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

....if you don't have enough memory.

The real solution is to simply add another stick of RAM - paging doesn't noticeably slow your system unless you're short of RAM.

Shoving the pagefile onto an SSD on an average 4GB machine won't make much difference at all, unless you're doing specific loads-of-RAM things

 

I'm using it with my Acer 3820T. Get anywhere from 4 to 8 hours of battery life (depending on use, i.e., strictly surfing pages vs streaming, etc.). No heat issues, and completely silent. Well, a slight ticking sound I guess when the drive is searching but no louder than the Scorpio Blue it replaced.

 

I just redid by boot time with a fresh user with no password. Posted as in the boottimer thread under Windows OS's I now get on a bare boot 12.511 seconds. This is without a doubt way faster than any other HDD so far.......

 

Still debating between this and Intel 160GB SSD. I figure I can always sell the SSD (it's only a $315 markup for Envy 14 configuration) and at least recover my costs and then go with a Momentus XT if I find space is a concern. Maybe WD will surprise us with a similar drive in the next few weeks, but with 8GB in RAID! I'd pay $200 for that.

 

I got my Seagate 500gb hybrid. After about 2 or 3 reboots, I can get to my desktop in about 40 seconds. I have a question to others that have this drive. It seems there is a 100mb partition on there that I can't delete or extend. Does anyone know what this is used for? Right now it is unallocated space. I don't know if I should format it.

 

My single platter 250GB Momentus XT is smiling upon you all.

 

Leave it alone.

 

Cool. I'm considering buying this drive.

Can you post a HDTune Pro screenshot of the first page + random acces benchmark page?

How is your battery life experience?

 

it's for windows 7 resources. leave it alone. 100mb is nothing anyway.

 

So I should leave it as unallocated? Or format it as a partition and leave it alone?

 

are you installing windows now? Just delete all partitions, format and it will automatically allocate the 100mb for 'system resources'. If you've already installed windows and using a partition manager to see it, don't do anything.

 

What part of "leave it alone" is it you don't understand? "Leave it alone" means exactly what it says.

 

I assume of course, "the leave it alone" part.

 

Lol. Ok I will leave it alone. Thanks.

 

And my 160gb intel G2 SSD is laughing .

Seriously... I was trying to get one momentus xt but one of my friends "gave me" this SSD in exchange for 4gb of ram for his envy 15... That was an offer I couldnt deny...

 

Have any of the users partitioned the drive to segregate Windows vs. Data? I typically use 2 HD's in my desktop because I find Windows drives are far more likely to have problems. Given the drive's hybrid design, I wonder how a partition would impact performance...

 

The caching is done in hardware, partitioning will not have any influence on the drive's performance imho.

 

My Momentus XT has finally arrived (ordered first of June).
What benchmark do you recommend to test it against the 5400 Samsung with is currently in my F11?

 

Boottimer.exe. Run it a couple of times for best results.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/459125-post-your-windows-7-boot-time.html

 

New firmware for Momentus XT: Momentus XT Firmware Update

 

Anybody know what changes implemented in this firmware update?

 

is their any issues defragging with this drive?

 

Not that I'm aware of. The HDD part is a normal HDD.

 

ye but i was just wondering how the SSD portion is implemented and if it is defragged alongside with the regular hard drive or if somehow the drive itself blocks it from being defragged or what not

 

Windows will not touch the SSD portion, the SSD is just a giant read buffer, nothing else. New data is only written to it when the algorithms determine a different set of data needs to be on it for faster reads. Any writes are done to the physical platters themselves.

 

Good find, I have done them and two observations so far.

1.) boot timer on my U81-a is more consistent doing the stripped boots. I did about 30 and they were all now in the 12's except one 13, before they could be in the 12's, some 13's , a few14's and rarely 15's.

2.) running HD Tune the first random access was 17.1 with only 2 dots I could count at the 0.4. The second run all were at the 0.4 so the entire read area got cached. Before I could run it the second time and it was a mix of platter and nand access's the third time mostly nand and the fourth time rare platter access. So consitency seems to be shown here as well..........

 

Perhaps you should take a look at the reviews at newegg for the momentus XT drive. I think enough of a problem exists from anecdotal evidence to warrant an investigation.

 

just one question... how will this drive do as a storage drive? does do any better compared to normal HDDs?

 

It's a good performer as HDD but WD5000bekt is quicker and more silent.

I'm benchmarking them at the moment.

 

I'm eager to hear Phil's specs on the XT vs. the WD5000bekt. Benchmarks are great, but as I trust both companies, I'm more curious about nitpicky things like noise, battery life and the like.

 

My complaint about using the XT for storage is that it spins down. What is great is the over time the MFT and directory sectors get cached so browsing the drive is seemingly fast. If it kept spinning then it would be my chioce for storage with my SSD as primary.

 

I've been testing a bit more with the Momentus XT. I'm liking it more and more.

Previously I was preferring the Scorpio Black but now I'm not sure anymore.

 

I haven't tried a 500GB WD Black, but the Momentus XT is definitely a step above the Hitachi 7K500.

As a matter of fact, depending on the scenario, the XT is faster (sometimes much faster) than my Inferno 100GB SSD.

HD's like the 7K500, the WD Black and now the XT Hybrids is what makes SSD's seem like jokes to me in the 'performance' department.

 

Not to get too far off topic, but I have a 7K500 in my notebook and I just got a review notebook with the 80GB Intel G2 SSD. In short, the SSD blows it away in terms of read/write speed and access time. It is also way faster than the 1TB WD Blacks in my desktop - not even close.

I am considering a Seagate Momentus XT however I did not like their 7200.4 hard drive at all (one came in my HP and it now serves as an external drive) - lots of vibration, a high level of ambient noise (constant whooosh), and under-performance. If the XT is comparable to the 7K500 in terms of noise/vibration then I will put it on my "to buy" list.

 

YMMV, my first drive that I had to RMA was way worse than the 7200.4 I had. The two XT's I now have I would easily compare in noise and vibration to the 7K500 I also have.

I have the Callisto 120GB DX, and can tell you the XT is no SSD killer. I have also had the XT and 7K500 as primaries in the P7805 and Primaries in my U81a. The XT is definately faster as an OS drive, no if, ands, or buts about it.

I have noticed as a primary the new firmware seems to keep the drive spinning. Left my U81a over 24 hours idle then went to access a folder and compressed file to see if it was spun down and it wasn't. I could easily get it to spin down before.............

 

If they have truly eliminated the spindown I'd way prefer the XT. it is not much slower in the HDD section but the SSD cache is immensely faster. I would love to use it for storage against my SSD. Then all the folders, file names, MFT, programe stored thumbnails and such get SSD cached. Other than intensive throughput the drive would act almost as good as a secondary SSD for my primary SSD.

In the P7805 it was awesome when it wasn't spun down. Spun down that 2-3 seconds of spin up was a pain as a storage device and to me that negated the benefits. The files I store and access on that drive there are 10MB or bigger, who cares about IOPS there, again spindown is the issue.

 

If anyone's interested, here are my results form testing the Momentus XT.

 

When can I notice this?

 

I like it!

 

As a primary drive you have to let the system sit idle for a period of time. I never looked to see exactly how long but I used to leave it alone for couple of hours and it would spin down. f I came in and opened a folder right away I'd see a 2-3 second delay then all was fine.

As a secondary storage and also when I had it in a USB enclosure it would be the same. Not use it for a couple of hours and when you did you could see the 2-3 second pause before it responded out of cache. I haven't tried that though with the new firmware. I've heard of others complaining of constant spindowns, I never experienced that but if left alone long enough it did.

Even spun down it would access from the SSD section what it could and keep it spun down. Once a hit out of cache the drive spun back up. Now mine are quite and smooth enough you don't hear or feel it other than the system responce................

 

cant you control this in windows power settings?

 

this drive runs to hot i try to swap it to different bay on my laptop but still getting 50c when running games or transfer files

 

50*c! and on a d900f at that. that is bad news. are others reporting the same high temps

 

pretty much all the people reporting from 45c to 50c is the only thing i don't like

 

maybe thats why seagate makes it spin down

 

Mine got 41 C. Personally I wouldn't worry about 50 C. They're rated to 60 C.

 

kinda worried about my tropical country's ambient temps. well ill just wait for the final assessment of you guys

 

There won't be much about temperatures as I didn't notice anything problematic.

 

Mine when spinning saw 37-41C not spinning it would go to 29C. This is both in the U81a and P7805. I tried APM and AAM but it would still spin down under the original FW. I haven't had time to try it out under the new FW or even see under long term use if there is still an issue, just one quick 24 hour test and it didn't spin down that I could tell.