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

You're welcome.

If you do not use a lot of heavy duty programs (ie: huge installs...) then I recommend to try this 'pro tip':

Partition your C: drive for the maximum size you might 'ever' need it. As I've stated before; 100GB is fine for me with all of my 'heavy duty' programs installed and updated (especially with the 'users' folder on another drive/partition).

Instead of leaving that partition at 100GB once everything else is setup fully, I would 'shrink' it to the size of the data on it plus around 15GB or so (again, I'm assuming 'users' was moved to another partiton...).

Depending how 'light' your programs are, you may be able to shrink this partition to less than 40GB. This will definitely be noticeable in day to day use. The 'pro tip' part is that if you ever need more capacity for your C: drive as updates, Service Packs and your needs change, you can simply extend the drive's capacity as you need.

While you may be 'wasting' ~50GB of your HDD capacity... the benefits are that you will install Win7x64 once, and assuming you are shrinking it to the smallest size possible will be getting the maximum performance your drive/system/usage pattern/needs is capable of.

Good luck.

 

Hi tilleroftheearth,

I'm seriously doubting your explanations here:

I don't understand your point:
I need 100GB for system. My HDD has a 500GB capacity.
On a two platter disc, each platters has 250GB. You need 2x50GB (50GB by platter), so you need 20% of each platter from the outter edge.
On a single platter disc, you need 1x100GB of the platter, also 20%.

In both cases, the disc's head will go as far, leading to the same access times.

The reason why dual platter discs are faster (under some conditions only) is different.

Could you give us some explanation on why does that help at all?

Shrinking your partition to the minimum will only force the OS to deal with less space, and fragment much more the data. If you do that in order to limit the distance from outter edge, it seems useless to me, as filling a disc is always done from the outter to the inner edge, sequentially. If you happen to have uninstall/reinstall a lot of stuff (thus loosing free blocks), just defragment, once a month.

I may be missing the point in your tips, in this case i would be happy to understand

Thanks.

 

You're confusing the examples: if you had the same 250GB single platter, you would need 40% of the capacity...

As to why shrinking the already smaller partition further helps... see the last line in my reply from which you quoted from (but, didn't copy...).

 

But in your example you say, "given a 500GB", it's better to have a two platter drive. I still don't understand why a dual platter drive goes less far from the edge than a single platter, at same total size.

I going to check your link for the second part

 

You're right it wouldn't. The performance would be identical assuming two drives of the same capacity and rotational speed. I think tiller is overlooking the fact that the single platter drive has twice the data density of a dual platter drive. In fact I would say that a single platter alternative would be more advantageous since it would require less power to spin up and generate less heat and noise.

However, the partitioning strategy is a good one. Windows for some oddball reason will occasionally deposit data way out on the other side of the partition where performance is poor. Furthermore, even commercial disk defragmenters will not always consolidate that data contiguously from the start of the partition even if you run multiple passes for high performance. You'll want to leave at least 15% of your partition free to prevent excessive file swappping and improve defragmentation performance.

 

Yes, the single platter alternative would be less energetic indeed. However, density is bad for error rate, so for speed. I think more platters, more performance, in all cases. But not in the way it was presented by tiller

About the formatting strategy now. I red all the post. It's a very good post with a lot of good things to know, and tips to remember, for non experts. But it is way too sophisticated i think, now that NTFS and Win7 are much better at managing space. Keeping the temp away from system, as well as data, is a good thing. Having the temp as first partition is perfect too. But then, all the "35%" computation of how far it is still efficient or other very detailed stuff are too precise to be generally true, and would need an incredible amount of time to get honorable benchmarks.

As a last word, anyway, the Momentus XT makes all this theory a little harder to observe, as an nice optimisation on speed is already done on the most usual files, without you to be able to interact with it

Just so that nobody gets me wrong: i generally agree with all the partition optimisation I myself have 2 partitions, one for system+temp one for data, the first one being first on drive. It surely helps at more than one level.

 

FYI: German magazine Chip measured real world performance of both the 250GB single platter and 500GB dual platter. The 250GB performed a little better. Main reason is the lower latencies.

 

Is there any word on new Momentus models coming out anytime soon?

 

No. Not even a rumor.

 

Hopefully they are secretly cooking something good.

 

No one else is jumping in on the hybrid drive market... so... they don't really have to. With Z68 for desktops and with Macs coming with SSDs for the OS by default their market is shrinking more and more.

Such a shame.

 

I hope they come up with the firmware update before they release a new model.

 

What's wrong with SD25 in your opinion?

Mine works flawless. Fast and quiet.

SD26 is being shipped now but not brought out as an update yet.

 

Do you have any Source-engine games installed on your machine? When I used an XT and played any games on that engine, they would stutter badly.

 

No I have not installed any games on it.

 

I do infact own a Momentus XT 500gb and also have my Steam folder on it.
No stutter here, Team Fortress 2 runs silky smooth.

 

can I run 2 Seagate Momentus XT 500gb in Raid 0 ? would it make any difference? Im planning to do so

 

they say its not suitable for raid

 

The performance you get from Raid0 and these drives is actually very impressive.

 

So new XT's are running it? Do we know of any changes?

 

Yes the new drives come with it and I know nothing about changes.

Well the only thing I know was there's one person on Macrumors would had problems with SD26 and his MBP, he downgraded the firmware to SD25. That solved the problems.

 

Hm. Are there typically changelogs with firmware updates? I bought mine post-SD25.

 

I agree. The drives work fine in Raid0 or Raid1.

 

The only feature that i miss on this hhd, is the free-fall sensor. Hopefully they release an updated version this year.

 

In case you didn't know, a free fall sensor only works when your laptop is powered on.

When you're laptop is off or asleep the heads will already be parked.

 

I don't know why but the regular momentus has the freefall sensor but XT doesn't.

 

I just installed a Momentus XT yesterday, my experience has been mainly negative so far; it came with firmware SD26.

My Momentus XT makes a loud ongoing chirping noise in 3 second intervals when the drive is doing nothing and the drive runs hot on idle (48 degrees) and goes up to 60 degrees when running SeaTools.

I bought the drive so that I can have some time for an SSD upgrade but from my above experience, I'm thinking of returning the drive and get a 7K500/7K750 instead.

Question to those who've had the drive for long:

Does all Momentus XT's make a ongoing chirping sound on idle?

Are my my idle and load temps normal for a Momentus XT?

 

It's strange, I've seen quite a lot of problems with SD26, while most people with SD25 are totally satisfied.

There are instructions on the Seagate forum for downgrading. I do not know if it voids warranty or not. I've seen some people have success with the downgrade.

I am glad I don't have to go back a to a normal 7200rpm HDD. I love the extra boost the 4GB cache brings.

 

Can you possibly dig up the link for the downgrade instructions?

I'll give the downgrade a try after I run my long test with SeaTools. I'm pretty sure it will not void the warranty but I'll read up just to make sure.

If all goes well with SD25 I'll keep the drive if not I'm returning for 7K500, I don't mind losing performance for silence and a cooler palm rest.

 

As far as I understand you'll need to make a bootable ISO with the SD25 firmware update.

Then you'll need to boot off it and type a command.

anyway, it should be all explained here.

 

Thanks Phil.

I give it a good reading before I decide to flash.

On to the positive: The Momentus XT is noticebly faster than my default 7200.4 and bit more quiet on idle and loud when it's not chirping. Fresh install of Windows was really fast, boot times have improved a lot and multitasking feels a lot snappier with the Momentus XT.

I just got a Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro too and I'm very impressed with the external it's a bit faster than my old internal 7200.4, runs cooler and noticebly quieter than both the 7200.4 and Momentus XT. Not too sure but I think it's a 7K750 (500GB) inside.

Some benchmarks on SD26:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/809/hdtuneu.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/856/crystalmark.png/

 

Can you post a HDTune shot for your hitachi? should be a relatively fast drive.

 

Got them at the bottom of the thread here Phil:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ket-upgrades/596480-external-hdd-choices.html

Edit:

I just finished running all tests in SeaTools, yes ALL! Everthing passed without erros, HDTune health report is normal no errors and HDTune Error Scan passed no errors. I even uninstalled Lenovo Power Maangement for good measure making sure it's not software making the drive costantly idle causing the chirping sound but all my efforts has not solved the noise. I call it chirping but it's sound more like a Frog croaking, I'm very certain it's a firmware issue and will be submitting the issue to Seagate when I have time.

 

Nemix, can you compare to the noise i was reporting please?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7081210-post1398.html

Thanks

 

Hi Ninj,

That's the exact same noise I get when the hard drive is idle.

Judging from your post no one else has the same problem?

Should I be thinking about returning it?

 

Exact, my concern is when my laptop is powered on

 

Nemix,

You may want to consider returning it. Mine is silent.

 

Without a doubt, return it.

 

My end to end error has reached 14 now, every week or so it goes up by one, the drive does seem slower booting into windows, but the Seagate diagnostic passes.

 

Phil.

I ended up returning the Momentus XT and bought a 7K500 off eBay, the 7K500 is really hard to find right now. I didn't want to take another chance on the XT in case I get a another noisy hard drive or some other problems pass my return date.

It's a shame cause I really wanted to use the Momentus XT for the time being and save up some money for a SSD. The 7K500 I bought is pretty expensive off eBay thus why I went Momentus XT in the first place plus I'd have to deal overseas for return if there is any problems.

Anyhow, thanks for the insight on the Momentus XT. It really is a great hard drive, a great performer and the 4GB SSD NAND works really well, I just got unlucky this time around with Seagate.

EDIT:

I've been trying PerfectDisk's SSD Optimization on the Momentus XT for the past week and it works really well. It does not erase the NAND and only optimizes extreme low performance files without moving a lot of files around treating the XT as a SSD thus not erasing the NAND cache. Then you also have the option to do a full fragmentation every few months or so removing all fragmentation on the drive and let the NAND rebuild it's cache again from scratch. IMO, great software for Momentus XT at least worth a try.

PS. When using the software for the first time make sure you set it to recognize the XT as a SSD if you do not want to do a full fragmentation and erase your existing NAND cache.

There's also a free software from Apacer to optimize SSD: http://emea.apacer.com/en/products/SSD+Optimizer.htm
I think it works the same way as PerfectDisk but uncertain, it runs in the background and optimizes automatically. It's meant for Apacer SSD's but I think it'll work on any drive, I installed on my sisters laptop for testing without any problems during installation.

 

Are you sure?

 

Sorry if this questions sounds completely misinformed, but have there been plans by Seagate [or any manufacturer] on a "larger" hybrid drive? Say with a 16gb NAND built in or 32GB?

 

No rumors or anything yet.

4GB is enough for caching considering how it works. 16GB would push the price wayyyy too high. If anything they miiiight move to 8GB.

I'd rather see mechanical drive improvements since that's where the XT falls behind modern drives.

 

Party Pooper.

 

HAha, yeah can't help it =p

I wish they'd release an 8GB version. That would be really great.

 

So after 3 months of use in my brother's M5030, the MomentusXT really hasn't sped up the boot times at all. Is the break in period for it to gauge the use of the user that long? My brother pretty much has the same routine everyday for the laptop..

 

There is no break-in period.

 

Well there still should be a time when the drive learns the common usage of the user...

 

Nope. It begins caching immediately and there's no learning curve. The cache does not say "oh well he uses X program a lot, i'll just store that" it says "oh he's just opened X program, let me start pulling relevant data... oh now he's opened y program, let me start pulling relevant data"

Restarting 3 times is all it takes to see the full benefits because it will be able to cache more efficiently/ make more efficient predictions.

 

There is on some drives. First few hdtune (read) runs on brand new Fujitsu's I ran a few years ago would produce very jagged jagged graphs. It took a few runs to smooth out.