Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive review

Ivan

Gargoyle

fatcat said:

600GB SATA3 2.5" Velociraptor for reference

Without looking up specs, I'm guessing the 10k drive uses more power, too. Maybe it'd drain the battery before it melted the chassis of my chic plastique laptop.

fatcat

Gargoyle said:

Without looking up specs, I'm guessing the 10k drive uses more power, too. Maybe it'd drain the battery before it melted the chassis of my chic plastique laptop.

next time buy a macbook pro :rarr:

Mt_Goat

Gargoyle said:

Without looking up specs, I'm guessing the 10k drive uses more power, too. Maybe it'd drain the battery before it melted the chassis of my chic plastique laptop.

Serious drives call for serious laptops! You would always have dry socks!

Mt_Goat

fatcat said:

next time buy a mac pro :rarr:

/////WARNING\\\\\

READING THIS THREAD COULD MELT THE SCREEN OF YOUR LAPTOP

primesuspect

fatcat said:

$259 on newegg o.O

That's for the 3.5" version. The 2.5" version is out of stock.

fatcat

primesuspect said:

That's for the 3.5" version. The 2.5" version is out of stock.

you can remove the 2.5" drive from the heatsink homie

primesuspect

Gargoyle said:

If prices were lower right now, I'd consider getting one for my laptop. My 320GB Scorpio Black (atto attached) gets about 80 MB/s. It was a huge, noticeable difference when I upgraded to the Scorpio Black from the 5400 rpm drive that came with it (40-45 MB/s).

While the speeds of the XT would fall under the cap of the SATA 150 controller on my laptop, I still wonder if I'd see the ~110 MB/s that Prime got in his newer laptop. There's a bit on Wikipedia about access to cache benefiting from the faster interface.



I wonder if the caching algorithm would work just as well in RAID usage?

Here's the thing, though: Those ATTO benches are purely mechanical. We're getting 110 MB/s off the platters.

Remember, the back-end of this drive is an 8gb SLC NAND SSD. When you're loading windows and doing the other stuff that FAST decides should be on the SSD, we may be seeing something closer to those burst transfer rates. No matter what, that's gonna blow away any HDD, Velociraptor or otherwise.

I'm curious to see if it gets faster over time. As I use it more, I wonder if it will intelligently cache information on the SSD to really optimize the experience.

primesuspect

fatcat said:

you can remove the 2.5" drive from the heatsink homie

And then you'll end up melting your laptop or crashing the drive :D

RyanMM

Greg, you're forgetting that the 600GB Velociraptor you have that benchmark for is the 15K RPM 3.5" shell desktop version, not the 10K RPM 2.5" laptop version.

You're never going to run the 15K version in a laptop, too much power and too much heat.

RyanMM

primesuspect said:

I'm curious to see if it gets faster over time. As I use it more, I wonder if it will intelligently cache information on the SSD to really optimize the experience.

It's a shame you don't have it in a desktop system, because after a month of use you could write an awesome follow-up article about cloning the data to a 15k RPM hard drive and comparing performance during general usage.

drasnor

primesuspect said:

Don't forget: The 500gb XT is older; SATA 3gb interface instead of 6gb

I'm very interested in seeing what the extra $120 nets you versus the older drive. Any apples to apples reviews around?

fatcat

RyanMM said:

Greg, you're forgetting that the 600GB Velociraptor you have that benchmark for is the 15K RPM 3.5" shell desktop version, not the 10K RPM 2.5" laptop version.

You're never going to run the 15K version in a laptop, too much power and too much heat.

they don't make 15k Velociraptors dude, only 10k

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=20

RyanMM

fatcat said:

they don't make 15k Velociraptors dude, only 10k

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=20

Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. I just misremembered 3 years of stuff.

I thought the move to 2.5" format in 2008 brought with it an RPM bump in addition to the greater platter density.

Power won't be your biggest problem, but I still don't know too many laptops you can stick a 10k RPM drive in and achieve adequate ventilation.

primesuspect

drasnor said:

I'm very interested in seeing what the extra $120 nets you versus the older drive. Any apples to apples reviews around?

I believe the SSD side of the 500gb drive is 4gb instead of 8gb and I believe it's MLC rather than SLC.

Storrm

"wow is so long" i would reply to a comment that commented on my comment but its already been commented on.

GHoosdum

The 750GB Momentus XT is currently on sale over at Newegg for $199.

primesuspect

Link? It shows $239 everywhere I look

GHoosdum

The 750GB Momentus XT is currently on sale over at Newegg for $199.

You can use this link and enter promo code EMCJHHA27 (from today's Year-end Clearance email) at checkout for the $40 discount.

Straight_Man

The prices on the 500 GB Momentus XT Hybrid are nice, though, $149.99 or $159.99. Wish I had some spare bucks....

primesuspect

Just remember that the 500gb is the last-gen drive and is only SATA 3gb, 4gb, and MLC.

quake101

I put one of the older 500 GB Momentus XT Hybrid in a friend's laptop, it was a major upgrade. If I ever find $200+ laying around, I might buy one of these new 750GB drives. :D

Straight_Man

Just remember that the 500gb is the last-gen drive and is only SATA 3gb, 4gb, and MLC.

Ok, thanks for the advice, will have to hold off for an SSD\HDD hybrid for the laptop then.

John.

primesuspect

This drive is on sale for the really good price of $145 on Newegg right now.

Greg

First of all, excellent review. My question: I am not in the market for a hard drive but at $145, it's an excellent investment. I know the drive is intended to hasten the start-up time when installed in a laptop, but I was wondering if anyone has just purchased it to be used in an enclosure? I trust Seagate; I've bought a couple of their drives in the past. I don't trust buying a device such as My Passport because I used one once and it fried my motorboard. I prefer to buy a HD and install it in an enclosure. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

primesuspect

I suppose it would work just fine in a 2.5" enclosure; it is a totally normal SATA HD in most respects. I feel like maybe you'll be losing the benefit of the SSD front-end if you're using it for external data storage, but regardless it will be slightly faster to access common things than any normal HDD.