Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB

[BasilFawlty]

It's going on one week since I upgraded my Unibody Macbook with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XY Hybrid hard drive and I must say I'm very pleased with this drive! Loads of space and a noticeable improvement in speed for most of the tasks I do. For one thing, the bootup time has been cut in half. Most of my common applications open almost instantly now! Yes, this drive was a bit more expensive than a non-hybrid 500GB drive, but I think it's worth it! Just wanted to give my impressions now that I've had a week to use it. If your thinking of upgrading your macbook hard drive, and your not concerned about spending a little bit more money, I highly recommend this drive.

 

[Eradik]

Thanks for sharing. I was close to suffering with a 128gb SSD drive but found out about this drive earlier today. Glad to know that it gives a big performance boost and only being $100, damn good deal!

 

[BasilFawlty]

Thanks for sharing. I was close to suffering with a 128gb SSD drive but found out about this drive earlier today. Glad to know that it gives a big performance boost and only being $100, damn good deal!

Keep in mind that an SSD overall is still going to perform faster, but this hybrid will be about as fast for often-used, common tasks; for other infrequently used failes, it will perform like a pretty good regular hard drive (7200RPM with 32MB cache is still pretty decent HD even without the 4GB SDD).

 

[pellets007]

Although not much of an issue, I am curious, what are your boot times?

 

[BasilFawlty]

Although not much of an issue, I am curious, what are your boot times?

My low-end Macbook before the upgrade boot time was around 41-42 seconds from power button push to desktop displayed. After the Momentus was installed and cycled through a few boots (so it could "learn") boot time dropped to about 24-25 seconds.

 

[darrennie]

As I post I am sitting here waiting for the mail to arrive hoping my new Momentus XT is going to be delivered.

 

[BasilFawlty]

As I post I am sitting here waiting for the mail to arrive hoping my new Momentus XT is going to be delivered.

Interested to hear what sort of improvement you see.

 

[revenent]

Was wondering if it drains a lot of power? I am using the 7200RPM WD Black and it drains a lot of juice even when idling...

 

[BasilFawlty]

Was wondering if it drains a lot of power? I am using the 7200RPM WD Black and it drains a lot of juice even when idling...

To be honest I don't know (yet). I usually use mine plugged in.

 

[Eradik]

Keep in mind that an SSD overall is still going to perform faster, but this hybrid will be about as fast for often-used, common tasks; for other infrequently used failes, it will perform like a pretty good regular hard drive (7200RPM with 32MB cache is still pretty decent HD even without the 4GB SDD).

Yes, I am aware. It was a tough decision, but I decided to order the XT today. Mainly because of cost/performance ratio.

As of right now, all I do is: Boot up, Safari, iTunes, Mail, and the occasional movie.

Come September when classes start up, its Boot, Safari, iTunes, Mail, and Word.

I figure with this fairly light load, and since the extent of my photo editing is the occasional download of my iPhone into iPhoto, I figure I'll be okay with a hybrid. If I can get lightning fast boot times and get Safari/iTunes/Mail all running at light speed, I'm okay!

I also saw a video where the guy loaded Word in like less than a second. Word takes FOREVER to load for me now... well, not really, but it just seems like it takes forever to load. Seems to have gotten better with the latest updates, though.

Anyway, enough rambling, glad you liked yours. I've read a lot of horror stories, especially on the Seagate forums, I hope I don't get a lemon. I got my XT plug an 8gb ram upgrade coming tomorrow from Amazon. I shall report my findings!!

 

[revenent]

Do let us know of how it performs ya? Especially on the battery life and vibration if any.

 

[the sheep]

Does anyone know of any hybrid drive options with more memory than 500GB? It seems that the Momentus XT is the only successful attempt at the hybrid drives. The idea sounds great but I'm not sure I'm organised enough to keep below 500GB.

 

[BasilFawlty]

Does anyone know of any hybrid drive options with more memory than 500GB? It seems that the Momentus XT is the only successful attempt at the hybrid drives. The idea sounds great but I'm not sure I'm organised enough to keep below 500GB.

You could always get a good 2TB external drive for stuff you don't use often.