Seagate Momentus Hybrid HD

[BasilFawlty]

Can't wait to get this drive. Seagate's probably loving all of this free-advertising when Google searches result with MacRumors threads praising their drive.

This drive + 8GB of memory = yum.

I'd have never ended up with this drive if it were not for this forum. Once I saw a discussion of it here, I did some research and looked at some reviews on Youtube and was convinced it was worth the few extra $$ - I was right!

 

[RWil85]

I'd have never ended up with this drive if it were not for this forum. Once I saw a discussion of it here, I did some research and looked at some reviews on Youtube and was convinced it was worth the few extra $$ - I was right!

I don't know how much cost/drive size is a factor for anyone on this thread..

but, if spending a few extra bucks is no biggie - I purchased the Seagate Hybrd drive, returned it, and then bought/installed an OCZ Vertex II 120GB SSD in my 13" MBP - no comparison! Got that SSD for ~$220 a while back if i remember correctly.

don't mean to rain on anyone's party - can't beat SSD's, though!

 

[Wolfpup]

Yeah, quality SSDs are faster still, but super expensive for large sizes. 300GB even is really tight for me, and a 600GB SSD is over $1000

Plus OS X doesn't support TRIM except in first party drives (although it also doesn't have built in disk defragmentation, although there at least you can buy third party software that hopefully works decently).

 

[BasilFawlty]

I don't know how much cost/drive size is a factor for anyone on this thread..

but, if spending a few extra bucks is no biggie - I purchased the Seagate Hybrd drive, returned it, and then bought/installed an OCZ Vertex II 120GB SSD in my 13" MBP - no comparison! Got that SSD for ~$220 a while back if i remember correctly.

don't mean to rain on anyone's party - can't beat SSD's, though!

Of course an SSD is going to be overall faster than any hybrid. The appeal of the XT is that it offers much improved performance for many common tasks compared to a regular HD and provides significant storage, at a much lower cost point than the equivalent SSD drive. Is it as fast as SSD overall? No, of course not, but then its a fraction the cost. For me it was the right combination of performance, storage capacity and price. If money were no concern I'd have bought an SSD.

 

[tjb1]

Ha I cant believe this...just months ago there were threads running the xt down saying it was crap, garbage, junk, etc...and now everyone loves it. I took mine out of the optibay because it wasnt sleeping right, did the new firmware fix any of that?

 

[Wolfpup]

They're on 25 now I think (shipped with 22 or 23 when I got mine in November?) I think a lot of the fixes were for OS X. I haven't seen any issues on Windows 7 with that since the first time I updated, but maybe it's somehow different.

 

[RWil85]

Ha I cant believe this...just months ago there were threads running the xt down saying it was crap, garbage, junk, etc...and now everyone loves it. I took mine out of the optibay because it wasnt sleeping right, did the new firmware fix any of that?

I know..i had installed mine and experienced issues with extra noise, random sleep problems, etc.

Night and day comparison to my SSD - havent noticed any degradation yet either as most of the better drives have their own, built-in form of garbage collection anyway.

Extra storage would be nice, but, for me, 120gb is plenty for my laptop.

 

[BasilFawlty]

Ha I cant believe this...just months ago there were threads running the xt down saying it was crap, garbage, junk, etc...and now everyone loves it. I took mine out of the optibay because it wasnt sleeping right, did the new firmware fix any of that?

I can't speak to previous issues, but so far in my unibody MacBook I've had no issues whatsoever. The drive is working great. It's fast and quiet (at least I can't hear it). For me it was money well spent.

 

[ViPhone]

The only thing that is keeping me from clicking "purchase" on Amazon, is whether or not I need all of that space and should get a smaller SSD instead..

 

[BasilFawlty]

The only thing that is keeping me from clicking "purchase" on Amazon, is whether or not I need all of that space and should get a smaller SSD instead..

I already had a 160GB so for me I was really looking for more space and teh XT seemed like a logical choice given the performance/price ratio.

 

[RWil85]

The only thing that is keeping me from clicking "purchase" on Amazon, is whether or not I need all of that space and should get a smaller SSD instead..

I keep photo/video and my full music libraries on my desktop where i have three 1TB HDDs.

I would never need 500+GBs on a portable machine..couldn't recommend an SSD more.

 

[Wicked1]

I have one in every Mac in my house and not one bit of trouble, however I wish Seagate would make a larger drive now that the 500GB is getting old, would be nice to see 750 and 1TB in the same form factor.

2009 uMB
2009 Mini
2010 Mini
2010 uMBP

 

[Wolfpup]

I have one in every Mac in my house and not one bit of trouble, however I wish Seagate would make a larger drive now that the 500GB is getting old, would be nice to see 750 and 1TB in the same form factor.

2009 uMB
2009 Mini
2010 Mini
2010 uMBP

Yeah, I've been surprised they haven't yet, though there may be a performance issue. The 750GB 7200RPM drive is faster than 5400RPM drives, but the 500GB XT tears it up, it seems even aside from its flash cache...so I'm guessing it has something to do with that.

500GB right now is okay for me, but yeah, 750 would be great! I just ordered a 256GB Air, sort of on a whim LOL Went with 256 just since hopefully if I ever need to use it as a primary system I could muddle by. I mean I can have 100GB of shows from my Tivo at any given time, and I couldn't even edit a video potentially if I can't actually store it on the system!

 

[ViPhone]

I've heard good things about the OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3, but it also seems to be a pain in the butt to install correctly.

Hmm..decisions..decisions. I really don't need that much space. But maybe the extra unused space will itself increase the speed. Trying to think of reasons where I could use 500GB in my MB, which is my main comp now.

 

[BasilFawlty]

I keep photo/video and my full music libraries on my desktop where i have three 1TB HDDs.

I would never need 500+GBs on a portable machine..couldn't recommend an SSD more.

Whatever works for you. I think it all boils down to individual needs and preferences.

 

[Meinlsync]

I've just ordered a optibay for my mid 2009 (5,2) MacBook and am planning on sticking one of these in the current slot and a yet to be decided SSD in the optibay. Looking forward to the speed, I can't afford a big enough Ssd for all my stuff so this looks like my best bet. Any of you recomend a good (and reliable) SSD?