The Seagate Momentus XT drive offers hybrid storage with Adaptive Memory technology, enabling the drive to deliver higher capacities up to 500 GB and SSD-like performance. The Momentus XT drive is designed for all standard laptop PCs and is OS-, driver- and software independent, making this drive easy to integrate and easy to use. Adaptive Memory technology enables the drive to tailor its performance to the user. Whether you are gaming, editing digital media or crunching numbers, the performance is optimized and ready for your next move. Adaptive Memory technology is a Seagate data management technique that constantly monitors and quickly recalls data usage and preferences. It places files and data that the user will likely access again and again into the solid state portion of the drive. When the user requires the data or application file, it already sits in an instantly accessible location, thereby customizing system performance for the user. Constant monitoring dynamically improves overall response time based on personal usage. You can perform at your best no matter how you use your laptop PC.
$ 69.99
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For certain use scenarios, it’s an unbeatable cost/gig ratio,
I have the 500GB version of this drive. I also use and have used SSD’s with SLC and MLC flash, JMicron controllers, Samsung Controllers, Barefoot controllers, and SandForce controllers on 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. I’ve used several generations of Raptors, and 3Ware RAID controllers. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying it to point out I have a reasonable basis for comparison and expectation.
Here’s what the drive does well: It’s alignment- and OS-agnostic, so it does not care if you run it unaligned on older XP systems. It will, over about 5 cycles, learn what you do and optimize it. You will notice your system boots much faster. It excels on systems where you boot into your OS and do the same basic tasks, say, open MS office and Firefox and Outlook.
Here’s what the drive does not do well: If you are constantly changing what you run on your computer, your drive will constantly be “learning” what you do. I have also found it does not do well with remote desktop apps that are constantly caching image data.
Here’s what the drive does that makes it no better or worse than any other mechanical drive: If you are using the drive to store music or videos or such, they are going to go the the platters. Then it’s just another very good, high performance 7200RPM notebook drive. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Here’s the KILLER APP reason to buy this drive: I took a 32-bit Vista Home Premium laptop that was so congested and clogged with programs, leftovers of removed programs, fragmentation, you name it, and just cloned it to this drive. The mechanical drive it was on took literally 5 minutes to get to a useful state on the desktop. This drive, after about 5 boots, learned that our family needed Vista OS, Chrome for Farmville, and iTunes. We now have 30 second boots and even though the drive is still loading services and such, we can launch apps immediately at the desktop. Our primary apps either snap open, or in the case of iTunes launch about 3x faster. It’s not subtle, it’s huge.
If you want a drive that does not have alignment issues with older OS’s, and is used primarily on a computer that does about the same sorts of things over and over, this drive will make a huge difference for you. And since it’s SLC cache, it’s enterprise-class durable in that regard. Also, it mirrors its flash to the mechanical drive, so if the flash fails, it just becomes a regular mechanical drive, sort of like a run-flat tire.
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|Cost/Performance Compromise vs SSD; Speed Tests,
I replaced my 500GB 5400rpm WD with this Momentus XT after doing exhausting research. I use my MacBoook Pro laptop for analytical work involving large datsets. Here is why I settled on the Momentus XT vs an SSD.
Momentus XT
– 4GB SLC SSD integrated into the hard drive for speedy access commonly used files
– Although not as fast as an SSD, but soooo much cheaper than 300GB+ of SSD space.
– More vibration and a little more noise than my WD 500GB, but not significantly so.
– Mac OS X doesn’t support TRIM. I was concerned that a SSD drive would slow down significantly overtime without it.
– Toms Hardware highly recommended it over other 7200 rpm laptop hard drives. See their review for all the techy details.
Note that the integrated SSD is used only for reading, not for writing. It essentially clones your commonly used files on the 4GB SSD.
If you are looking for a sweet spot between speed and space this is it. The Momentus has a 4GB SLC SSD integrated into the hard drive which allows for very fast reads of commonly used data. This translates into really fast application loading like an SSD. It uses a learning algorithm to decide what to store on the SSD so it takes some time to get to optimal performance.
Most people have a lot of data that is accessed infrequently on their hard drive. Thus an SSD is overkill since there isn’t much benefit to to storing infrequently accessed on a really fast drive. If you are accessing almost all of your data all the time (like in a server application) then maybe an SSD is for you. For the rest of us there is the Momentus XT.
I am very particular about the noise with my MacBook Pro. The stock 250GB Seagate hard drive my laptop shipped with was virtually undetectable. When I tried the WD 1TB 5400rpm and WD 500GB 5400rpm, I was disappointed to find that they both made audible white noise like that of a small cpu fan. The Momentus 7200rpm makes slightly more noise than the WD drives, but not significantly so. It does produce more vibrations than the 5400rpm drives which you can feel if you put your hand on the laptop case, but I am willing to live with it for the performance gains. I deducted one star for the less than optimal acoustics.
Here are some performance specs from my MacBook Pro using Quick Bench. Note that these times do not reflect the benefit of the integrated SSD. There reflect only the performance of the hard drive portion. The throughput is similar to the WD 1TB 5400rpm which I also reviewed, but the random reading/writing is a bit faster.
QuickBench(TM) 4.0 Test Results
Standard Test Results in MB/Sec
Averages:
Seq. Read 70.815
Seq. Write 59.756
Ran. Read 17.265
Ran. Write 30.618
Table:
(Cycles: 1)
< Insert Chart Here > Seq. Read Seq. Write Ran. Read Ran. Write
4 KB 21.829 5.266 0.663 1.675
8 KB 38.852 10.527 1.24 2.857
16 KB 59.379 21.098 2.932 5.685
32 KB 85.593 37.539 5.519 10.918
64 KB 88.714 68.469 9.239 21.527
128 KB 85.232 118.508 17.088 44.092
256 KB 87.634 106.457 29.255 57.775
512 KB 86.992 85.88 36.296 61.612
1024 KB 83.111 84.061 53.157 69.426
Standard Ave 70.815 59.756 17.265 30.618
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|Good performance boost for the money,
I’ve read a lot of reviews, some good, some bad. I think some people have this idea that the product will speed everything up all the time, and this sets bad expectations. What this drive will do is cache often used data, such as core Operating System files used at boot and commonly used applications, and store that data in its 4GB SSD-like cache. If your drive already reads and writes pretty fast, in the neighborhood of 75-100MBps (megaBytes not bits), other than boot up and application loading, you aren’t going to notice much of a difference.
I use Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard, and it definitely boots faster (1 minute 30 seconds prior to this disk, now 55 seconds from power on to ready + all my startup apps running), and commonly run applications also start up noticeably faster.
I upgraded from a bit slower drive, so I see some performance gain there, but nothing huge.
Overall I got the disk read speeds I was looking for — faster boot, faster common app loading, and an overall boost in performance by upgrading from a slower drive altogether.
This drive won’t change your life, unless you are booting several times a day or loading the same data repeatedly. It’s a fine drive with the benefit of faster boot and common app loading times, nothing more.
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