2011 MBP HDD versus Seagate Momentus XT

[crashidioteque]

I ordered my MBP yesterday and didn't pay any attention to which drive it had defaulted to as it would be the first thing to be replaced. I just looked and it had defaulted to a 5400 RPM 750 Gig.

I now wonder if the 5400 RPM drive (or even the 7200 RPM 500 Gig) is going to be faster than my Momentus which is only a 3 Gb/s SATA drive. From the research I have done, it appears the new drives are sync'ing up a 3 GB/s anyhow.

Can someone confirm the sync link rate (advertised and negotiated) with the 750 Gig drive?

I realize I am splitting hairs here, but.. had I realized that the new MBP was a 6 Gb/s SATA and my Momentus was only a 3 Gb/s drive, I would have probably opted for the 500 Gig 7200 RPM drive.


thanks

 

[cube]

A hard drive will hardly touch 3 Gbps, no problem.

 

[squeakr]

None of the newer standard hard drives are running at 6G anyway. Your Momentus will be faster than anything Apple will provide (will it be noticeable in day to day use is another question), but it benchmarks faster.

 

[thermodynamic]

I ordered my MBP yesterday and didn't pay any attention to which drive it had defaulted to as it would be the first thing to be replaced. I just looked and it had defaulted to a 5400 RPM 750 Gig.

I now wonder if the 5400 RPM drive (or even the 7200 RPM 500 Gig) is going to be faster than my Momentus which is only a 3 Gb/s SATA drive. From the research I have done, it appears the new drives are sync'ing up a 3 GB/s anyhow.

Can someone confirm the sync link rate (advertised and negotiated) with the 750 Gig drive?

I realize I am splitting hairs here, but.. had I realized that the new MBP was a 6 Gb/s SATA and my Momentus was only a 3 Gb/s drive, I would have probably opted for the 500 Gig 7200 RPM drive.


thanks

The Momentus XT will be MUCH faster despite being stuck at 3Gb/s bandwidth - the limiting factor in a mechanical drive is the RPM speed. It atatches to a faster bus but won't begin to make full use of it. (SSDs, being fully electronic, would be more likely to come close to using up the 6Gb/s bandwidth.)

I replaced the stock 750GB with the Momentus XT, upgraded the firmware to SD25, then installed OS X. After rebooting twice, power-on time was like 7 seconds.

7200RPM will always be faster than 5400, even without SSD RAM thrown in... but adding in SSD-type memory to make a hybrid drive really makes the system fly and is a good compromise between price and power. (Even the 600GB Velociraptor is slower in benchmarks I'd read about...)

 

[squeakr]

The Momentus XT will be MUCH faster despite being stuck at 3Gb/s bandwidth - the limiting factor in a mechanical drive is the RPM speed. It atatches to a faster bus but won't begin to make full use of it. (SSDs, being fully electronic, would be more likely to come close to using up the 6Gb/s bandwidth.)

I replaced the stock 750GB with the Momentus XT, upgraded the firmware to SD25, then installed OS X. After rebooting twice, power-on time was like 7 seconds.

7200RPM will always be faster than 5400, even without SSD RAM thrown in... but adding in SSD-type memory to make a hybrid drive really makes the system fly and is a good compromise between price and power. (Even the 600GB Velociraptor is slower in benchmarks I'd read about...)

So much misinformation in one writing. In comparable technology the faster drive will be faster, but when comparing different drive density platters, caches, and head speeds, the area is not so cut and dried. Different drives perform differently, you must compare the specs for best results. There is no way that you got a 7 second power on. You are timing it wrong if you did. The MBAs are kings currently due to their SSDs (which are even outperforming some of the newer SSD drives) and are posting approx. 15 second boot times. You can realistically expect about 25-30 second boot times with the XT.

 

[frankieboy]

7200RPM will always be faster than 5400

I tested both a 7200 RPM 500 Gb Seagate Momentus (not the XT, just a standard HDD) and the stock 5400 RPM Toshiba shipping in the 2011 MBP. I found mixed results, but the 7200 RPM drive performed better in the small random reads and writes that make up the bulk of typical hard disk transactions. The difference looked pretty small and I decided to stay with the stock drive for its extra capacity.

 

[crashidioteque]

Thanks everyone

Not sure on the forum etiquette (since I'm new) but thanks to everyone that responded.

I think I'll put my momentus XT into my new machine when it arrives. The one thing that hadn't come to mind is whether the 6 Gb/s would have less latency. Pushing a drive to 3 Gb/s would probably take a lot (like was stated earlier)... so the limiting factor that presented itself would seem to be latency... or seek time, which SSD would obviously be the best in that realm...

So - I'm way overthinking this but I appreciate everyone's response.

 

[NickZac]

No standard HDDs are going to be fast enough to max SATA2, and the HDDs that are SATA3 seem to be just for future compatibility and not speed given they are far and away from SATA3 capability. The hybrid will obviously be faster, but it will not be as fast nor as reliable as a true SSD. It will not max out SATA2 as it is nowhere near as fast as the SandForce 12xx driven solid state drives, and they (and some Micron driven) are the only hard drives that will max SATA2's theoretical capability. With all the issues reported with the hybrid drive, I would stick with the factory Apple or get a SSD.