Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive review

Ivan

Tushon

A use case I could see would be a small internal HDD and using this for storing game files like Steam/Origin default install folders.

Straight_Man

Ok, here are some more uses for a USB HD:

Large collection (legal) of music files-- Windows Media Player can be pointed at a USB HD folder.

Huge collection of .raw image photos, or even huger one of large .jpeg's. A pro photographer or prolific amateur photobug would love this kind of thing. I keep my archived photos on a USB HD myself. The programs for editing photos are on the 500 GB HD in my laptop.

Very huge collection of drawings.

Some each of all of the above. I keep website backups on one also.

RyanMM

Wow. I just bought one of these a week ago for $162, after seeing the price the week before at $175. That's a nice drop in 2 weeks.

Greg

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. When I first heard about this HD, I thought it would be good for archival storage as well as a faster startup. I've been a photographer for 25 years and I'm in the process of converting my work to digital format. I want a brand I trust for long term storage. I trust Seagate. The 500 gb hybrid drive had a lot of problems but the 750 gb drive seems to be OK. The kinks seem to have been worked out. As I mentioned, I once plugged in a "my passport" and it used so much power that it fried my motherboard-at least that's what a technician told me. So no more plug and play external enclosures for me. I have an enclosure with which I can use a power adaptor so I intend to put this hybrid drive in that. The Seagate 640 gb hard drive has 5400 rpm. I thought this hybrid at 750 gb and 7200 rpm would be a better investment especially at this price ($145); it's not much more expensive than a regular HD. Of course, I can always install it in a laptop in the future but for now the plans are to use it for archival storage. Thanks again.

primesuspect

These drives are down to $155 now. Seriously a no-brainer major upgrade for laptop users.

mertesn

No kidding. I finally got around to replacing the second hard drive in my laptop with this. It made quite a difference.

edcentric

I have been running one in my lappy for about 18 months now.
No, it isn't nearly as fast as SSD, but it sure kicks the $hit out of standard 5,400 notebook drives.

It is fun to start rebooting the machine when you haven't done it for a few weeks. You can time how much faster each reboot gets. The app that I always run is Outlook and it sure loads fast.

ardichoke

Hrng... want one for my new laptop so bad... but I really need to upgrade the storage in my desktop first.

primesuspect

These are now down to $129.99.