Momentus XT – what the experts are saying

CNET – November 2011
“The bottom line: Similar to the original, the Momentus XT (second generation) makes an excellent host drive for any computer, both laptops and desktops. It offers great value in terms of performance and cost, especially when compared to SDDs. The Seagate Momentus XT (second generation) is a worthy upgrade to the original Momentus XT that was released more than a year ago. The new drive now comes with twice the amount of flash memory (also known as solid-state storage) and offers 50 percent more storage space.” Read the entire review.

Bjorn3D – November 2011
“We feel that every notebook should come with a Momentus XT as oppose to any mechanical drives. While the drive is designed primarily for notebooks, we think it can also be a very viable option for desktop systems for those who like the SSD-like performance without worrying about data management of an small SSD and 3.5’’ drive combo setup…The second generation Momentus XT from Seagate delivers good performance gain, a 50% increase in capacity, and double the NAND flash and interface speed than the last generation drive. The result is impressive, and it earns the Bjorn3D Golden Bear Award.” Read the entire review.

Laptop Magazine – November 2011
“If you want the fastest performance possible, then a full-fledged SSD such as the Samsung 830 Series ($209 for 128GB)  is still the way to go. However, if you need more a drive with a lot more than 128GB of storage and can’t afford to mortgage the farm for a 256GB or larger SSD, the Seagate Momentus XT is your best upgrade option. Seagate also says that some OEMs will also be offering the drive as an option on their notebooks, which makes the Momentus XT a great configuration option when you buy from vendors such as Dell and Lenovo, which custom build your system. The second-generation Momentus XT provides application / file opens and boots that are significantly faster than those of a 7,200 rpm hard drive and only a little bit slower than an SSD. Considering that app opens and boots are the most important drive operations, the Momentus XT is well worth its asking price.” Read the entire review.

Hot Hardware – November 2011
“That said, for users that can’t afford a larger capacity SSD and are limited to only a single drive configuration, like notebook or some HTPC users, for example, the Momentus XT can be a great fit. You’ll get a good amount of storage space and SSD-like performance in a single drive, with any OS and no special software or drivers to deal with.” Read the entire review.

Hardware Canucks – November 2011
“While it may have some limitations in terms of what it can and can’t do, the Momentus XT 750GB is one hell of an innovative drive. It learns usage patterns quicker than any Hybrid setup we have seen before and Seagate’s engineers have once again proven why they are a force to be reckoned with. For systems that can only handle a single 2.5” storage device we know this would be the one we reach for. It can offer near- SSD real world performance while maintaining a relatively high capacity and does so while offering a completely seamless user experience. Hopefully, the hints our Seagate reps dropped about a certain 3.5” “XT” Hybrid version are indeed true as Seagate now have the building blocks to create a true SSD “killer”.” Read the entire review.

Storage Review – November 2011
“The Seagate Momentus XT 750GB with FAST Factor doubles the cache NAND and adds a 50% capacity boost when compared to the 500GB first generation Momentus XT. While it’s easy to look at something like FAST and shrug it off as marketing hype, the new Momentus XT showed that the added cache and software do make a difference, boasting a 34% increase in performance in our HTPC real world test and a 26% gain in our gaming trace. It gets even better for the generation two XT when you look at some of the synthetic tests like the IOMeter server profiles.” Read the entire review.

Legit Reviews – November 2011
“Overall, we’d certainly recommend the Momentus XT and frankly wouldn’t go back to a plain old hard drive unless we were forced to. The expediency of boot and application load times are something that, once you get used to it, you can’t seem to live without. Keep in mind that it may take two or three times for the Adaptive Memory Technology to decide that it should be cached and speed things up. On the down side, every operation is not SSD fast, especially if you’re performing it for the first time. Levels in games may or may not load quicker depending on how much data is redundant from level to level and if it’s been awhile since you’ve opened an application, you may find yourself waiting just a bit longer. The 8GB of NAND on board is comparatively tiny against the 750GB platter so there’s a finite amount of data that can be cached as the algorithm sees fit. As NAND prices fall, we’ll probably see these type of drives incorporate larger amounts of solid state material that will allow for a looser threshold of what gets cached and what doesn’t and maximize the reads coming from the solid state portion of the drive.” Read the entire review.

Overclockers Club – November 2011
“The 750GB Momentus XT Hybrid drive sees a 100% increase in the amount of SLC NAND used when compared to the 500GB gen 2 drive released last year. The capacity has increase by 50%, the interface has changed to a SATA 6Gb/s and comes with new “FAST” factors. All this is great but what happens when the NAND flash fails? Worst case scenario is that the drive acts just like a 7200 RPM mechanical drive. There is no data loss if the NAND fails as the data is written in parallel to both the platters and to the NAND giving some much needed redundancy without a huge performance overhead cost. All the fancy buzz words and technology boil down to an improvement in user experience without the cost, reliability and capacity concerns of an SSD. I cannot see where this drive from Seagate has any real down sides as you get the snappy performance of an SSD with the capacity of a traditional mechanical drive.” Read the entire review.

ubergizmo – November 2011
“It’s been interesting to see Seagate refine its hybrid SSD drives and improve upon the software aspect of things. The Seagate momentus XT is the perfect answer to the speed vs capacity problem that a huge computing population has, namely “they want it all”: capacity, small form factor (2.5” for laptop) and speed. This disk is one of the best solution for that particular challenge, and laptop buyers who want large capacity drives should actually be demanding a Seagate momentus XT from their OEMs.” Read


Notebook Review – November 2011the entire review.
“Should you spend $245 on the new 750GB Seagate Momentus XT when you can buy a traditional laptop hard drive with 1TB of storage capacity for slightly less? The short answer: Yes. While 1TB notebook hard drives like the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT and the Samsung Spinpoint M8 offer a massive amount of storage and reasonable speed, there is just no way that a traditional hard drive can match the speed of the new Momentus XT after the drive has “learned” which files you use on a regular basis. Windows boot times are fast, application switching is snappy, and the cost per GB is far more reasonable than a high-performance SSD. The Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD is amazingly fast, but that drive costs $470 at the time of this writing. The Momentus XT is basically half the price for three times more storage space.” Read the entire review.

Maximum PC – November 2011
“The 750GB Momentus XT offers a solid speed boost in real-world applications that you use frequently, compared to a regular mechanical drive.  Its updated capacity, 6Gb/s SATA controller, and 8GB of NAND are much appreciated. If you don’t want to deal with clumsy multi-drive hybrid solutions or shell out for a tiny SSD, the Momentus XT offers an easier, better way to get both capacity and speed.” Read the entire review

Benchmark Reviews – November 2011
“I really like where the Seagate Momentus XT series is heading, because I firmly believe all-in-one hybrid storage solutions are the future… at least until NAND flash components can cost as much as mechanical counterparts. Multi-part hybrid solutions with 3rd party software, such as those currently promoted by the competition, are hardly a match for integrated hybrid products like Momentus XT. Now grown to offer 750 Gigabytes of storage capacity, the new second-generation Seagate Momentus XT is offering the best of both worlds better than anyone else.” Read the entire review.

 

MOMENTUS XT 500GB REVIEWS

Momentus XT wins PC Magazine’s Best Storage Product of 2010. “Combining the best parts of hard drive and SSD technology, the 2.5-inch Momentus XT is an inventive way to speed up your storage without breaking the bank.” Read the full review.

“This drive is a must have for anyone with a notebook/netbook who is looking for more performance. It easily wins an Editor’s Choice award from me and there are just no downsides to stepping up to one. Seagate even has a wonderful free tool you can download (Acronis) that will make it super easy to replace your current drive. It only requires basic knowledge and if you are comfortable replacing a drive you can easily handle this transition. There is no other single upgrade that the average user can perform on such a machine for such a performance gain. I’d even consider one for desktop use in a workstation/gaming environment.”  Read the full review

“However, looking at the product name allows us to take the position and standpoint that is most appropriate when looking at this product: the Momentus XT is a hard drive! It just happens to utilize flash memory in an effort to improve performance. Once we treat it like a hard drive, then we shed the performance expectations to which it can’t live up. Yet, the Momentus XT is one of the most innovative storage products in years, and it delivers in real life…The concept of pairing a hard drive with a bit of flash memory works well. We tasted blood with the Momentus XT and we can only recommend true enthusiasts to go for this one instead of a conventional drive.” Read the entire review.

“In conclusion, the drive performed better than expected. I was initially worried that larger than 4GB drive transactions would cause swapping in and out of the SSD and speed would decrease noticeably. But those worries were quickly allayed. Overall I would recommend this drive to anyone in either a laptop or desktop configuration. The price benefit of the hybrid SSD over going straight to full SSD for near SSD performance seems to be a no-brainer to me. I am proud to give the Momentus SSD Hybrid SSD the Hardware Geeks Editor’s Choice Award.” Read the entire review.

“Most notebook computers include just one bay for a hard drive, so you obviously need your boot drive to also handle your storage needs.  This has meant that you either had to compromise on performance or capacity when choosing between an SSD and a traditional hard drive.  The Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive is the solution to this problem…if the price and performance of the Seagate Momentus XT don’t grab your attention, maybe the price will.  With an MSRP of $156 (US), the 500GB model costs less than most 60GB solid state drives.  500GB is also about the capacity limit of the solid state drives currently on the market, but their price tags of $1200 (US) or more don’t make them a viable option for most people.  The Momentus XT offers an excellent balance of performance, capacity, and price.”  Read the complete review.

The Seagate Momentus XT provides a real alternative to expensive (and small) SSD’s. You aren’t going to get the blazing speed of a good SSD but you don’t trade wads of cash for a Momentus XT and you don’t have to compromise on storage space. We’ve had plenty of SSD’s and in the end they just aren’t big enough so we end up with the additional expense of a data drive. The Momentus gives you a good balance of Speed VS Price VS Storage capacity. Given the moderate increase in cost over a normal platter drive of the same capacity it would be hard not to recommend going Hybrid with the Momentus XT. Read the complete review.

“Right now, a 128GB SSD will run you an about $300, but the Seagate Momentus XT will have a MSRP of ~ $156 for the 500GB drive we tested here. So for the price of one 128GB SSD, you can purchase two Momentus XT drives, run them in a RAID 0 configuration, almost match the speed, and get eight times the storage. I don’t know about you, but a terabyte of storage with speeds almost as fast an SSD, sure sounds great to me. When it comes to buying a hard drive, I look for price and for performance. On that note, I’m very impressed with Momentus XT. It’s been great testing this new device and I definitely recommend it.” Read the complete review.

“The reason we got into overclocking was to get the performance of the high dollar items, without paying for the high dollar items.  Truth be told, we couldn’t afford them.  The same goes for the Momentus XT hybrid.  You can get near the performance of the high dollar SSD, without hurting your wallet.  Cluboverclocker Recommended!Read the complete review.

Part 2: Momentus XT RAID:  “When the Hybrid Momentus XT debuted in May, we were very impressed with the drive.  The drive performed better then we expected and with a price that was way below the cost of an SSD.  Today, we looked at two hybrids in RAID and were equally impressed.  The performance of the Momentus XT really improved with the addition of a second drive in RAID.  The price and performance of these drives make them very attractive.  I got read performance that was on par with SSD’s, 1TB of space and the total cost was $260.   Club Overclocker Recommended!Read the entire review.

The Momentus XT exceeded our expectations when it comes to performance. It’s arguable the fastest 2.5-inch SATA hard drive on the market. THE BOTTOM LINE: The Momentus XT is an excellent replacement for traditional laptop hard drives. It offers large capacities and SSD-like performance at a fraction of the cost. Read the complete review.  Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX_WyOhTQEw

In conclusion, the Seagate Momentus-XT has delivered on it’s promise to deliver quick SSD-like performance to the Operating System and installed applications. After months of working with a SSD, my brief switch to the Momentus-XT solid state hybrid for testing purposes brought only a few occasional moments that contrasted the difference. In comparison, my switch from SSD to high-performance hard drive (VelociRaptor) was painfully frustrating and kept me waiting on applications to open. If you’re an impatient person who needs the computer to open programs as fast as you can click on the icon, the Seagate Momentus-XT offers an excellent blend of SSD speed with HDD capacity. Performance computer enthusiasts who can’t afford a SSD, or require greater capacity than SSDs offer, owe it to themselves to invest in a Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive. Read the complete review.

“I was very happy to see how quickly it loaded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Momentus XT loaded it 46% faster than a 7200RPM desktop drive. Online gamers like me won’t have to spend as much time waiting for the action to start…If the Call of Duty test is any indication, the hybrid capability will be a nice feature and won’t cost you an arm and a leg compared to an SSD of similar size.”

“Momentus XT is easily a 25% performance gain from a standard 7200RPM notebook drive. The drive easily beat the Hitachi 7200RPM notebook drive in loading applications and Windows bootup. I think it’s price very competitively for the performance gain…When it came to loading screens on high-end games such as Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins, Momentus was noticeable faster than the 7200RPM Hitachi laptop drive. This drive is a champ!

Check out these other reviews: (click image)

2010-05-24T04:49:51+00:00

About the Author:

109 Comments

  1. […] Industry experts have evaluated Momentus XT. For their insights, please visit Seagate’s blog, The Storage Effect. […]

  2. […] think Seagate  got it right with Momentus XT…just look at the benchmarks and […]

  3. […] Early Reviews of Momentus XT Industry experts have evaluated Momentus XT. For their insights, please visit Seagate’s blog, The Storage Effect. […]

  4. […] Momentus XT初期評估報告 業界專家已對Momentus XT完成評估。請參觀希捷部落格The Storage Effect,了解專家們的看法。 […]

  5. Tony June 4, 2010 at 7:49 pm - Reply

    I wonder if they’re planning on making more hybrid HDD’s with more flash memory and also perhaps in 3.5 size?

  6. Colin Pye June 23, 2010 at 7:19 am - Reply

    I’d like to know more about how the “adaptive caching” operates. Since it’s OS independant, it’s likely not watching a file system as much as a collection of disk blocks.

    It would be nice if there were some way of saying “Cache the next 5 minutes of reads”, so you could boot the system, and do the equivalent of “ls -lR /” to cache the bootup and directory structures, then leave the rest of the cache up to it’s native algorithms. That would allow a lighting bootup, and rapid directory access (or very fast app loading) under a user’s control.

    Of course, there would have to be some way of telling the system to re-learn the cache, after operating system upgrades, for example. Perhaps a 3-position jumper, 1-2 for cache-lock this data, 2-3 for clear cache, and no jumper for normal operation. That would allow for turbo-charging embedded or legacy systems while leaving the normal functionality intact.

    With that kind of cache control, it should be trivial to add performance details to the SMART data, or a “software jumper” to allow an OS “in the know” (or a utility program) to do the cache manipulations.

    Either way, I hope Seagate provides some sort of contact with performance enthusiasts and typical users, to determine the best algorithms for real-world uses. A policy of continuous improvement would benefit all.

    Another enhancement could be to throttle back the speed of the drive, to 5400 RPM, 3400 RPM, or even to 0, if the computer were able to run out of the cache, caching writes until the drive is brought up to speed. That kind of feature could have a system boot, allow a user to check their email, and shut down without the drive even spinning up, which would certainly improve battery life.

    • Mark Wojtasiak June 24, 2010 at 9:43 am - Reply

      @Colin Pye – The ideas that you have outlined are excellent ideas that Seagate is working for future SSH products. While the Adaptive Memory algorithm is good at determination of needed data in the Flash we agree that if provided information from the end-user, O/S or applications it could improve. We are working on the best mechanism to provide this capability. Seagate recognizes that there are many extremely knowledgeable end users, like yourself, that have important insights that can improve future products. I know that our engineering team is looking into a way for individuals like yourself to be more engaged with our engineers to continue to provide feedback and suggestions as we proceed with this exciting technology.

  7. […] 1. Momentus XT: What the experts are saying 2. Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive – win your bragging rights back 3. Seagate GoFlex breaks the 2.2TB barrier for Windows XP 4. Are all hard drives created equal? Examining rotational vibration in desktop vs enterprise 5. Momentus XT vs Momentus PSD – there’s a huge difference 6. The real story behind Seagate’s Constellation ES 2TB 7. Seagate Constellation is much more than 2TB 8. Gartner reports worldwide disk storage growth rebounds during first quarter 2010 9. The -ers of iPhone 4 10. Seagate GoFlex 2 terabytes of storage for my iPad […]

  8. mccarlson July 21, 2010 at 2:35 pm - Reply

    I was having serious performance issues with my two Momentus XT drives in RAID 0. After lots of time with Seagate tech support, this is the answer I got:

    Mr. Carlson,

    Thank you for choosing Seagate. These drives are not designed or intended to be used in a RAID configuration, and the drives are working as designed. I would recommend using an ES or Enterprise drive, as the firmware in those drives are designed and better suited for RAID use. Basically, you are attempting to use the drives in a manner that was not intended, nor can be supported. If the drives pass Seatools and this issue only occurs in your RAID configuration, then the drives are fine.

    Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thank you again for choosing Seagate and have a great day!

    Bryan
    Seagate Technical Support

  9. erwin123 July 25, 2010 at 8:08 pm - Reply

    Dear Seagate,

    I have a number of Windows XP notebooks which I am interested to migrate to fast hard drives.

    One problem with SSDs is the partition alignment issue with existing Window XP installations.

    Does the Seagate Momentus XT experience performance issues with migrated Windows XP installations since if the drive has not been previously aligned?

    • Mark Wojtasiak July 26, 2010 at 7:08 am - Reply

      @erwin123 – Thanks for commenting…. the quick answer is no. With any new OS, Momentus XT will take 3 boots to learn and/or “align” to the user. The first time you boot XP, you will see performance of a standard 7200RPM drive. By the third time you boot, you will see the true performance benefit of Momentus XT. Hope this helps and thanks again.

  10. rygy666 August 8, 2010 at 5:10 pm - Reply

    I plan on getting this drive for my PS3 they just added an online video store and to download a movie takes an hour+ im hoping to get better results with this new drive the 5400 in it now is just to slow.I plan on testing the different download times ,as soon as i get some results i will post the info here and in my game forums i know a lot of gamers that are exited about this new tec thanks PSN:rygy666

    • Mark Wojtasiak August 9, 2010 at 7:00 am - Reply

      @rygy666 Thanks rygy666! Please keep me posted on the performance, I look forward to hear what you see compared to the 5400 RPM you have running.

  11. […] XT vs Momentus PSD – there’s a huge difference Momentus XT – what the experts are saying The “evil maid” hack can’t touch self-encrypting drives Encryption management across Mac and […]

  12. Paul K August 14, 2010 at 8:49 am - Reply

    Mark Wojtasiak Says:
    Jul 21, 2010 at 2:43 pm…. I will also look into any internal testing on Momentus XT in a RAID configuration.

    @Mark,

    Any update on the raid configurations/compatibility with Momentus XT?

    • Mark Wojtasiak August 16, 2010 at 6:58 am - Reply

      @ Paul K. Hi Paul – the internal team is currently running some tests. In the meantime, have you looked at Overclockers Club review? They have several tests for Momentus XT in a RAID 0 config – http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/seagate_momentus_xt_500gb/. You may also want to check out the FAQs on the forum. They are constantly being updated with the latest information. I will keep an eye out for additional testing results as well. Thanks for checking in.

  13. Steve P August 18, 2010 at 5:48 pm - Reply

    Hi,

    I just wanted to give my 2 cents and then ask a question.

    Firstly, that earlier quoted reply from Seagate: “These drives are not designed or intended to be used in a RAID configuration.”

    What??? Let’s see… like the fastest hard drive (hybrid)aimed directly at the performance conscious, computer savy market was not considered for raid usage? And raid is typically used by corporations for data safety or by power users who want performance. It would seem to me that a drive engineered for performance would also expect to find itself in a striped raid array for ultra performance?

    I’m looking to create my first raid array. I’ve read elsewhere to buy 2 of the 500GB drives and partition into 4x 250GB partitions and raid them striped and mirrored. Can’t remember if that was raid 0+1 or 1+0. A perfect blend of safety and performance. Is the firmware upgrade ready for that, or will it likely be an exercise in futility? Thanks for the direction, Steve.

    • Mark Wojtasiak August 19, 2010 at 7:19 am - Reply

      @Steve P – Hi Steve, thanks for the question. Momentus XT is not designed for enterprise class RAID systems specifically (RAID level 5, 6, etc), but in terms of desktop RAID, many customers have found it to work well in a striped array for increased performance. In fact, Asus notebooks like the G73jh have a dual drive option that allows for RAID 0 configuration, so if it works well in a notebook, it will work well in a desktop gaming system.

  14. Martin Lacher August 22, 2010 at 1:44 am - Reply

    Hi Seagate,

    I just installed a Momentus XT with SD23 into my MacbookPro, copied my old HD with CCC to the Momentus, but now sometimes Thunderbird doesn’t work correctly (doesn’t show my folders anymore though physically existing) and I think it could be because of the Flash Memory. Is there a way to temporarily switch it off to test it?

    Thanks, Martin

    • Mark Wojtasiak August 23, 2010 at 7:47 am - Reply

      Hi Martin – Thanks for using Momentus XT and the comment. There is no way to turn off the flash on the drive. I have not heard of this issue before. You may want to post this to the forums.seagate.com. I know there are several MacBook Pro power users on the forum that can help, and they are typically very fast to respond.

  15. rygy666 August 23, 2010 at 10:57 am - Reply

    I just successfully installed my Momentus XT into my PS3,I was going to post some times but i got to excited like a kid with a new toy ,anyway I can already see huge differences ,best example would be PS home it took forever to load now it loads I would say about 50 to 60% faster there are lot more examples that i wont get into it.This is my 3rd HD swap in my PS3 and by far the best, I am truly impressed .A lot of people maybe wondering why I would do this to a PS3 and the only answer I have is “because I can” thx PSN:rygy666

  16. mathias August 31, 2010 at 2:39 am - Reply

    Just 1 question.
    I dont understand how Seagate use SSD as cash memory between mechanical disk and RAM.
    SDD are sensetive to be overwriten to often and uses TRIM command to make sure the transistors have a longer lifecycle before the memory cells are burnt out this also called “Wear leveling”

    Are Seagate using Dynamic RAM (DDR SDRAM)or DRAM to avoid getting bad Wear leveling due to the overwriting that Momentus need to do very often ?
    Cache 32MB cant storage enogue and i cant find a clue in specifications how mutch of the 500GB drive is mechanical and how mutch is Solid state drive….?

    • Mark Wojtasiak August 31, 2010 at 7:50 am - Reply

      @mathias Thanks for the question. Seagate Momentus XT manages wear and tear on the flash independent of traditional TRIM commands…kind of like it’s own internal TRIM. Also, just to clarify, the drive intelligence does not write data to the SSD. The SSD is utilized for read speeds only – where most of the benefits of flash exist. All data is written to disk first, and the drive’s Adaptive Memory Technology analyzes the data that is most used and mirrors those bits of data to the SSD to boost access time, boot time, etc. Since the SSD is not being written to and rewritten to over an over again, wear leveling is not as big an issue. The drive does monitor the flash and will “turn off” any portions of the flash that do become inaccessible, but this has yet to happen in tests Seagate has run. The SSD on the drive is SLC NAND flash which also is faster and more reliable. Hope this answers your question.

  17. RedLobster September 4, 2010 at 3:54 pm - Reply

    Two days ago, my Seagate 7200.4 Momentus 250GB HDD failed, so I’m quite worried about purchasing this new drive.

    I know there were issues with my previous drive(found out about a firmware update too late), but I want to know are there any issues with this drive? I read from some users that the spin of the HDD would stop a few seconds resulting in some lagging in loading programs, but would also crash OS due to the flash memory. Is that actually true?

    I never had a HDD failed on me until my Seagate Momentus 7200. However, I’m willing to give Seagate another chance with this innovative HDD.

    • Mark Wojtasiak September 7, 2010 at 8:08 am - Reply

      @RedLobster Thanks for the comment. The latest version of the Momentus XT with SD23 firmware addresses the spin down issue raised by some users. I am sorry to hear about you hard drive failure. I hope that you had a good backup of your content, and we sincerely appreciate you sticking with Seagate. We are confident you will be happy with Momentus XT. You may also want to check the latest Momentus XT FAQs for tips on how to best take advantage of the performance of hybrid technology. http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-and/Momentus-XT-Frequently-Asked-Questions/td-p/52701

  18. Mikael Andersson September 20, 2010 at 5:07 am - Reply

    Hello,

    I am interested in upgrading my sons old HP 6710b laptop
    with a Momentus XT drive, either the 250GB or 320GB version.
    Is this possible, and do you know if it requires some BIOS
    and driver updates? I have not been able to find any info on
    the feasibility on the HP website.

    • Mark Wojtasiak September 20, 2010 at 6:54 am - Reply

      @Mikael Andersson Hi Makael. Momentus XT does not require any special drivers or BIOS settings. The the laptop and the OS it looks like a standard 7200 RPM hard drive. The performance leveraged is completely handled by the drive itself, so there is no dependency on the OS or system itself. Thanks for the question.

  19. Andrew Haswell September 29, 2010 at 1:45 am - Reply

    I’m considering one for my mac and was wondering how it performs / copes with a dual boot system. I understand the OS X installation would be faster after a couple of boots but what then happens when i boot up windows in bootcamp once a day. Is the cache going to be diverted to use by the windows install at the expense of my primary OS?

    • Mark Wojtasiak September 29, 2010 at 6:36 am - Reply

      @Andrew Haswell Hi Andrew – thanks for the question. The 4GB of SSD on the Momentus XT is more than enough to handle the necessarily bits of information in a dual boot scenario. Since the hard drive is blind to what OS you are running, the Adaptive Memory Technology will analyze and place into SSD those files that will speed up both the Mac OS and the Windows OS and frequently used applications running in both environments. I hope this answers your question.

  20. Andrew Haswell September 29, 2010 at 1:48 am - Reply

    How does the Momentus ST perform against the Momentus 7200.5 750GB 7200RPM drive that is so close to being in the stores? Does the platter density of the new 750GB edge out the STs performace gains?

    • Mark Wojtasiak September 29, 2010 at 6:43 am - Reply

      @Andrew Haswell – Momentus XT is still the fastest notebook drive available at the system level. I have not seen benchmarks on the new 750GB, but it’s important to remember that the performance benefit of Momentus XT due to it being an SSD Hybrid and having Adaptive Memory Technology is at the system level. Meaning your computing experience with Momentus XT will be significantly faster than what a traditional hard drive like the forthcoming 750GB will provide. Sure. the performance delta will be smaller, but will not enter the realm of what SSD Hybrid technology delivers.

  21. Carl Lamb October 4, 2010 at 12:10 am - Reply

    Hi there, my knowledge of hard drive technology is limited. I understand size and speed and that is about that. I upgraded to a 500gig 7200 early 2010 on my macbook pro and it has been great. I am running Pro-Tools with loads of RTAS and Re-Wire applications. I want to buy the 500gig XT drive and really need to know that as far as Seagate are concerned the transition will be smooth.

    Cheers

    • Mark Wojtasiak October 4, 2010 at 7:40 am - Reply

      @Carl Lamb Hi Carl – thanks for the comment/question. I did some checking on this and one of our engineers runs a DAW software (Digital Performer) on his own macbook pro with a bunch of RTAs (Native Instruments) with no issues at all. We would expect the same for Pro-Tools. I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes. Thanks – Mark

  22. John C October 7, 2010 at 12:44 pm - Reply

    Any chance that we’re going to see the Momentus XT technology in a 3.5″ desktop drive format anytime soon?

    • Mark Wojtasiak October 8, 2010 at 7:29 am - Reply

      @John C Another good question…there is always a chance. I have not heard of any concrete plans to do so, but should the market demand one, Seagate, I’m sure, will do what they can to address the market.

  23. chuck Constantine October 14, 2010 at 6:36 am - Reply

    Mark I am considering using a momentus XT in a Sharp PC30 10 inch laptop that is running Windows XP. Should I expect any problems with the conversion?

    • Mark Wojtasiak October 14, 2010 at 7:48 am - Reply

      @Chuck Constantine Hi Chuck – I took a look at the Sharp PC 30 you are referring to, and you may want to double/triple check the manual to determine a couple things before you attempt an upgrade. First, check the drive connection. The specifications on this notebook indicate it uses an IDE or ATA hard drive. (the Momentus XT is a Serial ATA or SATA drive and will not work with an IDE (ATA) based notebook). If your notebook does have Serial ATA (SATA) drive interface, then also check the size of the drive bay. As long as you have a 9.5mm drive bay, the drive will physically fit in your notebook. Those 2 things are the most important items to verify. Other than those 2 critical items, the drive will work great with a Windows XP based system. Let me know if you have any additional questions. Thanks.

  24. Dan October 28, 2010 at 1:43 am - Reply

    Hello Mark,

    I am considering purchasing the Momentus XT 500GB drive for my Lenovo notebook (X61). I recently installed native Ubuntu and am running Windows XP in a virtual machine. I am wondering do the caching benefits of the drive also apply for Windows XP running in a VirtualBox virtual machine?

    The single virtual hard drive that holds Windows XP is currently 1.5 GB in size, but can easily grow much larger than 4 GB.

    thank you,
    Dan

    • Mark Wojtasiak October 28, 2010 at 8:48 am - Reply

      @Dan Hi Dan – Momentus XT really does not care about the OS. The Adaptive Memory Technology will determine what small files are needed in the SSD to boost performance. In terms of the capacity question, we have found that the files slowing down boot, application load, etc. are many very small files, and 4GB is more than enough SSD to handle the load. The entire OS will not go on the flash, just the pieces that seem be accessed the most from disk. Hope this helps.

  25. Dan October 28, 2010 at 3:48 pm - Reply

    Hello Mark,

    Thank you for your prompt response. I guess my key question is how files within the Virtual Machine are treated,if at all,by Momentus XT.

    Or, is the “file” concept irrelevant to Momentus XT, and its really a lower level concept that matters, such as blocks of data.

    From what i understand from your reply. Also,windows xp running inside of a virtual machine,running on linux would experience a boost, after repeat usage.

    thank you,

    Dan

    • Mark Wojtasiak October 29, 2010 at 7:12 am - Reply

      @Dan Hi Dan – you are correct…the file concept whether its Linux, Mac OS, Windows, Virtual Machine, etc. is irrelevant to Momentus XT. The Adaptive Memory Technology just recognizes which files are being requested the most by the system and puts them in flash. If you are running Windows XP in a virtual machine quite often, Momentus XT will realize this and put the necessary files in the SSD to boost app load, boot time, etc. Thanks again for checking in.

  26. Dan October 30, 2010 at 9:24 am - Reply

    Hello Mark,

    Thank you again for your prompt response.

    I read up a bit on file systems (reading a FAT32 implementation), and think to now better understand your response.

    Any hard disk presents itself (i.e. offers an interface) in terms of hard disk geometry to the file system of an operating system. So, the hard drive sees things like sectors, blocks and the like. These are “strung” together into files by the OS file system.

    However, for caching purposes it is enough to know what blocks are frequently accessed, which implicitly translates into accessed files.

    So, although in a virtual environment files are managed by a file system which itself is stored in a file, in an underlying OS/file system, in the end of the day, this file is stored on the hard drive in terms of blocks, and these have access statistics, which, again, implicitly improve access of files within the virtual machine.

    i hope i got it right now,

    thanks,

    Daniel

  27. igs75 November 9, 2010 at 3:16 am - Reply

    Dear Seagate,

    I want to buy new Momentus XT for my T60p laptop , but I have read a lot posts for problems with Lenovo software like :
    – Lenovo’s Thinkvantage Toolbox utility in Windows 7
    – ThinkVantage Active Protection System
    even after installing last firmware SD23.

    Some users complain form BSOD and failures even after installing SD23 and removing LTT and ThinkVantage Active Protection System.
    This means that this drive is incompatible with Lenovo ThinkPad laptops.

    When this issue will be fixed?

    • Mark Wojtasiak November 9, 2010 at 10:31 am - Reply

      @igs75 Hi – the issues you outline with respect to Lenovo are being worked and the fix will be available in the next couple weeks. Thanks for reading and commenting!

  28. markz November 12, 2010 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    The upgrade on my Dell E6400 Latitude, running Windows 7 64 bit rig went easy peasy.

    I did a back up to an external hard drive. I installed the new drive, booted to the backup boot cd, and imaged the new Momentus XP 500g. It boot up now in about 40 seconds.

    The bios is set to ATA mode, when I reset it to AHCI, it blue screens. So much for that idea, back to ATA mode it goes.

    Is it worth my time to try in re OSing the unit using the AHCI drivers.

    Will I see any significant performance gains by doing so?

    Thanks,

    • Mark Wojtasiak November 12, 2010 at 3:05 pm - Reply

      @markz Great to hear the upgrade was easy. You may want to check out the forums on this. I have only seen Momentus XT performance on a clean install, so I do not have a good comparison to an upgraded laptop. If your risk is low in trying this (meaning you have a backup), I would be interested to hear what you see in terms of boot time after a clean install of the OS. Keep me posted.

  29. Fred November 17, 2010 at 8:23 am - Reply

    Hi Mark,
    I want to replace the 2 hard drives of my DELL Precision M6400 in Raid 0 with 2 Momentus XT 500 Gb. Does it work on Raid 0 on a notebook, on a system disk ? I have seen some tests on overclockersclub.com, but i am not sure it was on system disk. Can you confirm that Momentus XT can work in Raid 0 ?
    Thanks

    • Mark Wojtasiak November 17, 2010 at 8:26 am - Reply

      @Fred Hi Fred – Yes, Momentus XT will work in a desktop system as RAID 0. All you’ll need is a couple 2.5″ to 3.5″ brackets of course. Thanks!

  30. carl November 18, 2010 at 10:55 pm - Reply

    Not sure about desktop installation. Don’t laptop hard drives use a different power supply connector?

    • Mark Wojtasiak November 19, 2010 at 8:59 am - Reply

      @carl They used to be different when we had IDE drives, but now with SATA the power connector is the same no matter 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch. Thanks for the question.

  31. HyC November 23, 2010 at 10:22 am - Reply

    Hi. I’m worry about the security of these NAND flash…The 4GB of Momentus XT is only a mirror of HDD or there are some of memory? That 4GB have a free space or everything is condensed? This 4GB use TRIM?

    • Mark Wojtasiak November 23, 2010 at 11:31 am - Reply

      @HyC – Momentus XT does not use TRIM. The 4GB is used just for the small files that the drive determines are slowing down boot and application load. This is the magic of Adaptive Memory Technology. Not everything is in the SSD. Thanks for the question.

  32. HyC November 23, 2010 at 10:57 am - Reply

    More informations about TRIM and Security: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=trim-operation

  33. tom December 2, 2010 at 11:02 am - Reply

    im building a lite gamming desktop has a amd 945 quad core cpu, asus 790x mb, and a gigabyte 5770 gpu, will the Momentus XT be better for my system than a 1 terrabyte 7200rpm hd

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 2, 2010 at 1:53 pm - Reply

      @Tom Thanks for the question….in terms of speed – yes. Momentus XT is faster than a 1TB 7200 RPM drive…your only sacrifice would be the 500GB of capacity.

  34. […] there’s a huge difference Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive – win your bragging rights back Momentus XT – what the experts are saying Share and […]

  35. Luke December 4, 2010 at 5:23 am - Reply

    A few weeks ago I upgrade my Model:5,2 Macbook from the stock 120Gb Hitachi and the two single Gb RAM sticks with the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid and 6Gb of RAM, both of which I purchased from Other World Computing. As I awaited the arrival of my hardware, I was concerned that I might be wasting the money and would perhaps be better off putting the funds toward a new Macbook Pro or that the installation might be tricky. Boy, were my worries unfounded!
    I completed the installation of both the memory and the XT, cloned my old drive over and put it in the new portable Firewire 400 and USB 2.O enclosure in about an hour and a half. Since then, my Macbook feels like a brand new computer. The pinwheel that I’ve been seeing more and more of since I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator more often is now a thing of the past.
    This was probably the best few hundred dollars I’ve ever spent. In fact, I intend to do the same to my Model:3,1 Mac Mini, though I’ll be able to put in up to 8Gb of RAM. Now that I’ve read the above articles and comments, I plan to eventually install a third XT by sticking a second drive in a RAID configuration into the Mini via an OWC Data-doubler mounting bracket in lieu of the stock optical drive, which I intend to replace with an external Blu-Ray drive.
    If anyone out there has any doubts about one of these XT’s, especially for an application like mine, rest assured, this drive is one of the best investments you’ll ever make, at least until the OWC SSD’s are comparably priced. My laptop has four times as much disk space, you can only rarely hear the drive even kick on, the battery lasts longer, and my trusty Macbook just zips along. Buy the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive today, you won’t regret it!

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 6, 2010 at 7:57 am - Reply

      @Luke – Awesome Luke. Thanks for the great story and awesome endorsement of Momentus XT!!!

  36. andy mccormick December 8, 2010 at 9:33 pm - Reply

    i’m currently running a Phenom 965 (quad 3.4) with 8gb RAM on Win7 x64. My OS drive and Apps are on two WD caviar black drives 160gb drives running RAID 0, my data drive is 1TB caviar green, and scratch disk for Photoshop is a single 160gb caviar black.
    My question is, is what kind of performance boost would I gain by using the Momentus XT as a my system drive and/or my scratch disk. I’m not a gamer at all, pure Photo processing. I do a lot of retouching on large files (500mb ~ 1gb) and batch processing.
    thanks for any help.

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 9, 2010 at 7:35 am - Reply

      @andy mccormick Hi Andy. Thanks for the comment/question. In comparison to typical 7200 RPM drives you will experience a significant boost in performance. It does not matter if you are not a gamer. Momentus XT’s performance is tuned to however you use the system, so if Photoshop is your primary application the drive’s Adaptive Memory Technology will study and learn what bits of data are accessed most frequently when booting and running Photoshop. Those files are mirrored to the flash, and the performance increases dramatically because it’s pulling from the SSD on the drive and not the disks. I don’t have exact numbers comparing Momentus XT to the Black drive you mention, but one reviewer site – Overclocker’s Club- had 2 Momentus XT drives in a RAID 0 almost matching the speed of a 128MB SSD, and we all know 128MB SSD is faster than 7200 RPM drives. Hope this helps.

  37. Timerider December 15, 2010 at 10:23 pm - Reply

    I’ve been looking at upgrading my MacBook Pro with a Momentus XT for awhile now, but I’m wondering when the next generation of drives will come along. I’d hate to buy one now if the next version comes out in a month or two with more solid state memory built in.

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 16, 2010 at 8:39 am - Reply

      @Timerider Good question… all I can say is you are safe with going with the current generation. Next gen will not be coming within the next few months.

  38. Garry Jackson December 17, 2010 at 8:45 pm - Reply

    I’m a new comer to the computer world. I have a Mac Book -’07 10.4 –80gb & 1gb memory. I want to upgrade my HD & memory, then install snow leopard 10.6. I work with iphoto,camcorders and DVDs quite often. Would the Momentus XT do the job for me, or would a 500gb HHD be just as effective for me?

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 20, 2010 at 8:57 am - Reply

      @Garry Jackson Hi Gary… Momentus XT will provide you a much faster computing experience than a standard 500GB HDD. It entirely depends on your budget, but Momentus XT is worth the extra $$$ for the performance you get in return. I say go for it! Thanks.

  39. Kats December 23, 2010 at 3:56 am - Reply

    Hi,

    I bought a Momentus XT 500GB and installed on my T60P laptop. I have done a clean install using Lenovo Recovery Disks. I have upgraded the Seagate firmware (SD24). The laptop has been running for about a week now. However, I do notice frequent hard disk seek while browsing internet and constant freeze/lockup. I have disabled the Active Hard Disk Protection and have removed the PC Doctor.

    I suppose the hard drive read/write is supposed to be less than the normal drives. Is there any settings that needs to be changed ??. My SATA Controller is set at Compatability mode. Once I tried AHCI and the laptop blue screened. Please could you advise.

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 23, 2010 at 9:39 am - Reply

      @Kats Hello Kats. I forwarded your question to the engineering team, and this is what they said: “On a fresh installation, Windows will be doing a lot of scanning and indexing of all files, in spite of disabling virus scan and other service software. This indexing is to facilitate the Search function. And, there could be bloatware installed by the Lenovo disk. I will recommend to download the “Process Monitor” from Microsoft. It may help figure out what rogue processes were causing the problem. Changing the SATA controller mode between IDE and AHCI requires re-installation of Windows.” Let me know if this helps. – Mark

  40. Richard December 23, 2010 at 10:16 am - Reply

    Hi Mark,
    I just got this drive from BB. I ran into one of your reps there (Pleasanton, CA)and he impressed me with his knowledge of, and interest in, the subject. He told me it supported Mac o/s. I’m quite experienced with PC laptops upgrades, and my son is quite familiar with Mac o/s, but not w/ upgrading hard drive; is there anything special to know about a Mac install?

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 23, 2010 at 10:29 am - Reply

      @Richard Thanks for the comments…good to hear. Momentus XT integrates perfectly with Mac systems as well. You want to be sure to check your Mac product manual for how to access the drive bay. Some can be accessed on the bottom of the laptop, and some are under the keyboard. Be sure to check that out. Also, there are some great videos on YouTube around upgrading Mac notebook hard drives. Do a search for the specific MacBook you have and I am sure there is a step by step video to give you some additional guidance. Thanks again and Happy Holidays!

  41. Kats December 23, 2010 at 11:15 am - Reply

    Hi Mark,

    Thanks for your input. Well the installation I have done was custom and I can confirm what I have is a pretty cut down version of the normal preload. My page files and process seems to be okay. I am running about 90 process including my virus scan and a nominal page file of about 800 MB. Is there a software that Seagate has released for improving or increasing the file indexing. If you require any data for analysis and for the common good of all Momentus XT users please feel free to ask. I am not very comfortable in running a reinstall of the OS in AHCI mode unless the system crashes.

    Let me know your engineers suggestion.

    Thanks and happy holidays

  42. Hugo December 23, 2010 at 7:14 pm - Reply

    i’ve hp dv8000 (dv8125nr), are compatibility whit this hd

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 23, 2010 at 10:09 pm - Reply

      @Hugo Momentus XT is compatible with any standard laptop with a SATA storage interface. I assume the HP DV8000 does. Thanks for the question.

  43. Alan Rosenthal December 28, 2010 at 7:50 am - Reply

    Hi, Mark – I bought the XT 500 Gb about 2 months ago and installed it in my HP dv6120 laptop. Loaded in Windows 7 Pro, and now have an all-together new machine. Boots up faster than the ACER desktop and loads applications like lightening. Installation time was minutes and the original 120 Gb drive is now the external USB backup. Too bad I can’t find a Win 7 webcam driver for this model. Now if only I could fit one into the ACER netbook ! Cheers.

    • Mark Wojtasiak December 29, 2010 at 8:13 am - Reply

      @Alan Rosenthal – Thanks Alan! Happy to hear your system is “lightening fast” Have a Happy New Year!

  44. ADV January 5, 2011 at 11:09 pm - Reply

    Can Momentus xt take an accidental bang and still work as new

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 5, 2011 at 11:56 pm - Reply

      @ADV It depends on the size of the “bang”….how big of a bang are you talking?

  45. ADV January 6, 2011 at 3:53 pm - Reply

    When I say bang I mean a desktop for example in a luggage case or metal case padded falling a foot of the ground

  46. KX January 9, 2011 at 6:11 am - Reply

    Hello. I am interested in buying some Moments XT for my new Desktop. However I intend to use them in a RAID 5 mode (through the motherboard controller). The operating system I will use is either Win7 or my retail version of XP (depends on the programs I will use). Will I have any problems with the raid 5 array?

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 12, 2011 at 8:08 am - Reply

      @KX No you will not have any problems with RAID 5. To the system the Momentus XT just looks like a hard drive. The performance benefit from a read perspective is 100% handled by the drive’s Adaptive Memory Technology. The drive will determine what files / bits of data will need to be placed in flash to increase read performance without dependence on a RAID controller or software. Great question…thanks. Please let me know what you experience in RAID 5.

  47. Savio January 11, 2011 at 11:39 pm - Reply

    I am using a notebook with WinXP, 3G RAM and a 800M Ramdisk.

    I would like to ask, if Seagate XT drive is to be installed, would it be necessary to uninstall the Ramdisk, or would there be any conflict between the Ramdisk settings and the Adaptive Memory technology?

    Thanks

    Savio

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 12, 2011 at 8:06 am - Reply

      @Savio The Adaptive Memory Technology is managed by the drive itself with no dependence on the OS or interface with any applications, so you will not need to uninstall Ramdisk. Thanks for the question/comment.

  48. David D January 13, 2011 at 9:37 am - Reply

    I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T410, i7 proc, Win7 x 64, and have determined that the SSD drive is having problems with Outlook 2007 and Web browsing as detailed in this article http://www.myce.com/news/Free-utility-speeds-up-SSD-writing-on-XP–Vista-32-bit-15287/

    Would using a Momentus XT cure this issue, or should I just use a regular Momentus?

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 14, 2011 at 8:44 am - Reply

      @David D Hi David. I spoke to our engineering team for Momentus XT and this is what they told me per the article you linked to: (1) Momentus XT doesn’t have the MLC write performance issue, as writes go directly disc as quickly as a regular Momentus.
      (2) Momentus XT uses SLC NAND. I hope this helps. Thanks, Mark.

  49. Nafes Furqan January 16, 2011 at 6:26 pm - Reply

    I have a question is the momentus xt faster than a 10000 rpm drive like the 2nd gen 600gb western digital velociraptor?

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 18, 2011 at 10:16 am - Reply

      @Nafes Furqan Hi Nafes – Yes, in 3rd Party testing as well as internal testing, Momentus XT has benchmarked faster than a 10K RPM SATA drive!

  50. Gary Holdren January 28, 2011 at 12:57 pm - Reply

    Here’s an interesting question for you. I have a 1.6 GHz Mac Quicksilver PowerPC. I want to install either an SSD or the Momentus XT to replace my current 500 GB startup drive. The Quicksilver uses ATA connections for the HDD. Can I use an ATA to SATA converter for the Momentus? Have you seen this done before. Should it work? I love the reviews on the Momentus and I’d love to add one if it would work.

    • Mark Wojtasiak January 30, 2011 at 2:46 pm - Reply

      @ Gary Holdren Hi Gary – good question. Using a PATA to SATA adapter would drastically reduce the transfer speeds of any drive including the Momentus XT, so you would not see the performance benefits. You could put a SATA host bus adapter or RAID card in the PowerPC and the use Momentus XT. That way you preserve the SATA interface and reap the rewards of the technology. Let me know if this helps. – Mark

  51. […] the past 9 months, I have been touting  Seagate’s Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid hard drive and it’s Adaptive Memory Technology that automatically places […]

  52. Remi February 8, 2011 at 5:42 am - Reply

    I was very interested in getting 2 500GB Momentus XT drives running in RAID for my desktop setup but having found many many forums reporting issues with system freezes and spin down issues I think I’ll wait until larger capacity SSD drives come down in price.

    Just to prove my point here is a 25 page thread (which seagate seem to refuse to comment on) with the same reports of lagging/freezes/spin down issues.

    http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-and/If-you-have-problems-with-Momentus-XT-please-come-in/td-p/59455

    Are these problems linked to Macs?

    • Mark Wojtasiak February 8, 2011 at 9:43 am - Reply

      @Remi Thanks for the comment. The latest firmware revision SD24 has addressed the issues outlined on the forum. In terms of RAID, Momentus XT in a RAID does not pose any problems. In fact, there are several reviews of Momentus XT in a RAID and the performance rivals SSD. With respect to Macs, SD24 firmware has resolved any isolated issues. I have to say its because of the Seagate forum that we are able to address any issues head on, so we value the direct input of customers/users greatly. You cannot put a price tag on direct user feedback…Thanks again for the heads up! -Mark

  53. […] of the largest launches for Seagate, from a marketing and communications perspective.  There were countless reviews, banner ads, landing pages, blogs, social media buzz, and a live webcast that packed in thousands […]

  54. Rod March 1, 2011 at 12:52 pm - Reply

    i installed the XT in my 15″ 2.66ghz 5,3 mac pro several weeks ago i have now compared the performance side by side with the new 13″ 2.7ghz i7 and my performance is still better than the new mac 2011. I am curious why seagate choose 4gb over say 16gb flash. the price differential of 4, 8 or 16 Gb can’t be significant. are their technical reasons to choose 4 Gb?

    • Mark Wojtasiak March 1, 2011 at 1:17 pm - Reply

      @Rod Thanks for the feedback Rod…good to hear. Choosing to go with 4GB of SSD at the time had a little to do with initial cost, but more so because of the design characteristics of the drive in terms of available real estate. You can bet that future generations will start to beef up the SSD capacity on the drive. Thanks again! – Mark

  55. Ashok Ramakrishnan March 6, 2011 at 11:59 am - Reply

    I am using the momentus XT on both my work laptop and my home laptop. one running win 7 and one running xp sp3. I have been very happy with it. I can’t wait for the next version with more SSD cache than 4GB… I also have SD24 firmware… I notice my XP bootup still goes to the hard drive a lot (just guessing from how much the hard drive led flashes). Is there a tool that can be used to tell what the ssd read cache hit is in the XT?
    thanks,

    • Mark Wojtasiak March 7, 2011 at 8:05 am - Reply

      @Ashok Ramakrishnan Thanks Ashok…good to hear. Currently, there is no tool that Seagate produces that allows you to identify what the SSD read cahce hit is. Perhaps the next generation will provide more user tools like this. Great feedback. Thanks again.

  56. Alan Rosenthal March 18, 2011 at 7:24 am - Reply

    Greetings, Mark – Before I take my ACER Aspire One net book apart to find out for myself, do you know if the little 8″ netbook will accomodate and support an XT drive. It works so well in the HP laptop that I do want to get one into the netbook, which is slowed down badly by disc access time.

    Appreciateyour comment
    Alan

    • Mark Wojtasiak March 18, 2011 at 7:37 am - Reply

      @Alan Rosenthal Hi Alan – good question. I do not have any first hand experience with the Aspire One, but based on the website specs, some models have the ability to take a hard drive, and from the looks of the chassis (need to verify HDD bay size), a standard 9.5mm drive appears to fit which Momentus XT is. There is no functional reason why Momentus XT would not work in the Netbook, it comes more down to the physical size of the HDD bay in the Aspire One. Let me know what you do and the results…you got me intrigued 🙂 – Mark

  57. Martin March 28, 2011 at 5:49 am - Reply

    Hi,

    I am interested in using this in an Asus EP121. I have 2 questions

    1. Is it compatible?
    2. The SSD is reported as 3 – 3.5 hours movie playback. How does power consumption compare to current generation SSD for the above task?

    Pweformance is great, but battery life and capacity is more important.

    Many Thanks

    Martin

    • Mark Wojtasiak March 28, 2011 at 8:03 am - Reply

      @Martin Hi Martin – after a quick scan of the specs on the Asus EP121 tablet, I don’t see anything that lists a SATA connection, much less an internal drive bay that would take a 9mm hard drive. You may want to double check this. Also, power consumption on the Momentus XT will be similar to any standard hard drive, so SSD may be the better option when it comes to overall power consumption and maximizing your battery life – especially when it comes to movie playback. Hope this helps. – Mark

  58. […] XT: must have to speed Windows 7 Momentus XT vs Momentus PSD – there’s a huge difference Momentus XT – what the experts are saying RAID’ng Momentus XT? Looks like a no-brainer Share and […]

  59. […] Tier 0: 4GB of SSD on my Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) […]

  60. Shu Vinke October 14, 2011 at 2:24 pm - Reply

    It’s in point of fact a nice and helpful piece of info. I am glad that you shared this helpful info with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.

  61. […] like yesterday, but it’s been a whole 18 months since the first Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive was […]

  62. […] so special about the Momentus XT 750GB? It’s 70% FASTer Momentus XT – what the experts are saying Share and […]

  63. […] Первые рецензии на Momentus XT Отраслевые эксперты оценили Momentus XT. Чтобы ознакомиться с их рецензиями, посетите блог Seagate, The Storage Effect. […]

  64. […] Первые рецензии на Momentus XT Отраслевые эксперты оценили Momentus XT. Чтобы ознакомиться с их рецензиями, посетите блог Seagate, The Storage Effect. […]

  65. Marty June 8, 2014 at 10:03 am - Reply

    My Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320 GB has worked well as an externally USB connected drive for baking up files and extra storage until suddenly, I connected the drive to my laptop when it did its usual spin-up, but the system never “saw” the drive. Thinking that the problem might be with the electronic in the case in which it was installed, I installed the drive in a new case but with the same results. The problem, in my opinion, must be the on-board electronics with the drive since no unusual noises are detected from the mechanical operation of the drive. Please let me know what my options are in recovering data from the drive.
    Thanks

Leave A Comment