Seagate Momentus: 750GB Hybrid Drive (SSD+HDD)

[pslavish]

I'm getting a new computer from work, Late 2011 15in MB Pro (only about 5 months old) from a previous employee. It's got 8GB RAM and 500GB hard drive, but I'm strongly considering an upgrade to this Seagate Hybrid Drive. Was wondering if anyone has experience with this hard drive and if it'd be a good fit for the computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...0LX003/dp/B00691WMJG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Also, this is my first laptop since my Mid-2008 MB so this question may be stupid. But, when I do install the new hard drive, will I still need an install disk of some kind? I only ask because I know Lion and Mountain Lion are now "download only" and I don't know if that has anything to do with new drive installation.

 

[jnash]

I have one and I love it!

 

[spoonie1972]

I have the 500gb version of this drive.

It really brought new life to my 2,2 mbp. i found it to be a huge improvement over the 5400 spinner that was in there (160gb?320? i can't remember).

 

[theSeb]

It's faster than the standard 5400 RPM drive that is in some MBP's, but it's actually slower than some 2.5" 7200 RPM drives , like the WD Scorpio Black, in certain operations .

In summary: it's ok, but don't expect blistering, SSD-like, performance.

 

[Dark Void]

I have no experience on it but looked into it quite a bit. I would give it a try. Speed tests don't really do the drive much justice, unless they are several tests averaged together. It is more of a real world performance drive from what I understand.

I've always been curious about it myself - in any case it's a great combination of speed and storage.

As far as installation, there are many ways. You could use Lion on a USB or other bootable drive or access the recovery partition in order to do a clean install.

 

[theSeb]

I have no experience on it but looked into it quite a bit. I would give it a try. Speed tests don't really do the drive much justice, unless they are several tests averaged together. It is more of a real world performance drive from what I understand.

I've always been curious about it myself - in any case it's a great combination of speed and storage.

As far as installation, there are many ways. You could use Lion on a USB or other bootable drive or access the recovery partition in order to do a clean install.

I've run numerous real world tests on the drive using productivity and image manipulation software. It's far behind any SSD and trades blows with a 7200 rpm WD Scorpio black.

 

[Dark Void]

I've run numerous real world tests on the drive using productivity and image manipulation software. It's far behind any SSD and trades blows with a 7200 rpm WD Scorpio black.

There are others on the internet as well. That's why I said give it a try.

 

[Orlandoech]

It's faster than the standard 5400 RPM drive that is in some MBP's, but it's actually slower than some 2.5" 7200 RPM drives , like the WD Scorpio Black, in certain operations .

In summary: it's ok, but don't expect blistering, SSD-like, performance.

What he said. Im not s fan of them, they aren't any faster than WD 2.5" Blacks, which is sad.

 

[magbarn]

You've got the right computer for it, why don't you dump the optical drive and get an optibay enclosure and a SSD. That way you get all the speed of a SSD and the storage of a regular drive. Tried Seagate hybrid drive recently. Nowhere near close to my 256GB Crucial M4, even a cheap 64gb model (easily <$75 these days) will lay waste to the hybrid drive. IMHO, the problem with hybrid drives is that they don't communicate with OSX. Intel's rapid storage 'hybrid' approach is better as Win7 tells the SSD cache what needs to be cached like system/program files, not aunt emma's garden pics. Meanwhile the Seagate controller is just stuck with the guessing game.