 

That sounds like a good method.