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

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Charles P. Jefferies, May 18, 2010.

  1. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    If it's that little than the MomentusXT fails because I restarted 5 times for my Latitude E6410 and my brother's M5030 and it felt nearly the same every single time, of course no scientific measurements but me counting.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Aug 6, 2011
    #1701
  2. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Well try some actual programs that measure boot time.

    What are you comparing it to? I believe I can turn on my computer in something like 15 second. My old 5.4kRPM drive was 38 seconds.

    Use this:
    http://www.planetsoft.org/utils/BootTimer.exe
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 6, 2011
    #1702
  3. Nemix77

    Nemix77 Notebook Deity

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    Sounds like Windows scheduled fragmentation is on, I turn off the schedule even when using normal hard drives on the desktop and portable.

    For me the break in period is after a clean install of Windows and programs, full manual defrag then 5 restarts does the job. Afterwards reboots and even from cold start Windows loads in under 30 seconds.
     
    Nemix77, Aug 7, 2011
    #1703
  4. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    In the boottimer.exe topic I had a 20 second bootup my first one and then 15 second boot ups consistently after.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 7, 2011
    #1704
  5. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    I have definitely noticed a shorter boot time since installing the Momentus XT in my HP G62t, but how can you test how much is coming from the increase in disk speed (OEM 5400 vs 7200), and how much is coming from the SSD?
     
    WackyT, Aug 7, 2011
    #1705
  6. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Well one reboot gave me 20 seconds. So let's say that the SSD was doing literally nothing (not the case, of course) than after the next boot, which was 15 seconds, we see the SSD was obviously responsible for at least a 5 second boost.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 7, 2011
    #1706
  7. Patrck_744

    Patrck_744 Burgers!

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    What is the latest firmware on this thing? I have SD24 on my drive.
     
    Patrck_744, Aug 7, 2011
    #1707
  8. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hungry Man, Aug 7, 2011
    #1708
  9. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    Mine has SD26 on it.
     
    WackyT, Aug 7, 2011
    #1709
  10. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Oh, it must have been SD26 that was the most recent update.

    Yeah, SD26 isn't publicly released.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 7, 2011
    #1710
  11. Patrck_744

    Patrck_744 Burgers!

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    Linky link pls. :D
     
    Patrck_744, Aug 8, 2011
    #1711
  12. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    I think it's just being shipped with some before the official release.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 8, 2011
    #1712
  13. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    WackyT, Aug 9, 2011
    #1713
  14. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yeah, not updating.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 9, 2011
    #1714
  15. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Phil, Aug 21, 2011
    #1715
  16. 9800xpv

    9800xpv Notebook Evangelist

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    9800xpv, Aug 25, 2011
    #1716
  17. ickibar123

    ickibar123 Notebook Consultant

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    ickibar123, Aug 25, 2011
    #1717
  18. atobe

    atobe Notebook Enthusiast

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    i'm going stick with my sd24 i haven't had any problems with it and seems like sd26 just fixed 1 specific problem.
     
    atobe, Aug 26, 2011
    #1718
  19. truckinguy

    truckinguy Notebook Geek

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    I'm with you. I have SD25 and works fine. Also if Seagate had it up on it's site I would try it but from another site I'm leary.
     
    truckinguy, Aug 26, 2011
    #1719
  20. verynice69

    verynice69 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Question: how quiet (or loud) is your harddrive? Mine is annoying me with the buzzing and clicking noises. It's louder than my old seagate HD. I've done numerous tests on the drive, and they all say that it's health is fine so I'm wondering if that drive itself is noisy.

    Thanks :D
     
    verynice69, Aug 26, 2011
    #1720
  21. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Silent.

    You could try an RMA but I doubt they'd let you. I had issues with noise when installing the OS and then... idk... it just settled in and there's no noise at all.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 27, 2011
    #1721
  22. Duct Tape Dude

    Duct Tape Dude Duct Tape Dude

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    Yeah it's pretty quiet for me. If the room is dead silent I can sometimes hear the heads park when it's idling. I'm running SD25.
     
    Duct Tape Dude, Aug 27, 2011
    #1722
  23. Prema

    Prema Your Freedom, Your Choice

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    Prema, Aug 27, 2011
    #1723
  24. Prema

    Prema Your Freedom, Your Choice

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    Double post...sorry
     
    Prema, Aug 27, 2011
    #1724
  25. truckinguy

    truckinguy Notebook Geek

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    Mine is real quiet. I never hear it.
     
    truckinguy, Aug 27, 2011
    #1725
  26. verynice69

    verynice69 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Is there anything I can do to get this one replaced?
     
    verynice69, Aug 27, 2011
    #1726
  27. truckinguy

    truckinguy Notebook Geek

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    Make sure you have the lastest update for it. Download SD25 gotten at Seagate's site. I believe some of the guys who had the older version firmware had noises,etc.
    When and where did you buy it? Seagate has an excellant web site and fourms. Check there with your info.
     
    truckinguy, Aug 27, 2011
    #1727
  28. hydra

    hydra Breaks Laptops

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    Older Seagate drive, what speed? Mine is a little nosier than my old 5400 drive. In my thin and light it sounds like a light saber when pitched around on different axes. I'm still running old SD23 firmware. All this with ear close to drive as my fan will mask the drive noise.

    Wish I could hear yours to compare as my WD will also click and buzz when drive active. Let us know if you hear a difference with your new drive.

    Today I have around 3100 power on hours with about 100k air miles which includes x-rays and being throw around in overhead bins. Zero problems!
     
    hydra, Aug 27, 2011
    #1728
  29. verynice69

    verynice69 Notebook Enthusiast

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    The older seagate drive was a ST9500420AS. It died on me and Dell replaced it with a refurb Hitachi. I decided to replace the Hitachi with the momentus XT and use the Hitachi as an external drive instead. The thing is that the ST9500420AS was quieter than the XT, and that died, so I'm a bit concerned.

    I agree with the light saber noise, I get that sometimes when I carry my laptop around and tilt it a certain way (although this used to happen with the old seagate drive as well). I just try to avoid moving around my laptop while it's on now (kinda defeats the purpose of a laptop though).

    I'll record the sounds when I get back home and post them on here later. The other thing I should mention is that before (maybe 1-2 weeks ago), the sounds would sometimes be there when I turn on the computer and other times they would be absent. But in the last dew days they've always been present everytime I boot. The smart scan in HD tune says everything is fine except for end-to-end something (which failed).
     
    verynice69, Aug 27, 2011
    #1729
  30. verynice69

    verynice69 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Its running SD26. I bought it online about 4 weeks ago (but only got around to installing it 3 weeks ago) Direct Canada, it was the cheapest I could find it in Canada. FWIW it's been making noise since the beginning. I'm just a bit paranoid since my last harddrive died almost suddenly, so I'm being extra cautious this time around.
     
    verynice69, Aug 27, 2011
    #1730
  31. hydra

    hydra Breaks Laptops

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    I always use a bit of caution when drives are spun up, they can never equal an SSD in that regard..

    About every blue moon I'll check for SMART errors or run the Seagate diagnostics. As with ALL my drives, the good stuff is backed up. I do have a spare cheap drive locked and loaded as I can change out drive in 5 minutes.

    Still waiting on the 500G SSD for $200 with 5 year warranty :)
     
    hydra, Aug 28, 2011
    #1731
  32. Iucounu

    Iucounu Notebook Consultant

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    I've been looking at hard drives for one of the family laptops. Is there any reason to buy the Seagate Momentus XT these days, with high-performance drives like the Hitachi and WD 7200 RPM drives out there? Wouldn't those be better on reliability and offer even more space?
     
    Iucounu, Aug 28, 2011
    #1732
  33. hydra

    hydra Breaks Laptops

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    Well, interesting drives like the Hitachi 7K750 are new, the MXT is old news.

    Hopefully someone will post boot and shutdown times to compare. Phil mentioned new XT drives that are supposed to be soon.. so things should stay interesting?
     
    hydra, Aug 29, 2011
    #1733
  34. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    The hard drives themselves have been outclassed but the 4GB nand has still managed to keep certain aspects of performance better than other competing drives.
     
    Hungry Man, Aug 29, 2011
    #1734
  35. Iucounu

    Iucounu Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks, people.
     
    Iucounu, Sep 1, 2011
    #1735
  36. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Not necessarily true in my opinion. Without the NAND the XT still beats the WD Black 750GB in filecopies. In heavy multi tasking the WD Black wins. In normal usage there is no noticeable difference.

    And like you said when the NAND helps the XT is significantly faster.
     
    Phil, Sep 4, 2011
    #1736
  37. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yes, I agree. But from what I've heard there are mechanical drives that (when negating the cache) can be faster.

    Still, the 4GB goes a long long way. I plan on upgrading soon to the 8GB version.
     
    Hungry Man, Sep 7, 2011
    #1737
  38. SoundOf1HandClapping

    SoundOf1HandClapping Was once a Forge

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    Wait, they're coming out with an 8GB version?
     
    SoundOf1HandClapping, Sep 7, 2011
    #1738
  39. jclausius

    jclausius Notebook Virtuoso

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    jclausius, Sep 7, 2011
    #1739
  40. Quanger

    Quanger Notebook Evangelist

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    8gb NAND? Thats really not a whole lot of improvements if you're a user that only uses the same 2 or 3 programs everyday. I really only play Dragon's Nest and Heroes of Newerth. The 4gb version I think is sufficient for that.
     
    Quanger, Sep 7, 2011
    #1740
  41. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Actually, this will be a huge improvement - probably more than going from 4GB RAM to 8GB RAM with Win7x64 imo (~60% increase in productivity).

    See:
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ades/441911-8gb-vs-4gb-ram-faster-system.html


    I'm hoping that with double the size, they've actually doubled the channels to the nand which would make it twice as fast with that simple change. Not to mention 'deeper' interleaving (basically, RAID'ing the nand chips) to further increase the responsiveness of the HDD/SSD combo.

    See:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup


    Can't wait to play with this drive. :)
     
    tilleroftheearth, Sep 7, 2011
    #1741
  42. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Phil, Sep 14, 2011
    #1742
  43. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    Updated my ST95005620AS successfully from SD26 to SD28 on my HP G62T in AHCI mode. Thanks Phil! :cool:
     
    WackyT, Sep 14, 2011
    #1743
  44. Duct Tape Dude

    Duct Tape Dude Duct Tape Dude

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    Do you notice a difference at all from SD26? I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading.
     
    Duct Tape Dude, Sep 14, 2011
    #1744
  45. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    I'll be using that laptop tonight for my college class homework. I'll post an update as to whether I notice any difference in perceived performance from SD26. I'm sure somebody will post up a complete benchmark comparison also in the near future.
     
    WackyT, Sep 14, 2011
    #1745
  46. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    There should be no difference in performance between SD25 and SD26, there was a single bug fix between the two.
     
    Hungry Man, Sep 14, 2011
    #1746
  47. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    I think he wants a comparison to SD28, the new firmware Phil posted above.
     
    WackyT, Sep 14, 2011
    #1747
  48. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    Ohhh, I hadn't noticed. Thank you.
     
    Hungry Man, Sep 14, 2011
    #1748
  49. flynnaz

    flynnaz I am a Night Elf Mohawk!

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    I went for SD24 to SD28, any improvements from SD24 to SD28? I noticed now I can have the latest Intel RST driver and the updater works, that alone is a big improvement :)
     
    flynnaz, Sep 14, 2011
    #1749
  50. WackyT

    WackyT Notebook Deity

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    The SD28 firmware update seems to load applications like Word and Acrobat faster than SD26 did. Also bootup of Win 7 x64 felt faster.
     
    WackyT, Sep 14, 2011
    #1750
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