Anyone running Raid 0 using Seagate Momentus XT's?

[Bacstar]

I swap out my drives every few years to hopefully prevent ever experiencing any harddrive failures. So this year, I want to swap out a couple WD 320gig harddrives in Raid 0 which have my main OS installation. I have been looking at the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB drives.

I originally was thinking of getting two and setting them up in Raid 0 as well, but I've been reading that it's not supported. However, it still hasn't prevented people from trying. Also, there are a few reviews out there from the various techsites that went with Raid 0. These articles are from last year.

Wondering if anyone here have these drives in Raid 0, set up as their Windows 7 install, and how's it working for you? If anyone can give me some updated news on these drives would be helpful as well.

Thanks...

 

[aigomorla]

Wow... talk about simular thought...

lol i was asking my friend the exact same question.

By itself, there a bit slower then raptors until u train them.
Once trained, they are indeed faster then raptors.

So i also thought what if u r0 2 of them, then you would have 8GB's of SSD cache.
and once the XT's were trained in raid cycling, they should be faster.


The key thing tho is trainning the drive.
Out of the box, fresh install, you wont notice anything.
Infact i noticed it being a tad bit slower then raptors.

Once trained tho, they improve.

 

[Bacstar]

I found this article that pretty much says the XT's excel in Raid 0 and is fairly recent:

http://www.techwarelabs.com/speed-on-the-cheap-seagate-momentus-xt-raid-0/

But a little further reading, I discovered a few threads in various forums where it was stated that Raid is not supported due to the caching algorithms the drive uses are just not compatible. So...I'm a little hesitant now on what to do.

I really don't want to spend another $500 on a 256gb SSD drive like I did for my laptop. I need way more space on my desktop. I considered doing SSD/HDD option as well, but then I decided, I don't want to go through the hassle of making sure I select the right drive when installing or saving stuff.

Hmmmm...

 

[corkyg]

Momentus XT is intended for laptops. No point in using them in a desktop RAID or otherwise. I have 4 of them in 2 laptops. That's where they will stay.

 

[12andy]

Momentus XT is intended for laptops. No point in using them in a desktop RAID or otherwise. I have 4 of them in 2 laptops. That's where they will stay.

I'm curious as to why you feel this way. Is it due to the XT's form factor?

For my uses (a silenced gaming desktop, with the same few apps being opened every day), it's pretty much trounced my partitioned Samsung F3 1TB in terms of speed and noise. SSD prices still leave something to be desired, IMO.

I'm honestly tempted to buy another one, should NCIX have another sale down the road.

 

[Bacstar]

Been running two 2.5" Scorpio Blacks in Raid 0. A couple of laptop drives I had lying around collecting dust, so I decided to make use of them. I use them as my miscellaneous app/game drives and seem to be working just fine in my desktop. I haven't ran any benchmarks, so I can't say if I gained or lost performance, but I can't honestly tell the difference.

 

[bart1975]

If you want to raid some drives get some 40 to 60 gig ssd's and put them in raid 0. From what I have read the momentus xt drives do not use the 4 gig ssd cache while in a raid config.

 

[nanaki333]

toms hardware did a review of highpoint's hybrid ssd tech where you can choose what files go on the ssd, otherwise it's all 1 partition. the card is only like $59 so you could get a 32GB SSD and a 1TB Spinpoint.

 

[Bacstar]

After further reading, I decided to go the SSD w/ HDD route. I'm pretty happy with the Samsung 470 256gig I got for the laptop, so I got the same brand but in the 128gig version.

Guess I'll have to do the Windows 7 reinstall though which I really wanted to avoid by using the XT's, so I guess "no pain, no gain" applies here.

 

[996GT2]

After further reading, I decided to go the SSD w/ HDD route. I'm pretty happy with the Samsung 470 256gig I got for the laptop, so I got the same brand but in the 128gig version.

Guess I'll have to do the Windows 7 reinstall though which I really wanted to avoid by using the XT's, so I guess "no pain, no gain" applies here.

No need to reinstall. Just re-image your desktop install over to the SSD. This has been discussed (and done) many times without problems.

 

[Bacstar]

No need to reinstall. Just re-image your desktop install over to the SSD. This has been discussed (and done) many times without problems.

Ahhh... I would like to, but I have quite a few programs and games installed that I'll have to move around to different drives due to space limitations. Gotta prioritize now...:hmm: