Seagate Momentus XT: reliable?

[Patrese]

I'm trying to solve two problems at once and for that I'm considering the 500GB version of the Seagate Momentus XT. An SSD is not an option since I need a drive of at least 320GB and my budget is not big enough.

Problem number 1: my notebook with a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400rpm is getting on my nerves. It's just not as responsive as it could be considering the rest of the config (Core2Duo T6600, Intel PM45 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 512MB GeForce GT130M, Win7 x64).

Problem number 2: I need a bigger external drive. I have a 2,5 Akasa SATA external enclosure with an 40GB HD at the moment, and it is not enough space anymore.

My solution is to buy the Momentus XT, use it on the notebook and put the 320GB WD on the external enclosure. I know it is not "SSD fast", but is is faster than a 7200rpm normal drive and way faster than the 5400rpm one that I use at the moment.

Sounds like a plan, except for the fact that I've read lots of complains about random lock ups and sluttering with the Momentus XT. Since I know that people with issues are way more vocal than the ones that don't have them, I'd like to hear about AT forums experiences with this drive. Is it a reliable choice?

If yes, is there a problem with using it partitioned (say, a 150GB system partition and the rest for data). Will it have performance issues related to that?

Thanks for the answers!

 

[adairusmc]

I have had one for about a year or so now, in my macbook pro. It has the mac partition and the windows partition on it, and I have not had any stuttering or random lockups with it at all (I have the 500gb version). It has been a very good drive, but if OSX Lion supports TRIM I am probably going to replace it with an SSD.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I've had one for just a year now and I've never had a bit of trouble with it.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I used one in a mini-ITX build about six months ago. No issues thus far. Though to be honest, I was not impressed with its real-world performance improvement compared to a WD Black drive. It was noticeable but definitely not worth the near 100% cost increase, imho.

 

[Hardlin]

I have been using one in a test system for about 8 months and haven't had any issues.

 

[ed29a]

Have two, one for Windows gaming machine and another for Linux workstation. No issues so far. Both been bought around January of this year and are used extensively, one being on 24h/day.

 

[dbcooper1]

Same here- bought one several months ago and put it in a system that's on all the time. No issues and while it does enhance reads quite a bit under certain conditions, it does nothing for writes. This has been written in many of the reviews and has proven to be the case for me in general use.

 

[corkyg]

IO have 4 of them in two laptops - and two have 3 partitions. Never a problem - very reliable, and enough faster than the WDC Scorpio Blacks they replaced to be noticeable. I am using the Scorpio Blacks as secondary internak data drives (Lenovo Ultrabay adapters.)

 

[Patrese]

Thanks for all the responses, they were really helpful! I'll get a Momentus XT and post the results here as soon as possible for reference.

 

[Shmee]

I had 2 in my sandy bridge asus g73, before I returned it do to recall. they weren't as fast as my desktop with its agility 2, but they seemed darn good for laptop drives. would highly recomend one if an SSD is not an option. certainly over any laptop spindle non hybrid drive.

 

[Patrese]

My Momentus XT arrived today. I've put it on my external enclosure just to check if it is working and everything looks fine. Much to my surprise, it arrived with firmware SD26. I bought it as a SD24 way cheaper then the SD25s on the market here in Brazil (I'd do the upgrade myself), but the retailer ran out of stock and had to send me the new one. Kudos for him, good for me. I'll install it on my laptop on the weekend and bring some comparisons... any recommendation on good benchs (besides HD Tach)?

 

[Blain]

You don't benchmark the intake manifold on your car, do you?
Of course you don't. You simply drive the car and don't give it a second thought.

Why bother with any HD benchmarking?
It's a solid laptop HD... Use your laptop like normal and move forward.

 

[corkyg]

Good advice, Blain - that's my view as well. <LOL>

 

[Patrese]

You don't benchmark the intake manifold on your car, do you?
Of course you don't. You simply drive the car and don't give it a second thought.

Why bother with any HD benchmarking?
It's a solid laptop HD... Use your laptop like normal and move forward.

Good advice, Blain - that's my view as well. <LOL>

I bench every single new hardware I get once, just after install, to compare it to the one it's replacing and stress it a little searching for eventual failures. Then I start using it normally and forget about it, until I buy its replacement and repeat the process.

I'm also somewhat curious about the nature of the firmware tweaks Seagate has been doing on it since the AT review more than a year ago, and if they affect performance in any way. Honestly, I thought the info could be useful for someone else with similar doubts as mine regarding this drives.

The car analogy was especially amusing to me as I'm a huge Formula 1 fan and see testing new air intakes for 0,050 seconds a lap as a "business as usual" thing. To each his own, I guess.

 

[corkyg]

Well, I have 4 of these drives, and one had the model number listed as eligible for the update. (Only three wwre listed. All sorts of caveats and dire warnings about screwing up.

So, with all that insurance, I went ahead and updated to 25. Not a hint of a problem. As long as all works well, I couldn't care less about a benchmark. They really don't mean a lot. What counts for reliability is whether or not all my 50 apps work right. And, they do.

My other backupdrive is not listed. So, it stays as is. I really don't detect any difference between them.

 

[kmmatney]

It doesn't make much sense to benchmark this drive once, since it learns your habits and tries to put your most used files on the SSD portion of the drive.

I've been running a 500GB XT in my main work machine since January. No problems at all, although its not as fast as the previous 80 GB SSD I had. Sometimes its feels SSD-like, but on the whole its noticeably slower. I plan on going back to SSD at some point, but this is good enough to tide me over.

 

[corkyg]

Updated 2 more drives to Firmware 25D. One drive remains - but it's model number is not listed. No problems at all with the 25D updates. Now have done 3 of them without a problem. Most of the problems I see on the web are Mac users.

As for possible benchmarkutility - maybe it should be done intitially, and than later on after a few days and several reboots. That way the Learning Curve can be somewhat quantified.