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

Wow, The WD 500GB Blue, let alone the 320GB Black, wipe the floor on 4K's of this drive.

WD 500GB Blue
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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 : 75.923 MB/s
Sequential Write : 75.819 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 31.316 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 39.997 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.434 MB/s [ 105.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.099 MB/s [ 268.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 1.097 MB/s [ 267.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.143 MB/s [ 279.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [D: 8.4% (39.2/465.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/06/09 1:08:18
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Here's to hoping WD offers a similar tech in their Caviar drives.

 

You are comparing apples to oranges. Maybe you miss this in CrystalDiskMark's Help, first paragraph:

Besides you are comparing [ D: 8.4% (39.2/465.8 GB)] with hydra's [ C: 67.5% (314.2/465.7 GB)]?

 

Yep, my apologies for not running this before cloning and not running it 5X. The 500GB WD Blue IS the drive I replaced with the XT.

I assure you, in real life, the XT smacks down on the Blue. I will say the WD Blue is the quietest 2.5" drive I have used so far. The XT battery life is slightly worse, again in real world, after playing a 720p film and checking remaining battery. No way old blue is going back in.

I hope to see Hitachi and WD battle in the Hybrid market as well.

I'm not sure these synthetic benchmarks do the cache justice. I would refer back to here; Seagate Momentus XT Review | StorageReview.com

 

I plugged my WD 500 Blue back into my SU7300 powered Asus. I had forgotten to run Crystal Mark in my late night haste to swap drives. This drive will serve as my emergency fail safe drive while on the road. This is the drive I cloned from..

WD5000BEVT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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 : 66.602 MB/s
Sequential Write : 67.681 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.124 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 29.195 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.290 MB/s [ 70.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.641 MB/s [ 156.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.636 MB/s [ 155.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.653 MB/s [ 159.4 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 67.4% (314.0/465.7 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2010/06/09 13:08:25
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

I like TanWare’s numbers better

And the XT , both single runs only, when run 5x, the numbers get better.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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)

Somebody send me their 7.5k Hitachi for testing!

 

That sounds awesome mate. I think I will buy one, based on your recommendation

Cheers!

 

That's a better comparison because all the rest of the hardware is the same but did you defrag the Blue before benching? Was the anti virus disabled in both cases?

 

I think CrystalMark is overrated. My Western Digital Black outperformed the 7K500 is most of Crystal marks but in real life the 7K500 was faster in most areas.

I would suggest using the 7zip benchmark. It's free and good for indicating real life performance.

It can be found in the standard install of 7zip, File Manager, Tools.

 

Joe,

No defrag and Antivir running in both cases. I'm going to fire me.

I'm now into undervolting this thing and it's working very well with throttle stop. This way I should more than gain back parasitic losses of lighted keyboards or more aggressive H Drives.

 

I have little faith as well in this showing real world benefits but figured I'd run my 7K500 in my U81-a. I think the numbers of the XT are impressive for the HDD section.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 B5 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/sec [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 bytes/sec]

Sequential Read : 90.715 MB/s
Sequential Write : 89.576 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 30.561 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 32.118 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.340 MB/s [ 82.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.623 MB/s [ 152.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.714 MB/s [ 174.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.674 MB/s [ 164.6 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 16.1% (75.2/465.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/06/12 2:04:33
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Since all are limited by the USB 2.0 speed you're best to look at durabililty. I use WD Passport drives and have been quite impressed with them. I have three of them. Had four, but sold one.

I don't think you'll see much difference between the externals though.

 

Wrong thread. Make your own if you have a question on external drives. Other than that, what htwingnut said.

 

Tiger Direct finally got them, just ordered 2x drives for my New Raid0 setup.......

 

Hi, guys, I know that it is still very new but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with the new Momentus XT hybrid drive.

How is it? How does it perform? Any problems thus far?

I've read a lot of reviews and am mainly looking for experience. Thanks!

 

If you have not already read it this thread contains some info you might like to read while you wait for someone with actual personal experience of the drive.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...tus-xt-hybrid-hdd-w-built-4gb-ssd-coming.html

 

LOL, I appreciate your reply. However, I think that thread is best described as the "Momentus XT Rampant and Unfounded Speculation Thread".

Does anyone have any experience? Many of the Newegg reviews listed a huge amount of vibration and noise...

 

I got one from newegg and dont have any odd noise, it vibrates somewhat but no more than the drive it replaced.

It seems fast, sometimes it seems SUPER fast.

 

I find the reviews quite contradictory, in particular in relation to power consumption.

 

how are you measuring power consumption?

 

LOL, I find that NewEgg can also be a "Rampant and Unfounded Speculation Thread".

All I can add is that at times the drive is very fast, at other times just fast. This is compared to two different 5400 RPM drives. I do find that the drive makes a bit of noise, at the last second, as it spins down to a stop. Seagate still using a landing zone? I have not noticed any real word battery difference during the last week.

After undervolting, I have noticed the drive runs about 40C due to single fan not running as much in my Asus.

I have really run the drive hard, no pun, during the last week so no SMART errors or burning smells detected. ymmv.

When SSD's are $200 for 500Gigs, this drive goes.

 

that's typically what you're going to get. The Drive index's what applications you use most and loads them to the NAND, everything else is 7200RPM 2.5" speed. The index service seems to work very well after only a few tries, however I wouldn't expect it to work very well if you like to play 5 or so games at the same time over the course of a week. The point is that it's approximately the same price as a regular drive, you're not sacrificing storage space, it's significantly less than a conventional SDD, and the times that it *does* work, you get 80-100% improvements in read. Give it another generation or two, when we get 8-32GB of NAND and better indexing services and it will really start to shine. Maybe even the ability to format the NAND and load up windows 7 on it instead of using the index service to select the most used apps?

 

Yep, I didn't want to repeat what had been said over and over. Hopefully someone with 7200 Drives will chime in..

I hoping that WD and others gets in on the hybrids, then we can watch the fur fly?

 

well, like I said in another thread. my raid 0 7200rpm drives were about as fast as my regular desktop 7200rpm drive. so I think we should take anything we can get.

 

I have had the chance to play with the drive since it came out (several weeks before and after our review was posted) and I have to say that most of the vibration comments on NewEgg and other sites are pretty bogus. It feels like any other 7200RPM drive in a notebook chassis. Compared to the Western Digital Scorpio Black it is pretty silent and vibration-free but against a 5400rpm drive you might be able to feel it in a notebook setting.

Also the internal design is *identical* to the 7200.4 before it... nothing changed inside, only the newer controller board with the hybrid setup.

 

figured they were bogus, probally people going from 4200 or 5400 rpm drives.

 

Haha, well said.

I concur with what many people are thinking; that the Newegg negative experiences probably can be attributed to the user being used to slower/quieter drives.

The dilemmafor me is this: I don't need anything over ~60 gigs on my laptop, so I'm thinking I'll just spend the few extra dollars and get a real ssd for it. After all, I still would have the old 320GB drive that came in my laptop to carry around if I really needed to.

I have thoroughly enjoyed having my OCZ Vertex boot drive (30GB) in my desktop. Can't wait to have something similar in my laptop!

Do you guys see any error in my reasoning?

 

In that situation, I would think there is no reason to even consider any other approach. A 60GB or even 80GB SSD is still only about $200 or just above, so its a no-brainer. I wouldnt burn any more time on analysis. I Have the same OCZ as boot/OS in my desktop/home server and indeed it makes it very straightforward decision. There is no downside to it.

The Momentus Hybrid drive is something else. Its really a kludge, a bridge solution for those who would need larger capacity, where SSD becomes unreasonable in price. But for someone who needs 60GB capacity only, the momentus cant give you any upside - just only downside.

 

Nope,as skagen, lots of people have done just as you want, particularly people with two drive trays. Others use an external case as you plan to do.

Choice is good, no?

 

Techreport has published their review. The most amazing thing is the power consumption in the review. The max was 2.5W while they were benching with IOMeter.

Seagate's Momentus XT hard drive - The Tech Report - Page 1

 

yup, Nand flash needs almost nothing to operate.It's not surprising it draws the same power as any other 7200RPM laptop drive.

 

But have you seen the other reviews? Others have measured ~ 3W so it's a bits amazing why the power consumption is less at the review of Techreport.

 

as if .5w is a lot? I'm sure variations in the devices used, conditions in which they were tested and the inaccuracy of those devices can account for the .5 extra

 

0.5watt difference is quite significant imo. it can be half an hour on 8 hours.

 

idle is more important than loaded power draw for battery imo, since usually when you're on the battery you're not doing anything significantly power demanding. Also, Does the loaded power draw indicate that the MHDD is being used or does represent data from the NAND being used? These are questions that probably won't be answered. Besides those points, I wonder how much time difference the NAND has on loading applications versus the decreased 'estimated' time it has on the battery? Also, the fact that it outperforms several SSD's is a good indication that it's a fairly competent performance/watt MHDD. Either way, I'm not sure people looking at this drive will dismiss it for .5W that could be explained by, again, differences in devices used and testing methods.

 

What matters to me is the real effect on battery life.


Source

That doesn't look promising.

 

again, is Mobile mark going off the MHDD or the NAND? Any way to measure or find out will distort the battery results. I would think that since the NAND indexes the most commonly used applications, that in the real world it would perform better. 4GB is not a lot. If you spend 7hours somehow surfing the web or writing on notepad, those applications are going to be loaded on the NAND, which is less power consuming than the MHDD is. I won't doubt that it consumes more power, as it does have a 4GB NAND device on it, so it's just physically more HDD to power, however, I don't think that it will translate into an hour of lost time once the index service starts to kick in and pick up the things you use most on the go. For the rest of the plugged-in world, it won't matter of course. Traditional Benchmarks are just not going to work very well testing something that adjusts itself to the way you use your computer.

 

I think surfing the web will write files (cache)to the HDD, so the SSD part will not be used in that case.

The browser will be loaded in memory, so there won't be much reading from the HDD or SSD.

 

I got burnt by TD so no drives from them. They lied and said shipping same day but then it went right to backorder status. I called and cancled.

I ordered my first drive from NewEgg yesterday and am hoping there still are some left tomorow so I can order a second. If that goes as planned hopefully a Raid0 by the end of next week.............

Edit; my concern is while the SSD is read only the Addaptive Memory tech does still write to the SSD section. It apparemtly does this often as well if the cache can be flushed. This does give me some pause on SSD section longevity but hopefully being SLC that will be of little concern.

I am also hoping by upping the SSD section to 8GB and cache to 64 megs effective along with the speed increases it should lower the SSD section flushing,file replacement, and maybe even give greater life?

 

TD does that a lot, you just have to use some common sense some times before you try to take their word for it. ie, same day shipping on commonly Out of stock items. not that that makes what they do right, it's just that they do it often.

 

I had figured they just got some in, like some other sites will get stock in, and put them up. I had been hitting the three major sties, Amazon NewEgg and TD that listed them. First one to get them where I could order two for RAID was going to be the winner, and I was surfing them like a mad man so the instant they were there I'd be able to order.

I now realize they are apparently trickling out too NewEgg so it will have to be a one at a time order. So be it, but I will never order anything from TD after that. Nor would I ever recommend them and I personally recommend alot of online pc purchases.

When I called it was the "We're sorry but we don't expect them for at least three weeks but is there something else we can sell you" bit. That is outright bait and switch. It is like we now have a hold on the money from your card so what else can we sell you instead. Fortunately I can afford the hold and still look to other options.

Back on topic, does anyone know if QuietHDD, or similar, will be able to set the drive(s) not too spin down?

 

yeah, last I checked newegg is 1 per customer per 48hours. Either they're crazy popular or for some reason they just didn't make enough. Actually, it's both.

it does everything a regular 7200RPM drive does. It's primary the reason for making the drives infact. IMO people expected gold from these things and it's just not what it was designed to do. First and foremost it's a high performing 7200RPM drive, after that fact, it has a 4GB NAND to speed it up a bit occasionally. It will be interesting to see how they work in RAID with a combined NAND size of 8GB however, and if the seagate service can even work effectively in raid.

 

There is one review of it in Raid0, it looked promising. While the drives are HDD section I rememeber seeing somewhere the HDD bios supposedly did not support the turning off of APM. I'm not sure if real time then it could be set either. The 7200.4 works great with QuietHDD from when I had it in my U81-a.

 

Downloading QuietHDD, will test for you tomorrow.


Running the software says drive compatible for Advanced Power Management (APM) and Automatic acoustic management (AAM) when installed. Software disabled until a later time to evaluate settings.

 

thanks for the link, it definitely looks like they work in raid. hehe
I can't wait to get near SDD speeds with 1TB of storage.

 

What "Seagate service"? There is no Seagate service that would be required by the drive. All of the flash handling happens internally, to the outside the drive appears like an ordinary hard drive. Good thing, too, since there would otherwise be no easy way, if any way at all, for an OS-level service to talk to the individual drives...

 

the service that analyzises which files to mirror into the NAND drive is specifically what I was talking about.

 

There is no such service. All of this is done inside the drive. The OS has no access to this.

P.S.: Note that this is different from Vista's "ReadyDrive" idea.

P.P.S.: Since this is the hard drive doing the analysing, which has no concept of files, what is mirrored are hard drive blocks, not files. So, in general, the drive will not even mirror complete files to the NAND cache.

 

so how's the price and availability now? And have many ppl who ordered this got it yet?

 

yes there is a service(I never said on the os level, but I can see the confusion), the firmware on the hdd does this internally, bit it *is* a seperate application that seagate has put on there.

seagates own description of the technology seems to suggest that it's identifying specific files instead of just the raw blocks. I can't see it working at all if it were to copy partial files onto the NAND.

 

NewEgg now has an ETA of 6/23. I will get the second drive and try out the raid. If I don't like it then one of these will become the second drive for storage and personal (user) folders And for the OS drive I'm thinking a Sandforce 120GB. If I like the raid I will just get a third one for my U81-a as that is a single drive.

Right now I have a 320 Black for the primary drive and use the 500 Blue for storage and personal (user) files.