Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive

Written by Olin Coles

Monday, 24 May 2010

Table of Contents: Page Index
Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive
Features and Specifications
First Look: Seagate Momentus-XT
SSD Testing Methodology
AS-SSD Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Tests
Iometer IOPS Performance
EVEREST Disk Benchmark
Real-World Performance
HDD vs Hybrid Drive vs SSD
Seagate Momentus-XT Conclusion

Page 2 of 12

SSD Hybrid Features

Today's high-performance SSDs for mobile computing cost several hundred dollars more than standard laptop hard disk drives of the same capacity, with the price of a 250GB SSD outstripping even the cost of some mainstream laptop PCs. Many organizations and consumers are unwilling or unable to pay the high price for the greater speed and quiet operations of SSDs. Raising the barrier even higher, SSDs offer fewer capacity options than hard disk drives and no advantage in extending the battery life of a laptop.

The new Seagate Momentus XT hard drive combines a 7200RPM spin speed, 4 Gigabytes of solid state flash and Seagate's Adaptive Memory - a groundbreaking Seagate technology that moves frequently used information into flash memory for faster access. Momentus XT - a 2.5-inch, 9mm drive with a top capacity of 500GB - boots up to 40 percent faster than traditional 7200RPM notebook drives and sets new performance benchmarks for gaming, multi-media enhanced and high-end laptops and workstations as well as high performance external backup enclosures.

The Seagate Adaptive Memory algorithm works by identifying patterns in how often certain digital data is used. It then moves the most frequently retrieved information to flash memory for faster access than from the spinning disks - effectively tailoring hard drive performance to the user and applications. Momentus XT installs as easily as a traditional 9.5mm-high notebook drive for new systems or laptop upgrades and, unlike early hybrid drives, operates independently of the operating system and the motherboard chipset.

Key Features and Benefits

Boots 40 percent faster than traditional 7200-RPM drives (for overall system performance, that's within 1% of an SSD*)
Cuts costs by 75 percent compared to SSDs by combining solid state and hard drive technologies
Delivers the perfect balance of speed and capacity
Uses Adaptive Memory technology to optimize performance in real time by storing frequently used files and data on the solid state drive component
Ensures compatibility with any operating system or application with a standard 9.5mm notebook drive form factor and the characteristics of a traditional 7200RPM drive
Offers all the benefits of SSD performance with the high capacity, storage, battery life, power consumption and heat generation of a traditional hard drive

Seagate Adaptive Memory Technology

Customizes system performance to the user. Usage patterns are constantly monitored and updated for dynamically improved response times.

Momentus XT MSRP

500GB Momentus XT - ST95005620AS $156
320GB Momentus XT - ST93205620AS $132
250GB Momentus XT - ST92505610AS $113

Momentus-XT Specifications

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Comments

# Thanks again for the exceptional review — K Gregory 2010-05-24 15:44

Very complete, and the forward 'honesty' is welcomed. I still have some skepticism about the product. I think Seagate 'skimped' on technology that could have been included in order to 'milk' cash that this product line/type can bring in as far as possible.

However, I'll look to see a true 'desktop' release hybrid configuration to confirm or unseat my skepticism. 6Gb/s interface, 64MB cache, 10k speed, Nand that offers both read and write benefits and perhaps even dual porting -now that the 6Gb/s interface offers the signal strength to meet such a feature without too many issues.

Time will tell. Again great review.

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# A Mistake! — Rahul 2010-05-24 17:44

According to marketing I think that Seagate Adaptive Technology focused ONLY on Real World Uses and not BENCHMARKS. So, I think the 1st and 2nd Con should not have been put here.

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# RE: A Mistake! — Olin Coles 2010-05-24 18:25

As I mentioned several times throughout the article, the Adaptive Memory technology does not apply to all benchmarks (it does apply to some). I suggest that you re-read the article, since you've missed several points I've made.

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# Microking — Ryan 2010-05-24 22:34

Would like to know more about these hybrids?

1.) Can you defrag them? Do you need a special tool? Can you damage the SSD portion by defragmenting the drive?

2.) What about Raiding these drives? Is is possible and what should be concerned with? Can you defrag them Raided?

3.)Special drivers? Does the OS matter with regard to performance?

I wonder how these would perform in a server environment raided?

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# RE: Microking — Olin Coles 2010-05-25 06:59

Consumers should consider these drives as standard hard disks, with the ability to cache the most-used applications into the SSD portion. You can/should defragment this drive, because all of the data is written to the hard disk and not the SSD. There are no special drivers needed or used.

As for RAID, we only received the single unit. I don't wish to speculate on how the Momentus XT would perform in RAID without more experience witht he product.

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# Raid — Adam Postma 2010-05-26 08:44

@ Ryan
I read a different review and RAID is definitely possible and brings the performance even closer to SSD levels. Because they are just normal Hard Drives to the operating system, you can do anything with them that you can with a ordinary Hard Drive.

Defragging won't damage the SSD portion, but in case something does damage the SSD portion seagate said your drive should still operate as an ordinary hard drive.

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# RE: Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive — Dual 2010-06-25 00:29

"Each cloned drive was restarted three times prior to testing (Seagate Momentus-XT received five restarts to ensure Adaptive Memory would utilize SSD functionality)": doesn't this point to a potential problem in that real-world use of a drive involves a constantly-changing array of tasks? I only reboot my CPU (Mac) about every two weeks or so. The hybrid can't be expected to 'memorize' launch data for the scores of apps I use, or the other tasks a hybrid can potentially accelerate.

If 'learning' is so important for these drives, that fact must have a significant impact on dynamic, real-world performance.

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# RE: RE: Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive — Olin Coles 2010-06-25 19:42

If you want immediate gratification without a learning curve, there's a solution called the SSD. It's more expensive and has much less capacity, but it's faster every time. For everyone else who needs storage capacity and is willing to wait for the second or third time a program is accessed for it to be 'learned and cached', the hybrid SSD is ideal.

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# RE: RE: RE: Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive — Dual 2010-06-28 01:18

Thanks Assuming you're not being snarky, yes I know about SSD's. The reason for my comment was twofold: AFAIK (I do have a problem with skimming at times) the performance hit caused by the learning curve is not discussed in the review, and neither is the cache depth a hybrid drive has to support multiple applications and tasks (in other words: having launched app X 5 times to teach the drive, how long before that information is wiped by other activity?)

Extrapolating from the article, and perhaps in error, it seems to me that a hybrid drive best might support a user who engages in repetitive work, and that someone with a more varied approach to his computer and work life would not see much benefit from a hybrid. Even having to consider factors like this when considering a storage device is NEW, and I feel deserves some discussion.

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# RE: RE: RE: RE: Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive — Olin Coles 2010-06-28 06:50

I'm also curious as to how much 'learned' information is stored on the drive. It's got a 4GB SSD buffer, so I imagine that up to 4GB of program files (whatever files are used to operate the application) can be stored before a lesser-used program is removed.

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# 500g Momentus xt — Dallas Michaels 2011-01-18 10:20

I picked one up for my qosmio x305 q705 laptop. I read a few articals on the tech behind this drive but yours has been the most informative. My guess was that the 4g of ssd would be used for cache, my hope was that the user could define how to use that part of the drive. I would think that using two thirds of it as a ssd paging file and the rest as shared video memory for the TurboCache tech that is used by the 9700m video solution would give a nice boost to performance. But I have not found a way to partition that part of the drive or if it is possible or plausible. Like I stated earlier I didn't really understand the drives tech untile I read your srtical.

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# Why IOMeter only test 120 seconds — Andy 2010-06-29 08:43

Does anyone konw why IOMeter test only test 120 seconds?

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# RE: Why IOMeter only test 120 seconds — Olin Coles 2010-06-29 08:45

You can set it for as long as you want, but SSD results will usually be the same.

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# We need more reviews like this. — Sil 2010-06-30 01:33

Great Article, well done.

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# A classic Seagate move..... sucker in the people who know just enough to be Dangerous — BigSteve 2010-07-08 17:38

I don't think Seagate REALLY gets it (or at least their marking dept). The whole idea of SSDs is not JUST about the speed, but also reliability (like NO MOVING PARTS, Seagate's problem area), AS WELL AS less power & heat. This abomination (IMHO) of an SSD, is like calling a jet powered car a "space shuttle hybrid".
It's a souped-up HDD, but still ONLY a HDD!
Ever wonder why Seagate offers such long warranties (5 yrs on new drives) and still so cheap???
It's ALL marketing due to their LONG history of making CRAP. And then they went out and bought up other companies (like Maxtor) that actually had quality products and messed up their stuff.
Over the years (almost 20 now), I have had more Seagate failures than ALL OTHERS COMBINED (even the newer drives, that I couldn't talk people out of).
In short, I wouldn't buy (and recommend against) Seagate's REAL SSDs as they will LIKELY be the 1st SSDs to FAIL (IMHO)

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# RE: A classic Seagate move..... sucker in the people who know just enough to be Dangerous — Olin Coles 2010-07-08 17:42

I think you've got some misplaced anger there. For nearly the same price as a 2.5" notebook hard drive, people can improve their performance and retain large storage capacities. I'm a huge proponent of SSDs, but I'm not so in love with the technology that I can't see it's shortcomings.

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# All About Expectations — Chuck from Columbus 2010-07-26 07:37

I have had one of these drives in a Sony Vaio laptop for over a month and I am as pleased as I can be. I think part of the reason is because I think of it as an HDD rather than an SSD. Don't compare it to SSDs because that isn't what it is

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# RE: Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive — Snappy 2010-09-09 18:45

Solid State Drive = Massive SD Card

If you plan to not use it as a primary HDD for any OS the SSD has tons of uses, mainly being a cheap expanded SD card for storage of your grandmas photos.

Nothing beats solid hilarity :)

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# NAND — ET 2011-10-12 16:15

Just wondering if you added DMA into the equation here ? I am sure you did, but in windows 7 and vista, the os has been known to disable SETMAX for DMA, and set it back to PIO - mode. This occurs supposedly because of a certain amount of read/write errors. When I have restarted my system though, it is enabled again. Wouldn't this have some effect on your testing ? There is a big difference between UDMA mode 6(ata -133) and DMA mode 0(ata -33). Also, correcting this I have peaked at 120 MB/s transferring a 1,47 GB .mkv file from my laptop to a seagate 5400 rpm 8 MB cache 2.5" internal harddisk in an external enclosure, which seems to defy all your benchmark testing.....
I do not know too much about harddisks, but I seem to be coming up with better results than prof. tests show - all the time.

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# BIOS Settings — Wayne Bish 2011-11-03 09:26

SHould the Momentus XT be set to AHCI or IDE?

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# RE: BIOS Settings — Olin Coles 2011-11-03 09:37

If you're installing the Operating System for the first time, I would suggest AHCI mode. If you've already got an OS installed, sometimes switching from IDE to AHCI will cause crashes because the driver was not initially installed. It doesn't hurt to switch it over to AHCI, and just switch it back to IDE if that causes crashes.

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# RE: RE: BIOS Settings — Wayne Bish 2011-11-03 10:31

Thanks for your response. Was just trying to find out which has better overall performance.

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# RE: RE: RE: BIOS Settings — Olin Coles 2011-11-03 11:01

See here: benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505

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# RE: RE: RE: RE: BIOS Settings — Wayne Bish 2011-11-03 12:05

Thanks for the link (and further clarification/information). I just added a Crucial C300. Have had one plaguing problem; system won't power down. After clicking the "shut-down" button, windows goes through the normal process and shuts down, but the fans are still spinning and power is still on. Any thoughts on how to fix? Thanks for your help.

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