Overview of Seagate Momentus XT

The truth is that if this very well, having read many review I am convinced that is a step forward compared to traditional HDD including those 10000 RPM and does not become a DDS with its great performance and high price. The test results make it clear video. Some of the features and advantages of this product are:

• The power is 40% faster than the traditional 7,200 rpm drives
• Reduce the cost by 75% compared with SSD
• It offers the perfect balance between speed and capacity
• Use adaptive memory technology to optimize performance in real time by storing frequently used files and data in solid-state drive incorporates.
• It offers the advantages of SSD performance with high capacity HDD storage.
• Extends the battery life on laptops to have lower power consumption and heat generation and noise is less than that of a traditional hard drive.

These hybrid discs of which much has been said seems to improve significantly the performance even when using the mechanical part will be similar to performance of any disc of the same rpms. Indeed it seems that Samsung has released a similar pattern of low capacity (80 GB with 256 MB Nand Flash) called SpinPoint MH80 Hybrid Disk SATA HDD funny thing is that the drive is SATA 150 suggesting that it is something "old" because their specifications in terms of:

• Capacity (From 250 GB to 500 GB vs. 80 GB).
• Quantity Nand Flash memory (4 GB vs. 256 MB).
• Type of connection (SATA300 vs. SATA150).
• Rpm (7200 vs Rpms. 5,400 rpms).
• Buffer / Cache (8 MB vs. 32 MB).

This something away from the Seagate Momentus XT. By the way I edited the theme to look more clear what HHD (Hybrid Hard Drive) with HHD and that can only lead to confusion.

The truth is that today the Seagate Momentus XT HHD are the only market which makes price the manufacturer determines and not competition (something similar happens to the case of the Velociraptor which are the only SATA disks of 10,000 Rpms as such on SCSI / SAS both 10,000 as of 15,000 Rpms if prices vary somewhat, as is the case with SATA models of 7,200 RPMs). Moreover, the performance of the HDD according to these videos from YouTube does not seem bad when compared with traditional discs of 7,200 and even 10,000 Rpms Rpms: Video1 (Comparison of XT vs Momentus HHD. Rpms Hitachi HDD of 7,200 vs. HDD VR vs Rpms of 10,000. SSD) and Video2 (Open Safari and Word on Mac OS). The Seagate Momentus XT looks great, but in my opinion is still a bit expensive, no longer a hard drive 50 euros + 4GB flash and the controller ... that can cost no more than 30 euros. But even so I'm interested, but of course my question would be if SATA I connections, as is my motherboard, you really would benefit. On the other hand, if Western Digital are designed and a 600GB Velociraptor with 8 GB of flash memory (dual controller, in flash, as in the mechanical part) ... I do not expect, but its performance should be quite good, with the advantage that would have many more GB than any SSD. Design high-performance building blocks in an pioneering platform, the hybrid solid state drive Momentus XT consists of a hard drive of 7,200 rpm with 32 MB cache and 4 GB of NAND SLC solid state storage with Adaptive Memory. Adaptive Memory shrewdly monitors the applications and data files used most often, to place in the solid state of the unit, so that they can recover more rapidly.

It is possible that the actual product price (Seagate Momentus XT) is not the PVP (retail price) you have, but you have to count the costs of:

• R & D (Vale that R & D mechanical hard disks is more or less written off but the SSD technology is relatively new).
• Using SLC Nand Flash memory is much more expensive than MLC which is often seen in the SSD.
• Distribution / transport.
• Intermediaries.

That if we buy it directly from Seagate insurance would come out cheaper. On the issue of using a HHD on a plate with SATA150 think it would be relatively untapped for at least some of Nand Flash (In fact any current SSD forego surely as they have read rates exceeding 150 MB / sec and write approach and / or exceed also the 150 MB / Sec), however a HHD should have better performance than a conventional hard disk of 7,200 Rpms because while using Nand Flash memory gives a performance close to that of a SSD (Basically it improves the access time to data that is in the flash, while the latency (access time) to hard disk data would be similar to that of any hard drive of 7,200 RPMs). The Momentus XT has been designed for all standard notebook PC and is independent of the operating system, driver and software, which makes this unit easy to integrate and use. Adaptive Memory technology allows the unit to adapt its performance to the user. Whether you are interested in games like digital media editing or intensive calculations, the performance will be optimized and adjusted to their next move.

What not mean it's a mix of SSD and conventional hard drive or will toggle from one to another as needed all controlled by the OS of your computer, no it's not. Flash memory (SLC is the better faster and reliable than MLC) is a link between the standard hard drive and 32 MB of cache memory DDR3. It serves as a level 2 cache somehow. The disk becomes fast after several uses. Seagate has in fact developed a specific controller which is independent of the OS or the interest to connect to a Mac or PC without worries. The controller sees the files that load, it remembers this recurring and prefers to keep them on the 4 GB of flash memory. On the next call file access is as fast as a pure SSD drive. So if the files come back often they are caught quickly. But if you've changed, the controller very quickly rewrites the flash memory and of course slowly over the conventional disk storage. But if in the wake the file is recalled, he was taken on the flash memory write operation and amended / modified on the classical record is made when the drive is less solicited. In the end the advantage is that small files or frequent calls are handled quickly. Also you will have to remember that no entry from "outside" does not touch the flash memory. When you modify a file, it is written directly to disk and copy in flash is disabled. It will then access it again a few times to make it back in the reference list and well see him back in the flash memory.

I would like to discuss about the specifications, since no-one has described about it. The main Specifications are as follows:

• Options to hard drive capacity of 500 GB, 320 GB and 250 GB
• Solid state memory of 4 GB NAND SLC
• Rotational speed of 7,200 rpm
• 32 MB of cache unit level
• SATA 3 Gb / s with Native Command Queuing

Fit Applications

• Laptops and workstations, high-end
• High-performance portable gaming
• High-speed external compartments: USB 3.0, eSATA
• Small Form Factor Computer

The drives are Serial ATA interface designed for easy installation. Therefore, do not require jumper settings, terminators or any other device to function properly. The jumper block located next to the SATA interface connector on SATA 150 MB / s is intended only for factory use. The jumper block adjacent to the SATA interface connector on SATA 300 MB / s can be used to force the drive to SATA mode of 150 MB / s for use with older SATA controllers that only work with SATA 150MB / s. With a Serial ATA interface, each HDD has its own cable to connect directly to a Serial ATA host adapter or a Serial ATA port on the motherboard. Unlike parallel ATA devices, there is no master-slave relationship between drives that use Serial ATA interfaces. To use a serial ATA drive in the same system with Parallel ATA drives, both interfaces must be compatible with your motherboard or host adapter. So the system can easily add more compatibility with serial ATA devices without removing the parallel ATA drives available.

I do not wait for cheap SSDs, because I want to have quick start the program or need, but simply because those things are in a totally SILENT. This is the criterion which is why I like to have SSDs with larger storage capacity.On the issue of hypothetical WD Velociraptor and (VR) with Nand Flash I do not think him out at least for now, because if a 600 GB VR currently around the 370 €, only add 4 GB of NAND Flash as XT Momentus the case would at least an extra cost of 69 € which is the difference between an XT Momentus 500 GB (Round of 148 €) and a 500 GB Momentus 7200.4 (Round of 79 €), ie a VR 600 GB to 4 GB Nand Flash would have supposed a minimum cost of 450 € or so (If you do not put more to be the only hard drive of 10,000 RPMs SATA300/SATA600 Nand Flash), although it is quite possible that the disks HHD end up displacing traditional HDD drives, because of its better performance, although the price difference between HHD (Hybrid Hard Disk) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive) are maintained not finish their massively deployed as happens today with SSD they have very good performance but any model with certain features (eg, Barefoot Indilix Controller, Intel, SandForce 1200/SF-1200, Marvell) no less than the 200 - € 225 and get between 50 and 80 GB. And who says that the average user does not need oh-so-quick program start? I say this, and tens of thousand of users as well. Can a 0815 times so users who buy their computers operating in MM SSD and say that their programs will run 50% faster, but still it should lie down is 10 times your money. Who needs my opinion faster startup and data transmission? people have their computer in the productive use and in which therefore is time = money. :biggrin: They can also wait for the minute you boot up Windows has, as I'm sure.