Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid?

[flood]

Anyone with firsthand experience of this drive in day-to-day use?
I primarily use my computer for web browsing, media, and running a virtual machine once in a while. I need more space than what I can justify spending on a SSD, and this drive seems like a good compromise.

 

[SickBeast]

It looks like a good drive for laptops, but if it's for your PC, then there are better options.

 

[flood]

It looks like a good drive for laptops, but if it's for your PC, then there are better options.

Yes, I should have clarified, I'm using this for a desktop. The other options are one of the Samsung drives.
Another thing to take into consideration is that I'm running XP, not Windows 7.

 

[SickBeast]

Well, to get the best performance possible you're going to want an SSD for your OS and apps, and a mechanical drive for your media and files.

With XP you have to be careful with the >2TB drives as there is a compatibility issue.

TBH the 320gb Samsung F4 is pretty good for $40, and I would probably go that route instead of the Seagate hybrid drive.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

An SSD for OS, apps and anything else that you want to run fast coupled with a 1TB or 2TB drive for everything else is the optimal setup.

I have a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD in my work computer (software developer). I have a crapton of programs installed (all to their default Program Files location) along with a multi-gigabyte code base and around 20GB in databases all on the SSD. I am using almost exactly 50% of the SSD. I haven't had occasion to install the MS App Compatibility VHDs for Virtual PC on my new computer yet, but there would be room for them on my SSD if I wanted. Hosting them from my HDD they would still be plenty fast, though, which is what I would probably do.

 

[sechs]

It looks like a good drive for laptops, but if it's for your PC, then there are better options.

I think that you have it backwards there.

For portables, you want to go with an SSD. Why take all of the downsides of a spinning disk without all of the upside of an SSD?

On the other hand, there are a lot of server and workstation situations where I could see a hybrid drive making some sense. Then again, just shelling out for an SSD would be better.

These hybrid drives feel a day late and a dollar short....

 

[fuzzymath10]

A laptop could be an ideal place for a hybrid. There's usually room for only one drive, so choosing between an SSD and a spinning drive means choosing two of capacity, performance, and price. A hybrid gets you a bit of everything. It's a more elegant solution than relying on external drives.

Even for a desktop, it partially eliminates the need to be careful about space and which things need to go on the SSD and what doesn't.

 

[sechs]

A laptop could be an ideal place for a hybrid. There's usually room for only one drive, so choosing between an SSD and a spinning drive means choosing two of capacity, performance, and price. A hybrid gets you a bit of everything. It's a more elegant solution than relying on external drives.

Even for a desktop, it partially eliminates the need to be careful about space and which things need to go on the SSD and what doesn't.

You're making a lot of assumption about how people need and want to use their storage.

Few laptop users need big capacity; this drive only comes in one capacity, anyway. A lot of laptop users could care less about drive performance; this is why the 4200 and 5400 RPM drives are still kicking around. So, really, people are shopping on price and a lot of features that don't have to do with storage -- such as screen size, processor, memory, and battery life.

Also, it's a myth that one needs to be careful about what is on an SSD. Neither performance nor life are real limitations for recent models; otherwise they would not be suitable for single-drive situations, like laptops. Furthurmore, if this was true, then one might argue that the smaller amount of flash on hybrid drives would be likely to wear poorly, leading to performance degradation and shortened life.

 

[fuzzymath10]

Few laptop users need big capacity; this drive only comes in one capacity, anyway. A lot of laptop users could care less about drive performance; this is why the 4200 and 5400 RPM drives are still kicking around.

I agree that it's price-driven. However, capacity needs vary by user. My laptop to me is secondary so yes, an 80GB SSD does it. For others (especially students), it may be their only machine and they might want their music and movies available everywhere without needing an extra hard drive to carry around. The hybrid drive reduces the penalty of sacrificing performance for capacity (and from my limited experience with one in person, the difference is noticeable).

Also, it's a myth that one needs to be careful about what is on an SSD. Neither performance nor life are real limitations for recent models; otherwise they would not be suitable for single-drive situations, like laptops. Furthurmore, if this was true, then one might argue that the smaller amount of flash on hybrid drives would be likely to wear poorly, leading to performance degradation and shortened life.

I was mostly referring to the fact that if you have, say a 80-120GB SSD and a 1-2TB drive, you need to know to move your personal folders, or not to automatically install everything go C:\, or else you'll run out of space quicker than expected. I agree that write wear is not an issue. Also, hybrids use SLC memory so that might significantly reduce any risk due to wearing for those drives.

 

[kmmatney]

You're making a lot of assumption about how people need and want to use their storage.

Few laptop users need big capacity; this drive only comes in one capacity, anyway. A lot of laptop users could care less about drive performance; this is why the 4200 and 5400 RPM drives are still kicking around. So, really, people are shopping on price and a lot of features that don't have to do with storage -- such as screen size, processor, memory, and battery life.

Also, it's a myth that one needs to be careful about what is on an SSD. Neither performance nor life are real limitations for recent models; otherwise they would not be suitable for single-drive situations, like laptops. Furthurmore, if this was true, then one might argue that the smaller amount of flash on hybrid drives would be likely to wear poorly, leading to performance degradation and shortened life.

Everyone in my company uses laptops as their only work computer, so there are cases where capacity is needed. A lot of us travel a lot, and like to store movies in our laptops as well. We have to startup and shutdown our laptops fairly often, so performance is important. I have an 80GB Intel G1 in my laptop, and its been great, but I have to augment the capacity with a 32GB SD card which I keep permanently in my laptop. I would have gone for the 500GB hybrid drive it it had been available. The small amount of flash on the hybrids is mostly used for read operations, so wear should not be an issue. They also use SLC flash, which lasts longer.

"Also, it's a myth that one needs to be careful about what is on an SSD"

I don't think you understood him correctly. He's just saying if you have an SSD and a spindle drive, then whenever you install programs or copy data, you have to decide to place it on the SSD or the spindle drive. This can be a pain, because it might not always be obvious where the best location is. With a hybrid, you just install it wherever, and heavily used applications will automatically move to the SSD portion over time.

 

[SickBeast]

I think that you have it backwards there.

For portables, you want to go with an SSD. Why take all of the downsides of a spinning disk without all of the upside of an SSD?

On the other hand, there are a lot of server and workstation situations where I could see a hybrid drive making some sense. Then again, just shelling out for an SSD would be better.

These hybrid drives feel a day late and a dollar short....

The Momentus XT is a 2.5" drive; that's why I said it's good for laptops. Most laptops only have one hard drive bay. AFAIK the Momentus XT is the only way to have both an SSD and a HDD in many cases for people with a laptop. It's really not a bad solution, either, especially when you consider price and storage capacity. I'm surprised more companies haven't made hybrid drives.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I love the idea of hybrid hard drives. But it must be technically challenging to make. An ideal Hybrid drive needs to balance the wear levelling/buffering/reclamation well enough to smooth out the abnormally slow periods platter HDDs experience.

You don't want it to feel really really fast at one moment, then screech to a halt the next, but average it out with minimum downturn. The very first hybrid drives were like that.

Seagate has done a good job here.

Of course, if your system can support two drives and use a SSD for performance-critical apps and HDD for purely data storage, in essence you are achieving the same thing Seagate has done. Seagate is merely using less flash and automating the program selection while the two drive system is user controlled and using more flash.

 

[corkyg]

I am currently using a Momentus XT 320GB in my laptop. I am on the road. In this mode, the laptop is primary not secondary. It replaced a WDC Scorpio black, same size, and is definitely providing faster boots, loads, and shutdowns.

I would not use it in a desktop where a small SSD could be a better boot along with a larger data drive.

The laptop used for serious photo work and storage while travelling is not a good SSD candidate unless you are filty rich and can afford a 250GB SSD.

This is not conjecture, but my real world.

 

[sechs]

I specify laptops everywhere from just doing basic business apps on the road to creative professionals who need to be able to do work anywhere. I have never specified a drive larger than 200GB for any of the these people, although we often go with something larger because it is the cheapest option.

I also find that those who are willing to trade memory and processor performance that they do not need have no problem finding space for an SSD in their budget.

 

[kmmatney]

Yes, I should have clarified, I'm using this for a desktop. The other options are one of the Samsung drives.
Another thing to take into consideration is that I'm running XP, not Windows 7.

I think the general consensus is that your better off with a regular hard drive if this is going in a desktop. I usually go for WD or Seagate drives, as I like the free copy of Acronis you can download with these brands, which makes it easy to backup and clone drives.

The Samsung Spinpoint F3, Western Digital Caviar Black series or Seagate 7200.12 series are all good. I use the WD Black series at work, and the Green series for home use. For what I do (games, video encoding, movies, virtual machines etc) I really don't notice the lower performance of the Green drives, and they run nice and cool.