analyze these two pros and cons

Seagate ST9750420AS Momentus Mobile Hard Drive - 750GB, 2.5, 7200RPM, 16MB, SATA at TigerDirect.com

Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive

5$ difference in price. which would you get?

this will be a hd with my 5400 500 gb hd i already have, in my non raid 0 capable 2 hd bay notebook.

 

If you need capacity above all else; the 750GB model.

If you want an SSD-like speed increase in O/S responsiveness, bootup/shutdown and when launching your most used apps; then the XT is in a league of it's own.

Good luck.

 

thanks but thats too general

what are the speed differences?

 

Notebookreview will soon publish the Seagate 750GB review.

I won't say too much about it but if you're looking for performance there are better drives to get.

Hitachi 7K500, WD5000BEKT are faster. Momentus XT is way faster. I expect Samsung HM640JJ is also faster.

 

There are plenty of benchmarks and reviews out. Anandtech did a nice review of the Seagate Momentus XT drive, as did Tomshardware.

Basically, it is about right in the middle in terms of speed between a traditional 7200rpm mechanical hard drive and an SSD. The fact that it can give you such a large boost over mechanical hard drives with 500GB at $130 USD gives it a fantastic balance between performance / capacity / price, and is the reason why it is a very popular drive among people on this forum.

 

were still missing how much faster it is. I will look at anandtech.

right now its 105 at newegg

 

You're not ever going to get a perfect read for how much faster it is. You can go look at benchmarks, there are plenty out there if you just google it. How much faster it'll actually feel when you use it that's another story.

There's nothing any of us can tell about how much faster one is compared to another other than just looking at the benchmarks. Your perception of speed is something none of us can quantify.

 

Actually the 750GB Momentus hasn't been benchmarked by any site as far as I know.

I did benchmark it, but the review hasn't been published yet. Like I said, if you're looking for high performance, don't buy it.

 

What exactly are you looking for in an answer? That X is 10% faster in Y? For what purposes do you want a faster drive for? Yes, the Momentus XT boots faster than a HDD but IMO capacity is more important at a similar price.

 

ya its really hard to say honestly.

Immediately after I buy it the xt will be better because it boots faster. but I can see upgrading to a full ssd someday and then using it as the 2nd hdd at that point itll be inferior.

I have to think one more day before I buy one.

 

I know this will be your 2nd HDD, but I hope you mean that you will make your XT the primary (OS/program) drive.

 

My guess is that the 750GB model will have an O/S performance similar to the Scorpio Blue 500GB with a C: drive partition of 100GB or less (less than 20% of the capacity).

While it will undoubtedly have faster (sustained) transfer rates than the Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM drive, the platter density is pushing the tracks far too close together making the precision alignment of the heads paramount which need to be corrected constantly and thereby effectively slowing the drive down as it tries to zero in on the track it was requested to read/write to.

This is why it can be fast (sequential reads/writes) and slow (O/S performance - lots of small r/w's all over the drive) at the same time.


Since you're already considering an SSD your current options are:

1) Suffer now until you get an SSD (then use the 750GB as your data drive and have the 'ultimate' at some unknown point in time).

or;

2) Use the fastest HD available (XT) now and when an SSD (gen 4/5) comes along that is really head and shoulders above the performance of current mechanical HD's in all aspects (they're not yet), then either use the XT as your data drive or if a larger capacity drive is available buy that.

The difference should be obvious now: have capacity and forgo performance for an indefinite period; or have the fastest performance possible as it is/becomes available.

Hmmm... which is essentially what I responded with originally - greatly expanded.

 

If you don't need extra 250GB, and the drive isn't used for storage, the choice is pretty obvious (hint: it's Momentus XT). If you don't need 500GB but you could get around with 60GB or 90GB boot drive, the choice is again really trivial (hint: it's an SSD). That much you can roughly get without spending that much.

Btw, when SSD comes along that is that much better, I think you will have a different laptop altogether ^^

 

ya well i already have a 500 gb 5400 rpm drive that is going to be a data drive regardless of which i get it is also a seagate.

the drive will be the boot drive either way. its just down the road it will be the data drive possibly.

but right now its the boot drive im buying. I dont really know how much faster it is but it seems like its settled on the xt. all you computer nerds in my shoes would get an xt? it is discounted more as well right now

also newegg ships stuff here faster although i do have to pay tax.

 

This computer nerd would buy the XT over an SSD right now.

But, what is your usage patterns?

 

same here. A 40 dollar premium does worth the extra speed gain.

 

Ya totally. This is a new computer to me actually and has plenty of space.

So I will at first have the xt be just installed and largely empty.