What's the longevity/reliability of Hybrid Hard Drives?

Hope there isn't a post like this and I missed it, but the question still stands. I saw a post previously of someone finding that the hybrid hard drives (Momentus XTs I believe) have a high failure rate and/or don't last too long. Googling for information about this proved futile, as I got a bunch of questions about how they work rather than anything to answer my questions specifically.

Basically I want to know if getting them is a good idea, or if I should save and spring for some of those SSDs instead. I expect the hybrid drives to last about as long as a mechanical would; a good few years of constant use. I know sometimes hard drives will flat out fail through no fault of the user, but I'd rather be safe than sorry with such matters as I live abroad and the less things I have to ship to the US for replacements the better. So is it a good idea to get them? Can I realistically expect little to no failures with the models?

 

You can expect similar failure rates to other HDDs, in short, the hybrids are standard HDDs equipped with a 4GB or 8GB (for now) cache (and a controller that can manage said cache). The difference between a hybrid and HDD is rather variable. I have one in my older laptop and while it does boot faster and my browser loads a tad faster, it is put to shame by SSDs. It also make that usual HDD noise which is blessedly absent from my M6700 thanks to it being an all SSD machine.

 

There shouldn't be any difference between a mechanical drive and a hybrid drive, as hybrid drives are still mechanical drives. My brother's W860CU 500 GB MomentusXT has been good for over 1 year now with no issues.

 

Alright. Sounds good to me, I was just wondering. I like to do all the asking around in the world before I buy something, even if I'm pretty much dead set on getting something already. More information is always better! =D

But thanksies. I already know not to raid it, but this is also good info that they aren't gonna fail any faster or have any higher a failure rate than mechanical.

 

With the cost of SSDs coming down, if you can spring for one (albeit sacrificing some storage space, perhaps), do it. A hybrid drive will certainly yield better performance than a purely mechanical one, still; and a Seagate hybrid drive is no more or less reliable than a Seagate platter drive.

Glad you got some help.

Oh, and for what it's worth to you: Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid ST750LX003 | Seagate,Momentus XT,ST750LX003,750GB,Solid State Hybrid Drive,Benchmarks,Performance,SSHD,RAID-0,Tests,Olin Coles,Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Solid State Hybrid Drive ST750LX003 Benchmark Performance SSHD Tests b

 

How about the longevity of SSDs vs normal HDDs?

 

I was actually going to buy full out SSDs and not get mechanical HDDs at all, but I recently thought that getting SLI 680ms some form of a Clevo P370EM would have been a better idea for the long run for me. I need lotsa storage XD.

 

Fair enough! Though I can't see hybrid drives surviving the competition as the market becomes more and more saturated with SSD storage solutions (iSSD, ExpressCache, etc.), they're still a good middle ground. :thumbsup:

 

I actually think rotational drives are more reliable than ssd's at this point. They seem to give you at least some warning.

 

Mechanical drives do last longer as far as I know, yes. SSDs won't get as cheap as mechanicals (or as long lasting) for a long time, so I'm fine with that. But I know the minute I go with an SSD, I'll want EVERYTHING on it. Especially my games. My steam folder is like 300GB. I suppose a storage drive of 750GB for videos etc would be fine if I got a 256 mSata for the OS and a 512 or so for games etc, but still would rather the SLI cards for the time being. If anything later on I could always buy laptop SSDs, it's one of the easiest things to replace.

 

I'd say same or SSD's better. Hard drives are just susceptible to damage from any kind of even light physical abuse.

Warning or no you should have your data backed up always. Whether a hard drive starts to die, you could lose everything in an instant or given some warning, but it doesn't matter, even with warning you shouldn't use the drive any more. Of course yes, the worse failure mode of an SSD is that the controller fails and you can't even boot. But that is rare any more, and you still should have your data backed up regularly.

 

I've had one in my wife's laptop for well over a year without issue. Probably not worth it in the grand scheme of things since ssds arenso cheap now

 

You also have to consider the power mechanisms of the XT drive. HDDs are actually quite reliable if they are left at a constant Idle spin or a load spin (similar to car engines). The issue is when the power scheme forces the platter to be parked thus causing a constant stop and start of the motor thus reducing life cycles. This issue primarily plagued the early Hybrid SSDs as the HDD component had to be parked to reduce power consumption while the SSD cache was in use.

 

Hybrid is your best option if you have only a single drive bay and need a decent amount of storage, and it's inexpensive. Otherwise even if you have to pop out your optical drive bay and use a 128GB SSD internal and hard drive in ODD bay that is a much better solution and still quite affordable. Most thin laptops now ship with an mSATA slot along with a regular 2.5" bay, which is also an option. Get a 128GB mSATA SSD + 7mm 500GB HDD. Hybrid drives made more sense 2-4 years ago when SSD's were exorbitantly expensive, but then all they had were the Seagate with a meager 4GB cache NAND. I guess if your machine only has a single bay option, no ODD, then it is probably your best bet.

 

Eh they're relatively inexpensive now. They're not cheap by and means, but compared to a couple years ago, they're dirt cheap. But the price per storage is still an issue. Like I'd said before, if I was gonna get a single card I'd have filled it with SSDs, but I rather the dual cards and longer power-life of the system. If I had extra cash I'd get both the SSDs and the SLI =P. But it all depends on the user. For example, I do like my ability to put my machine to sleep for various reasons, instead of always cold-booting. So that's one advantage of the mechanical/hybrid drives. It's all up to the user's priorities. I was just making sure that they're still quite a viable option and I can expect low failure rates (as much as a non-hybrid mechanical drive would produce)

 

My point is that between options:

(A) Momentus XT 750GB $160
(B) Crucial M4 64GB $75 + 7200RPM 750GB HDD $90 = $165

I'd choose Option B any day, even if $50 more expensive. Install Windows and apps on SSD, everything else on HDD. Massive improvement over the hybrid drive.

And I'm not sure the point about putting your computer to sleep. You can always sleep your computer whether with SSD or HDD.

 

I heard way back when (when SSDs were just coming out) that putting an SSD computer to sleep was a very bad idea, and they should be powered down/up if possible. Granted powering them up is quick as hell, but stuff like steam etc that can be "offline" if started while net access is present then lost, but if started with no net access, it has to use offline mode (which is different). Stuff like that.