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Seagate Momentus XT 7200.1 500GB SATA 2.5" 32MB HYBRID 4GB SSD

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uglybob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Has anyone got any experiences with hybrid drives. As in Seagate Momentus XT 7200.1 500GB SATA 2.5" 32MB HYBRID 4GB SSD. I have read a couple of reviews and they come out well but would be interested in user experiences.

Any advice gratefully received
 
Works great in my Mini except for a spin down issue that is the subject of a blame game between Seagate and Apple. SD23 firmware is supposed to be the latest, best firmware and address the spin down problem but it still occurs. It doesn't really affect me negatively but I have heard of some power users who experience real issues from it, such as when pushing their systems a bit when working with video or audio production. Also, some people have reported vibration with XT's but I cannot detect any vibration in my Mini; either it doesn't exist or Apple is doing a decent job at isolating it.
 
I was one of those that was having problems with the drive spinning down. An update to SD23 did not seem to change anything. I would be in the middle of something, I could actually hear the drive spin down...park...and then spin up again. The old beach ball effect would be in play while this was happening. Was actually looking to pool my xmas money and look at an SSD upgrade. However, a couple of days ago I check and found that SD24 firmware is now out. After installing, drive is silent and have not had a spin down that I could notice in the past four days.....

Fin
 
QuantumLo0p said:
Works great in my Mini except for a spin down issue that is the subject of a blame game between Seagate and Apple. SD23 firmware is supposed to be the latest
Click to expand...
Actually, Seagate released SD24 about a week ago. It finally fixed all the problems I had with this drive: Random stalls and worse battery life. Now it feels much faster than before.

Here's a link to the new firmware on Seagate's website: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=215451&NewLang=en
 
anyone have any problems with failure of this drive. i really want to get this and the only thing holding me back is some people saying it fails in a couple months. mine is the stock hitachi and im always worried that it will go so i came across this and it looks great because i dont want to drop $ for an ssd.
 
nunes013 said:
anyone have any problems with failure of this drive. i really want to get this and the only thing holding me back is some people saying it fails in a couple months. mine is the stock hitachi and im always worried that it will go so i came across this and it looks great because i dont want to drop $ for an ssd.
Click to expand...


I've had mine over 2 months now works great. No issues at all, don't worry about the $ they have a 5 year guarantee.
 
rmbrown09 said:
how did you go about updating it? bootcamp?
Click to expand...

For non-Windows systems with Intel compatible processors we also offer a bootable CD ISO image, which will create a bootable CD. For instructions on how to create a bootable CD please see: How to burn an .iso image onto a CD.

I haven't done it yet, but that's my plan, hopefully it'll work.

OP, I have 2 x 320gb Momentus XTs in my MBP setup as a Raid 0, the performance boost is insane, my machine boots faster than a brand new MBA... It also instantly sleeps (as in, you close the lid, and the hard drives power down IMMEDIATELY, which I guess is where it uses the SSD), and near instantly wakes (1 second tops). It's amazing, I get about 90-110mbps continued data transfer. Best purchase I've ever made.
 
sjinsjca said:
< lust >

How did you fit 2 drives in a MBP? I could so use that. Please elaborate!!
Click to expand...

Look up 'optibay' I found a much cheaper version on ebay, I sadly voided my warranty trying to get the superdrive out, but, for the performance so far, it was worth it.

PS. If you think the noise is bad with just one drive, that's on Apples dampeners, 2 drives is ridiculously loud, I hear each and every click 😛
 
nippyjun said:
Does the new firmware improve battery life. Reports of decreased battery life is what it keeping me from getting one.
Click to expand...

I have a Momentus XT 500Gb since this summer, definitely saw a noticeable decrease in battery life since installing this HDD, love the performance though.

Going to test out the update now.
 
MBP 13" with XT 500Gb: had it two or three weeks now, and it's starting to impress.... although at first my boot times increased from around 40 seconds to almost 2 minutes. Turned out that somehow my MBP was trying to boot from network first, then HDD. Once I'd sorted this, things now dropped down to around 30s (give or take).

Sound: yes, I can hear it. It's not intrusive but in a quiet room it is audible, and it doesn't appear to spin down regardless of OSX power settings.

Performance: very good, though not as good as a dedicated SSD. Win 7 Enterprise N under Parallels 5 is now usable on my machine 🙂

Battery life: under rev23, dropped from say 5 hours to around 2 hours. Can't be certain whether the update to rev24 has helped, although I think it might have crept back to 3 hours, which (for a machine which is predominantly desk bound => connected to mains) isn't a major problem. And perhaps they can fix the spin-down thing*.

* ps. anyone else noticed this, or just me?
 
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Why does the momentus xt decrease battery life compared to ssd's or regular mechanical drives?
 
nippyjun said:
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Why does the momentus xt decrease battery life compared to ssd's or regular mechanical drives?
Click to expand...

My guess would be because it's essentially 2 drives in one, it's powering a hard drive and a small SSD, plus the drive NEVER seems to stop spinning, but I guess that's more because mine are in a RAID.
 
Schtumple said:
My guess would be because it's essentially 2 drives in one, it's powering a hard drive and a small SSD, plus the drive NEVER seems to stop spinning, but I guess that's more because mine are in a RAID.
Click to expand...
didnt think you could boot off software raid?
 
so this drive isn't recomended to someone that isn't on the power supply all the time. I usually am but from 5 to 2 is a big jump in performance of the battery. Is there anything out there that is recomended over this or is a simple 7200 the way to go for my concern.
 
runofthedill said:
so this drive isn't recomended to someone that isn't on the power supply all the time. I usually am but from 5 to 2 is a big jump in performance of the battery. Is there anything out there that is recomended over this or is a simple 7200 the way to go for my concern.
Click to expand...

I havent experienced the loss of battery any where near what others may have. Maybe 30 minutes, thats all. I did the FW update last night, I did notice that it seemed a little more responsive, overall this drive is a screamer!
 
yeah, ive noticed when reading all these topics battery has been a weird issue. Some saying hardly any, while others say it zaps.
 
runofthedill said:
yeah, ive noticed when reading all these topics battery has been a weird issue. Some saying hardly any, while others say it zaps.
Click to expand...

I get about 3-5 hours, where I used to get 7, but I have 2 drives. I can imagine with one it's not that bad, the performance boost is definitely worth it though, if you can spare the hour, I would go for it.
 
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