Installed a Momentus XT 500GB on my MacBook Pro (late 2007)
After I found out Newegg was selling these for $10 off from original price, I gave into temptation and finally bought a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT 7200 rpm for myself. For this post, I will make comparisons with the Momentus XT to my previous (and always dependable drive) WD Blue Scorpio 500GB 5400 rpm.
FYI, if you can't see it in my signature, the model MacBook Pro I own is a late 2007 model, build 3,1. It has 4GB of Crucial brand ram, and is 2.2 Ghz. Yeah I'm old school like that
The Seagate Momentus XT I own has firmware version of SD23.
I installed it around 9PM last night, using a restore from a Time Machine backup earlier that night. Took about 4 hours to fully restore my Time Machine backup with no problems at all. I been using it a lot since then from restarting my computer numerous times so my drive can boot up quicker to opening/testing random applications like Photoshop CS5.
First impression:
At first, I noticed no real difference in performance. But of course, after a couple restarts on my HD (like 4 times), I can agree that this thing makes the system responsive. My average boot up time on my old WD Blue Scorpio 500GB 5400 RPM drive was 1:30 minutes. Now with the Momentus XT, average boot up time is 27 seconds! Impressive thusfar.
Application boot up times are responsive as well. Average time for Photoshop to start on my computer was roughly 35 seconds. Now it's roughly 10 seconds! Not bad at all.
Performance wise other than boot up times, it's highly impressive. I never owned a 7200 RPM drive mind you, so I can't vouch for how "normal" vibration is on a laptop. When I first installed it and booted it up, it didn't vibrate crazy but has a very dull vibration that can be felt when I used the trackpad. But after a reboot, that vibration went away.
It runs very very VERY silently too. Of course if I was in a mute room, I'd hear the drive spinning but that's the same for my WD Blue Scorpio drive. In fact, so far I notice this thing is much quieter than my previous hard drive.
With this hard drive installation, I also bought a new battery with 0 cycles on it. Typical battery performance, when fully charge and unplugged, would last me at least 3 hours 30 minutes or less. With this install of the XT and a brand new untouched battery, when fully charged and then unplugged, my computer indicates it will last for 3 hours. This could be because of the firmware version I have on my computer that addresses sleep issues that battery life doesn't seem as "long" as I used to see it. Then again the battery life would report as 3 hours 15 minutes at one point, then when I open up something like Firefox, reports as 1 hours 24 minutes so it's very very very confusing to know how much time you really have. I'm not too happy with this issue, but it could be because my battery is brand new and it's not yet "calibrated."
What most people seem to be worried about are those "spinning up/down" issues. From my first time use, I don't notice any weird spinning up/down noises. When I close my computer to sleep, it does take like 5-10 seconds for the drive to fully sleep, and when I open it from sleep, it works just fine. But nothing out of the ordinary. I will especially be monitoring this on my computer because I hear it's the biggest criticism with the XT on most computers.
Because most of you ask for benchmarks, I ran a test for both drives I own. Benchmarks are as follows:
WD Blue Scorpio 500GB
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
Benchmarks can't say much for the XT so far I know because I used it in less than a day's use. Plus I hear benchmarks for the XT won't be as good, but it performs very speedy from my first impression. I will definitely update people over the months on my drive and if it's still running optimal.
Hope this helps anyone who thought of buying one of these, especially if you're a owner of a older model MacBook Pro like myself
After I found out Newegg was selling these for $10 off from original price, I gave into temptation and finally bought a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT 7200 rpm for myself. For this post, I will make comparisons with the Momentus XT to my previous (and always dependable drive) WD Blue Scorpio 500GB 5400 rpm.
FYI, if you can't see it in my signature, the model MacBook Pro I own is a late 2007 model, build 3,1. It has 4GB of Crucial brand ram, and is 2.2 Ghz. Yeah I'm old school like that
The Seagate Momentus XT I own has firmware version of SD23.
I installed it around 9PM last night, using a restore from a Time Machine backup earlier that night. Took about 4 hours to fully restore my Time Machine backup with no problems at all. I been using it a lot since then from restarting my computer numerous times so my drive can boot up quicker to opening/testing random applications like Photoshop CS5.
First impression:
At first, I noticed no real difference in performance. But of course, after a couple restarts on my HD (like 4 times), I can agree that this thing makes the system responsive. My average boot up time on my old WD Blue Scorpio 500GB 5400 RPM drive was 1:30 minutes. Now with the Momentus XT, average boot up time is 27 seconds! Impressive thusfar.
Application boot up times are responsive as well. Average time for Photoshop to start on my computer was roughly 35 seconds. Now it's roughly 10 seconds! Not bad at all.
Performance wise other than boot up times, it's highly impressive. I never owned a 7200 RPM drive mind you, so I can't vouch for how "normal" vibration is on a laptop. When I first installed it and booted it up, it didn't vibrate crazy but has a very dull vibration that can be felt when I used the trackpad. But after a reboot, that vibration went away.
It runs very very VERY silently too. Of course if I was in a mute room, I'd hear the drive spinning but that's the same for my WD Blue Scorpio drive. In fact, so far I notice this thing is much quieter than my previous hard drive.
With this hard drive installation, I also bought a new battery with 0 cycles on it. Typical battery performance, when fully charge and unplugged, would last me at least 3 hours 30 minutes or less. With this install of the XT and a brand new untouched battery, when fully charged and then unplugged, my computer indicates it will last for 3 hours. This could be because of the firmware version I have on my computer that addresses sleep issues that battery life doesn't seem as "long" as I used to see it. Then again the battery life would report as 3 hours 15 minutes at one point, then when I open up something like Firefox, reports as 1 hours 24 minutes so it's very very very confusing to know how much time you really have. I'm not too happy with this issue, but it could be because my battery is brand new and it's not yet "calibrated."
What most people seem to be worried about are those "spinning up/down" issues. From my first time use, I don't notice any weird spinning up/down noises. When I close my computer to sleep, it does take like 5-10 seconds for the drive to fully sleep, and when I open it from sleep, it works just fine. But nothing out of the ordinary. I will especially be monitoring this on my computer because I hear it's the biggest criticism with the XT on most computers.
Because most of you ask for benchmarks, I ran a test for both drives I own. Benchmarks are as follows:
WD Blue Scorpio 500GB
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
Benchmarks can't say much for the XT so far I know because I used it in less than a day's use. Plus I hear benchmarks for the XT won't be as good, but it performs very speedy from my first impression. I will definitely update people over the months on my drive and if it's still running optimal.
Hope this helps anyone who thought of buying one of these, especially if you're a owner of a older model MacBook Pro like myself
