Seagate Momentus XT fuses HDD, SSD

JaredNewman

Seagate Momentus XT fuses HDD, SSD.

Debate all you want about hard disk drives versus solid state drives. Seagate reminds us that they can co-exist on a single product.


Read the full article here: http://www.myce.com/news/seagate-mom...hdd-ssd-30016/


Please note that the reactions from the complete site will be synched below.

Blu-rayFreak

Neat concept, with a price that's not insane. Good job Seagate.

Burnsama

this is great news JaredNewman
No need to looking around over 250GB SSD for my notebook
I go this one ( 500GB ) when it arrives
Seagate Momentus XT will hunt down 10000RPM HDD
Nice Job Seagate
and more info
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kss98VdhSj0

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Intel X25-M G2 SATA 2 ( 4 X 80GB ) ( 4 X 120GB ) Intel 510 Series SATA 3 ( 2 X 120GB )
OCZ Agility 2 ( 2 X 60GB ) Vertex LE ( 2 X 100GB ) Vertex 3 SATA3 ( 1 X 120GB )
Crucial RealSSD C300 SATA 3 ( 1 X 128GB )
New Crucial M4 SATA 3 ( 2 X 128GB )
Waiting
Core i7-3960X ( Nov - 14 / 6 core 3.3 Ghz / LGA 2011 ) or Core i7-3980X

DukeNukem

Very interesting stuff.

vroom

This drive looks promising (and very fast), and it makes me wonder how soon this solution will be imported in the 3,5" hdd's?

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DukeNukem

What's wrong with 2.5"? Do you need a drive bigger than 500GB? If not, then just get this and a 3.5" adapter.

vroom

It's not about the capacity, but i also cant see anything wrong on a 1tb (or more) disk that is faster that your average hdd.
and also a 3,5" will make installation easier on a pc for the average user.

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Im a PC

After seeing the numerous reviews, these drives don't live up to the hype. Unless you're accessing the same data over and over, its not much faster than a standard HDD.

vroom

It should be able to make your OS load faster, so this looks very nice for almost every user that doesn't want or cant spent the money for an SSD drive, plus a 2,5" @ 10k will produce a lot of heat.

But i can say that this is a good idea.

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You put me down, For the very last time,
I hit the floor, But I got up on the count of nine,
Goodbye, don't cry, When I'm gone.

Burnsama

I can't use for my Notebook because it is 7200RPM drive ( go to SSD for my Notebook )
but this is good idea... I will get couple for my another Desktop

P.S Intel 80GB X25M GEN2 on sale Micro Center $199ea
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0327003

__________________
MY SSD List
Intel X25-M G2 SATA 2 ( 4 X 80GB ) ( 4 X 120GB ) Intel 510 Series SATA 3 ( 2 X 120GB )
OCZ Agility 2 ( 2 X 60GB ) Vertex LE ( 2 X 100GB ) Vertex 3 SATA3 ( 1 X 120GB )
Crucial RealSSD C300 SATA 3 ( 1 X 128GB )
New Crucial M4 SATA 3 ( 2 X 128GB )
Waiting
Core i7-3960X ( Nov - 14 / 6 core 3.3 Ghz / LGA 2011 ) or Core i7-3980X

Seán

So far in any reviews I've seen real-world tests in, this drive performed better than desktop HDDs. For example, for application launches, the performance takes effect from the second launch after installation, but unlike memory cache, the performance is not lost after a shutdown or reboot. This page on AnandTech gives a couple of timing examples, some results which are closer to SSD performance than even the WD Velociraptor, with a traditional 2.5" HDD far behind.

For a desktop PC, it's hard to beat a combination of an SSD for the OS/applications and a big hard disk for everything else, based on my PC's performance. But for a laptop, this appears to be an excellent choice, since up until now, you could either have a HDD or an SSD, but not both in most laptops.

4GB may not seem like much, but remember that it only caches small blocks of data read more than once and not larger blocks of data where the lower NAND latency has little benefit. For example, if Windows reads a lot of small files (e.g. 1000 DLL files during a application launch), most of the time is spent waiting on the HDD seeking for each file, however, if Windows reads a single file of the equivalent total size, the HDD only has to seek once (assuming no fragmentation) and the rest of the time is throughput related.

This hybrid appears to do badly in synthetic benchmarks, however, who cares if a drive performs miserably in synthetic testing and simulations, as long as it does well in the real-world practical use. To give an example, I have the first generation Kingston 128GB V series which I bought at a clearance sale (almost half price), a drive which did miserably in some reviews I read, a few even claiming it did not even stand up to a 5400RPM HDD in their tests. Yet, after mirroring the original HDD in my laptop to it, there was a drastic improvement, e.g. the boot time going from 90 to 30 seconds and applications launching about as quick as my desktop PC which as an OCZ Agility. I bought it to speed up the laptop, not to benchmark.

I do agree with vroom, as a desktop hybrid HDD would be very nice and probably cheaper to make.

Here in Ireland, the Momentus XT 250GB is priced at €99. The cheapest Velociraptor is €147.57 for the 150GB model and the cheapest SSD is €87.50 for the Kingston V-series 30GB I came across. So for a little more than the price of this 30GB SSD and performance appearing to be somewhere between an SSD and a Velociraptor in practical use, it appears to be a great bang for the performance.

awdrifter

I think this drive has potential, but it needs more and faster onboard SLC NAND memory IMO. From the AnandTech review, they are saying that since this drive is only using 1 SLC NAND chip (vs multiple NAND chip in real SSD), the read speed is probably only 20-40mb/s, that's pretty slow. If they double the memory and speed, I would seriously consider getting one as the primary HDD for my desktop.

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debro

Why not?

Many laptops come with a 7200rpm HDD ... I'm writing this on a laptop with 7200rpm HDD now ...

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Burnsama

first I want longer battery life
second much better performance
think about getting
Crucial C300 RealSSD 256GB or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226138
( Sandforce 1200 )

__________________
MY SSD List
Intel X25-M G2 SATA 2 ( 4 X 80GB ) ( 4 X 120GB ) Intel 510 Series SATA 3 ( 2 X 120GB )
OCZ Agility 2 ( 2 X 60GB ) Vertex LE ( 2 X 100GB ) Vertex 3 SATA3 ( 1 X 120GB )
Crucial RealSSD C300 SATA 3 ( 1 X 128GB )
New Crucial M4 SATA 3 ( 2 X 128GB )
Waiting
Core i7-3960X ( Nov - 14 / 6 core 3.3 Ghz / LGA 2011 ) or Core i7-3980X

debro

And a 7200rpm HDD with SSD caching of the most commonly used files (reducing seeking to perhaps 50%) will increase overall power how?

I understand that the speed of the 2.5" hybrid drive is very close to a full, but low capacity, SSD .. while increasing storage capacity 10 fold for the same price as a standard SSD.

I for one, have lots of files on ALL my PC, laptops included, and while 500GB is more than I need, 64GB is less than I need.

This product seems awsome ... and Aussie retailers are already listing it slightly cheaper than el-cheapy SSD's, even if it's order-in only ...

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