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Seagate Momentus XT
- Thread starter Shmuco
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If you want a very in-depth review of the drive, check out AnandTech's review here.
Seagate 2nd Generation Momentus XT (750GB) Hybrid HDD Review
I have one in a 2011 MBP (750GB model) and have noticed a decent improvement vs the 7200 rpm driev the machine shipped with.
Boots from power button press to desktop in 13-14 seconds, apps are faster, etc.
No, it's not SSD fast for everything, but it was $150 for 750 GB. Even a 500 GB SSD, which would cost me about $500 is not big enough for me as I run bootcamp as well.
So:
Better than a plain hard drive
If you need >500 GB there is no SSD option currently available / affordable.
Boots from power button press to desktop in 13-14 seconds, apps are faster, etc.
No, it's not SSD fast for everything, but it was $150 for 750 GB. Even a 500 GB SSD, which would cost me about $500 is not big enough for me as I run bootcamp as well.
So:
Better than a plain hard drive
If you need >500 GB there is no SSD option currently available / affordable.
Had one in my Early 2009 UB 17". Faster than the WD 7200 RPM that it replaced. Small, but noticeable improvement during normal use. Since I hardly ever restarted, I didn't see the improvement in that area. I'll add that it's a very quiet drive (not that the WD was particularly noisy, but it did have the head load/unload sound every so often).
It's not in the same league as an SSD, but it can give a good boost over a non-hybrid HDD.
It's not in the same league as an SSD, but it can give a good boost over a non-hybrid HDD.
If you need more than 500GB, a hybrid is the only affordable option.
The Mrs. and I both have an XT in our 2011 uMBPs. They're way better than the stock 5400rpm drives, and well worth the upgrade in our opinion.
If you can make do with 256GB, get an SSD. If you can make do with 500GB, then you're at the fulcrum. An SSD would be nice, but spending $400 on a pre-Sandy Bridge laptop doesn't make much sense, especially if you might upgrade to an rMBP in the next few years.
Of course you could get a small 128GB SSD for a few dollars, move your HDD to the optibay and create a DIY Fusion Drive. That would be cool.
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The Mrs. and I both have an XT in our 2011 uMBPs. They're way better than the stock 5400rpm drives, and well worth the upgrade in our opinion.
If you can make do with 256GB, get an SSD. If you can make do with 500GB, then you're at the fulcrum. An SSD would be nice, but spending $400 on a pre-Sandy Bridge laptop doesn't make much sense, especially if you might upgrade to an rMBP in the next few years.
Of course you could get a small 128GB SSD for a few dollars, move your HDD to the optibay and create a DIY Fusion Drive. That would be cool.
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I had the original 500GB XT model in my macbook pro. I found it very underwhelming in real world usage - didn't feel any better than a good 2.5" HD. My guess is the flash portion of the drive is just too dang small. Maybe the 750GB model is better, but the reviews I've seen have been underwhelming.
My current setup is a 1.5TB HD + 240GB SSD (replacing optical drive). Half the SSD is windows, the other half is fused with the HD. That does feel a lot more responsive than just the HD. Even my work mac mini with a 60GB SSD fused with 500GB HD feels pretty decent.
(Of course, pure SSD is the best, but managing data between multiple drives is a hassle I don't need)
My current setup is a 1.5TB HD + 240GB SSD (replacing optical drive). Half the SSD is windows, the other half is fused with the HD. That does feel a lot more responsive than just the HD. Even my work mac mini with a 60GB SSD fused with 500GB HD feels pretty decent.
(Of course, pure SSD is the best, but managing data between multiple drives is a hassle I don't need)
Wow, well unfortunately, it looks like this thread isn't going to be of much help to the OP...
I think it pretty much comes down to this:
If you can't afford an SSD at the size you need, get the Momentus and know that you aren't going to get SSD-like speeds like Seagate advertises.
If you want SSD-like speeds, know that this drive isn't a silver bullet, and a cheaper 750gb regular HDD might work just as well until SSD's come down in price more.
I think it pretty much comes down to this:
If you can't afford an SSD at the size you need, get the Momentus and know that you aren't going to get SSD-like speeds like Seagate advertises.
If you want SSD-like speeds, know that this drive isn't a silver bullet, and a cheaper 750gb regular HDD might work just as well until SSD's come down in price more.
I've had the original 500GB model, the 750 GB model (now out of production), and the new 1TB 5400RPM model, called the SSHD.
The 500GB model had vibration problems.
The 750GB model died before a year was up.
The 1TB model is working fine and is no slower than the 750GB model.
Sure they aren't SSDs, but they perform much better than conventional HDs, consume less power than the OEM drives they replaced, offer the same capacity as conventional HDs and are closer in cost to conventional HDs. Get the new 1TB model!
The 500GB model had vibration problems.
The 750GB model died before a year was up.
The 1TB model is working fine and is no slower than the 750GB model.
Sure they aren't SSDs, but they perform much better than conventional HDs, consume less power than the OEM drives they replaced, offer the same capacity as conventional HDs and are closer in cost to conventional HDs. Get the new 1TB model!
I would like to see a hybrid that is big enough to store the operating system and programs on the sad portion and and the big files on the HDD portion.
Having that option would be nice. Question is would you pay $200 for a hybrid with 64GB NAND and 750GB 7200rpm HDD rather than $329 for a 500GB SSD? I would do that for my wife, who really needs more than 500GB internal, but most people (including me) would probably take the latter as 500GB is plenty for most uses.
At the time I upgraded the XTs, the choices were 8GB/750GB XT at $129 or 500GB SSD at $400. Cutting that gap in half only favors the SSD, which is why we're probably not likely to see big NAND hybrids in the future.
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I used a 500 GB XT. The 750 GB variant and the versions that came after were said to be even faster.
The XT was much better than the stock 5400 RPM drive. That's a given, though; unless there are major differences in the platter densities, any 7200 RPM drive should run circules around a 5400 RPM drive. There was a noticeable speed-up in the operations of programs that I used regularly.
I have since upgraded to a 500 GB Samsung 840 SSD. While the SSD is faster, I was both surprised and a bit disappointed that the 840 didn't feel that much faster for my day-to-day activities.
If I had to make a hard drive upgrade for my system drive today I would go with one of Seagate's SSHDs (what the Momentus XT line has been rebranded as). I'm happy with the Samsung 840 and appreciate the speed boosts over the Momentus XT, but the difference is not as great as I was expecting, particularly considering the difference in cost. The difference in costs will narrow with time, but for now the SSHDs are absolutely the best value for storage capacity and performance. Don't expect everything to open instantly with the SSHD, but then again, don't expect everything to open instantly with a SSD, either.
The XT was much better than the stock 5400 RPM drive. That's a given, though; unless there are major differences in the platter densities, any 7200 RPM drive should run circules around a 5400 RPM drive. There was a noticeable speed-up in the operations of programs that I used regularly.
I have since upgraded to a 500 GB Samsung 840 SSD. While the SSD is faster, I was both surprised and a bit disappointed that the 840 didn't feel that much faster for my day-to-day activities.
If I had to make a hard drive upgrade for my system drive today I would go with one of Seagate's SSHDs (what the Momentus XT line has been rebranded as). I'm happy with the Samsung 840 and appreciate the speed boosts over the Momentus XT, but the difference is not as great as I was expecting, particularly considering the difference in cost. The difference in costs will narrow with time, but for now the SSHDs are absolutely the best value for storage capacity and performance. Don't expect everything to open instantly with the SSHD, but then again, don't expect everything to open instantly with a SSD, either.
i had the 750 before i upgraded to retina- it was much faster than the stock 5400, noticably so. seems obvious that the ssd's are faster but i was impressed with the boost at the time
I bought the moments XT which was much faster than the HD that came with the mac. Booted up in a nice 10 secs, recently though (had mac about 7 months) ive noticed boot up has slowed to about 15-18 secs. Not really a major problem though
The flash size is limited and is utilized for files that are most frequently accessed. I know in my case when I first got the drive I booted the system a couple times in a row to optimize the boot time. But in my normal use I rarely boot the system (I sleep it, which is even faster) and the flash gets optimized to contain the programs and data I most frequently access. When I do boot, it's now much slower. But thats a good optimization.