Is Solid State Hybrid Drives worth it?

[Eddyisgreat]

hybrid drive @ the end of the day is still your data spinning at 5400 or 7200 RPMs, just with some extra , really fast, enterprise grade (SLC) flash. It will provide a slightly better experience than a traditional hard disk if the caching is pulled off correctly, but as it's price implies it'll never be as good as an SSD proper. SSD also has weight savings, security features, battery savings and no moving parts to worry about.

 

[hehe299792458]

So why even bring it up, it's a damn tease!

to illustrate a point I guess. But if you're going for PCI-e, you might as well go for a pure SSD pci card.

 

[cube]

My experience with Momentus XT:

Very fast drive, boot up times were incredible and shutdown about 3 secs on a 1 week old fresh install of OS X. Most applications start in one bounce.

Bad part was battery life. My 2010 MBP 13" used to last 9-11 hours on a full battery, medium brightness and surfing the net. With the momentus, it last between 3-6 hours at best. This was even on a fresh install of OS X. I did numerous drive swaps and upgraded the firmware too. I realised the drive never spins down in OS X under the latest firmware, it does in Windows. Even though it only uses 2 W, it seems to have a drastic effect on my battery life.

Proof of it was when I finally bit the bullet and bought a WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm. Not quite as fast but my battery life went back to 9-11 hours. Apps take a few more seconds to load, boot time is maybe 30secs instead of 20, but my computer last twice as long. I would've kept the XT if I only used my MBP at the desk but I bought this computer for battery life and portability.

The SD25 firmware has the fix for the battery problem introduced by the stall fix in SD23.

Now, some people report that SD25 didn't fix all their issues, so Seagate is still working.

I had SD22 with no issues and I upgraded to SD23 just to be up to date, which introduced me to the battery problem. SD24 fixed nothing for me, and now with SD25 everything seems fine.

 

[Tydog07]

The SD25 firmware has the fix for the battery problem introduced by the stall fix in SD23.

Now, some people report that SD25 didn't fix all their issues, so Seagate is still working.

I had SD22 with no issues and I upgraded to SD23 just to be up to date, which introduced me to the battery problem. SD24 fixed nothing for me, and now with SD25 everything seems fine.

Where do you get all these updates, are they difficult to install?

 

[duffer6]

These are the transfer rates I am getting with my Momentus XT in a 2011 MBP 17'. Do these slow to you?


Sequential Read Sequential Write Random Read Random Write

Standard Ave 79.515 MB/Sec 83.292 MB/Sec 17.348 MB/Sec 28.027 MB/Sec

4 KBytes 24.619 MB/Sec 12.360 MB/Sec 0.675 MB/Sec 1.167 MB/Sec
8 KBytes 44.832 MB/Sec 23.082 MB/Sec 1.460 MB/Sec 2.323 MB/Sec
16 KBytes 70.793 MB/Sec 39.694 MB/Sec 2.826 MB/Sec 4.248 MB/Sec
32 KBytes 95.496 MB/Sec 77.076 MB/Sec 5.331 MB/Sec 7.563 MB/Sec
64 KBytes 94.112 MB/Sec 113.875 MB/Sec 9.822 MB/Sec 16.413 MB/Sec
128 KBytes 96.508 MB/Sec 148.975 MB/Sec 15.117 MB/Sec 37.496 MB/Sec
256 KBytes 97.118 MB/Sec 147.242 MB/Sec 24.636 MB/Sec 60.219 MB/Sec
512 KBytes 95.664 MB/Sec 93.982 MB/Sec 40.235 MB/Sec 54.722 MB/Sec
1024 KBytes 96.497 MB/Sec 93.344 MB/Sec 56.034 MB/Sec 68.096 MB/Sec

Standard Ave 79.515 MB/Sec 83.292 MB/Sec 17.348 MB/Sec 28.027 MB/Sec

 

[cube]

Where do you get all these updates, are they difficult to install?

You download an .iso from the Seagate support site, which you burn to a disc and boot from (Intel). You get an info screen that you accept and then press a key to "download" the firmware to the drive, and when it's finished you press some key to shutdown.

Have a full battery, plugged to the mains, and do not interrupt.

 

[cube]

These are the transfer rates I am getting with my Momentus XT in a 2011 MBP 17'. Do these slow to you?


Sequential Read Sequential Write Random Read Random Write

Standard Ave 79.515 MB/Sec 83.292 MB/Sec 17.348 MB/Sec 28.027 MB/Sec

4 KBytes 24.619 MB/Sec 12.360 MB/Sec 0.675 MB/Sec 1.167 MB/Sec
8 KBytes 44.832 MB/Sec 23.082 MB/Sec 1.460 MB/Sec 2.323 MB/Sec
16 KBytes 70.793 MB/Sec 39.694 MB/Sec 2.826 MB/Sec 4.248 MB/Sec
32 KBytes 95.496 MB/Sec 77.076 MB/Sec 5.331 MB/Sec 7.563 MB/Sec
64 KBytes 94.112 MB/Sec 113.875 MB/Sec 9.822 MB/Sec 16.413 MB/Sec
128 KBytes 96.508 MB/Sec 148.975 MB/Sec 15.117 MB/Sec 37.496 MB/Sec
256 KBytes 97.118 MB/Sec 147.242 MB/Sec 24.636 MB/Sec 60.219 MB/Sec
512 KBytes 95.664 MB/Sec 93.982 MB/Sec 40.235 MB/Sec 54.722 MB/Sec
1024 KBytes 96.497 MB/Sec 93.344 MB/Sec 56.034 MB/Sec 68.096 MB/Sec

Standard Ave 79.515 MB/Sec 83.292 MB/Sec 17.348 MB/Sec 28.027 MB/Sec

You won't see the advantages of the XT with the usual benchmarks.

 

[Chiuy]

Well, either way, I've seen some youtube video comparing SSD Hybrid to regular HD, and Hybrid was definitely was a lot faster than HD, it may not be as fast as SSD, but I think it's a lot faster than regular HD by over 30-45secs in bootup time.

I think I'm going to try one myself.

Btw... there are different models with cache such as 16mb/32mb.
I assume 32MB is faster? But won't that mean it'll cache more stuff and drain your battery? I kind of do need the battery life, so should I go with 16MB?

And yes... I do need storage space... an SSD that is 60GB... blah.
Even my photos and video are more than 200GB on my desktop, and probably 20GB of extension of Photoshop tools.

 

[Tydog07]

Well, either way, I've seen some youtube video comparing SSD Hybrid to regular HD, and Hybrid was definitely was a lot faster than HD, it may not be as fast as SSD, but I think it's a lot faster than regular HD by over 30-45secs in bootup time.

I think I'm going to try one myself.

Btw... there are different models with cache such as 16mb/32mb.
I assume 32MB is faster? But won't that mean it'll cache more stuff and drain your battery? I kind of do need the battery life, so should I go with 16MB?

And yes... I do need storage space... an SSD that is 60GB... blah.
Even my photos and video are more than 200GB on my desktop, and probably 20GB of extension of Photoshop tools.

Good for you! Please post install pictures (what mac do you have) and what performance gains you incur, I am curious about attempting this project.

 

[duffer6]

You won't see the advantages of the XT with the usual benchmarks.

Thanks for the info. So all current benchmark programs won't give me a true picture of the increased XL performance? Is that due to the 4GB of Flash that is not tested during a benchmark test?

Thanks!

 

[cube]

Thanks for the info. So all current benchmark programs won't give me a true picture of the increased XL performance? Is that due to the 4GB of Flash that is not tested during a benchmark test?

Thanks!

The flash is a read cache for the frequently accessed stuff. It has no impact on writes, or reads which are not frequently repeated.