Anyone with a Seagate Momentus XT drive?

[Nintendesert]

I was curious if the drive is a noticeable upgrade over standard mechanical drives. Does anyone own or have any experience with the drives?

 

[corkyg]

I have 4 of them - all 320GB. They replaced WDC Scorpio Clacks, also 320GB. Once they have "learned" my normal sequences, they do boot faster. I use the Scorpios now as data drives. All are in Lenovo laptops.

This has been discussed m,uch in the past several months. Review these so we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

http://forums.anandtech.com/search.php?searchid=1017921

 

[Nintendesert]

Thanks and I appreciate the link, I have some issues with the forum searches right now.

 

[Coup27]

Thanks and I appreciate the link, I havesome issues with the forum searches right now.

I couldnt get that link to work either..

 

[corkyg]

Fresh link

http://forums.anandtech.com/search.php?searchid=1017921

Maybe it changes. Anyway, go to Searchs, Advanced, keyword=Momentus, search in Memory & Storage, Threads

Here's a single thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2166894&highlight=momentus

 

[dbcooper1]

I have a couple of the 500s; they do improve reads quite a bit if you load the same programs or data repeatedly but do nothing for writes. Fortunately, reads outnumber writes in typical use.

 

[Mir96TA]

In my laptop I have upgraded from 320 GB WD Scorpio 7200 RPM to 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT, I think it was perfect spot between STD HDD and SDD. My friends laptop takes 12 sec to boot with SSD Mine takes 17 sec.
I did notice lot of perfomance boost over reg HDD and same time some space to have it.
5 year warranty is very NICE!

 

[kmmatney]

I had an 80 GB SSD in my laptop, but was low on space, so bought a 500GB Momentus XT. It is a fast hard drive, and performed better than the previous mechanical hard drive (320 GB) I had before. However, it was a noticeable downgrade from the SSD, and I ended up going back to a 128GB Samsung SSD. If you need the space, then the Momentus XT is a good compromise, but it's just not quite as good as an SSD. It's performance is a small step above a regular hard drive, but not near an SSD - at least for my usage, which involves heavy use of virtual machines.

 

[Blain]

I was curious if the drive is a noticeable upgrade over standard mechanical drives.

The Momentus XT's are standard mechanical drive, just with a little added SS memory.
I'm using one as a desktop HD and it seems as fast as other 7200 drives I've used.
As far as being a "noticeable upgrade" over 3.5" 7200rpm HDs, no it's not.
As far as being a "noticeable upgrade" over 2.5" 7200rpm laptop HDs, I can't say.
The momentus XT's aren't magical and they aren't SSD speed.
But $$ per GB, they don't cost as much as SSD either.

 

[Eug]

In my laptop I have upgraded from 320 GB WD Scorpio 7200 RPM to 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT, I think it was perfect spot between STD HDD and SDD. My friends laptop takes 12 sec to boot with SSD Mine takes 17 sec.
I did notice lot of perfomance boost over reg HDD and same time some space to have it.

I had an 80 GB SSD in my laptop, but was low on space, so bought a 500GB Momentus XT. It is a fast hard drive, and performed better than the previous mechanical hard drive (320 GB) I had before. However, it was a noticeable downgrade from the SSD, and I ended up going back to a 128GB Samsung SSD. If you need the space, then the Momentus XT is a good compromise, but it's just not quite as good as an SSD. It's performance is a small step above a regular hard drive, but not near an SSD - at least for my usage, which involves heavy use of virtual machines.

Yeah, that prompted my question about Windows ReadyBoost vs the Seagate Momentus XT.

I noticed a significant improvement in app load times on my 2 GB Windows 7 laptop with 5400 rpm drive by adding a 4 GB Class 10 SDHC card for Windows ReadyBoost, but it was no comparison to the SSD I was playing with.

The advantage of the Momentus XT is that the flash memory would also be active for booting and immediately after booting, but aside from that I could see it being comparable to ReadyBoost on a low-RAM machine, and neither is anywhere as fast as an SSD.

So, because Newegg had a promotion last week, I ended up ordering a 96 GB Kingston V+100 for my Windows laptop, instead of sticking with ReadyBoost or getting a Momentus XT.

By the way, part of the decision came down to the fact that basically everyone around here only sells the 500 GB model of the Momentus XT. I would have considered it more if I could have gotten say a 250 GB model for much cheaper, but at around $100 for the Momentus XT, I'd rather just buy a 96 GB SSD for $130, and probably save a bit of power while I'm at it.

 

[Mir96TA]

SSD path have two Humps to over come, Realiblity and Cost. If that is some thing do able option, I think you should go for it.

 

[corkyg]

. . . By the way, part of the decision came down to the fact that basically everyone around here only sells the 500 GB model of the Momentus XT. I would have considered it more if I could have gotten say a 250 GB model for much cheaper, but at around $100 for the Momentus XT, I'd rather just buy a 96 GB SSD for $130, and probably save a bit of power while I'm at it.

Check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B003NSBF3M/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

 

[Eug]

Thanks. I live in Canada though.

 

[corkyg]

What happened to NAFTA?

OK - looks like a 320 is available. Those are what I use.

http://www.amazon.ca/ST-MOMENTUS-720...4641600&sr=1-1

 

[alfa147x]

Thoughts on two Momentus XT in RAID 0 config?

 

[Coup27]

Thoughts on two Momentus XT in RAID 0 config?

Seems a bit pointless that. If you have a laptop which can has two drive bays then u can afford a proper ssd and storage hdd. And you just wouldn't use that setup in a desktop.

 

[alfa147x]

Seems a bit pointless that. If you have a laptop which can has two drive bays then u can afford a proper ssd and storage hdd. And you just wouldn't use that setup in a desktop.

I've got a MBP with one in it already... I was going to replace the optical drive with an ssd or a second XT

 

[Mir96TA]

Thanks. I live in Canada though.

Local to Canada Computers ?
$ 99 + Tax get ya Seagate Momentus XT 500 Gig

 

[Eug]

Yeah, I live about a 10 minute drive from a Canada Computers. However, I bought a 96 GB SSD on sale instead, for 30 bux more.

 

[Mir96TA]

i see