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I needed more space on my third gen macbook pro. My 250 gig HDD was packed and requiring me to delete files frequently (a problem for a solo practitioner attorney) - and it was running slow. This harddrive did cost a few dollars more than a standard HDD, but it is faster and has a hybrid feature that is shaving an astonishing amount of boot time and program load time.
Also, a five year warrant is a nice fall back since I have time machine to keep my data securely backed up.
In all honesty, if the price were comparable and a 500 gig model were offered, the ONLY reason I would elect pure solid state over this drive is for shock protection. But, prices are anything but comparable and 500 gig is still a dream for a solid state drive. In short, you cannot beat this product for a new harddrive.
See "pros"
I did download Seagates Sea Tools for Windows and it showed 2 drives with identical specs after the Short test. i.e. the drive Passed. I can only determine that one of the 2 drives identified was the SSD. However as the specs were identical ???
My experience? After installing in my Dell Mini 10v netbook, I did take time readings for loading win 7
The result? No noticeable difference. Win Performance tests showed no improvement after 4 successive boot loads.
I thought that maybe the SSD portion of the drive was not working due to the Fantastic claims. No way to test the SSD part of the drive or to Unlock any of the algorithmic magic of this drive, as far as I can tell.
I do think it is a clever idea.
Perhaps changing your boot drive to a through and though SSD and then having all your Music, Video, and data files on a traditional spinning drive would achieve optimal performance in the same vain. I am considering just that at this point.
Until then I can only hope that in time, as claimed, the performance will improve.
Hal
Well, let's see. If you are in the market and have $130 to plunk down on a 500GB drive, then this very well may be the laptop drive for you. I have two of them. The first went into my PlayStation3. Installation was quick and easy (just followed the PS3 instructions). Formatting was taken care of by the PS3. The biggest annoyance was transferring the data from the stock 60GB hard drive to this new 500GB monster...but I think that's more my issue.
Anyhow, once I had the data transferred...the start up of the PS3 games that I played 3 times in a row were significantly faster to load. For example, Assassin's Creed (ACI) and Assassin's Creed II (ACII) both loaded their levels MUCH FASTER (in less than 10 sec versus the standard 20+ seconds in ACI). Music and video play nearly instantly. This may also be due to the fact that the stock 60GB drive was a 5400 rpm drive. But swapping the OEM 60GB drive back into the PS3 proved just how slow the original drive really was. So the Momentus is in the PS3 to stay (until/unless Seagate comes out with a bigger drive).
After seeing this performance on the PS3 (which I'm seriously satisfied with), I opted to plunk another $130 down for another Momentus XT for my laptop. While boot up time wasn't significantly improved (I MIGHT have seen up to a 5 sec improvement), the real benefit is in typical program boot-up. MS Office snaps opened within 3 seconds (usually took 20 sec). Civilization IV (normally taking approximately a solid minute or so to boot up) was up and ready to play (well, the home screen anyway) within 20 seconds! HUGE SPEED UPGRADE THERE! And just to prove to myself how much of a speed boost I was noticing, I swapped out the Momentus and put back the OEM drive I had...and it was again like night and day...the OEM drive was far too slow, and I put the Momentus XT back in within a few minutes. I'm using the OEM drive as merely a media storage backup now.
As I said, this drive isn't cheap. $130 for only 500GB is a bit steep. However, comparing it to a Raptor 10,000rpm drive and to a true Solid State Drive is telling: the drive performs somewhere in between the two, depending on the application(s). I haven't done those tests, but I have seen some of my IT guys at the office compare this drive, and their data appears to show that it is typically about 10-25% faster than a 10K rpm drive. Given how expensive 10K rpm drives can be and the limited memory space they offer, that makes the Momentus XT a serious bargain!
However, like those 10k rpm drives, this one isn't quiet...at least no where near as quiet as Seagate would like you to believe. It's loud (relatively speaking). The 60GB drive on the PS3 is dead silent compared to this thing. Will the noise drown out your gaming audio? Of course not, but the first time I heard ACI boot up, I thought the hard drive was going to crash on me. But, after using it for a while, I now realize it's just one LOUD drive. It is somewhat louder than most 7200 rpm drives that I have used, including other 2.5" and 3.5" drives. Still, it's not as bad (loud) as a Raptor drive, but it can be mildly annoying at times.
Overall, will you notice a significant speed boost if you're replacing a stock solid state drive with this thing? Of course not. Will you notice a speed boost when compared to 6GB/s SATA capable drives? I don't know...maybe, but I doubt it would be significant. Is it going to be faster than most 3GB/s SATA drives? I'd say definitely...just don't assume you'll catch lightning in a bottle. It will be faster than probably 90% of the drives out there given similar stats, but the way technology keeps improving, that lead may be temporary.
So, if you need a 500GB laptop drive and want something faster than most 2.5" 7200 drives, but don't want to get a SSD (since those are SERIOUSLY expensive), then the Momentus XT is a GREAT buy. Just install, format, and after using the typical programs maybe a dozen times...you'll see a significant performance boost over your old drive.
Had no idea this drive would be this fast. Boy did I luck out when I picked it. OK, it's not a full SSD, but at a fraction of the price, it's just about as fast. Plus, 500Gigs of data - Can't get that on SSD yet!
Updated on Dec 1, 2010
Easy installation just swap or add to the secondary bay on laptops.
My MAC boots faster, and runs faster. The drive only costs $40 to $60 more than the standard Momentus drive depending on where you go, and the performance increase is easily worth the extra money... Its not SSD performance, but at 1/5'th of the price of an SSD that holds half as much its a real bargin.
For an $20 additional charge, it's cheap speed.
I got the Momentus XT because I needed more storage space, and I was willing to pay a little extra to improve my boot time. When I got it I was pretty surprised to find that it does, in fact, work as advertised. My boot time is about 15 seconds faster. Additionally, it doesn't have the problems I was expecting from such an overpowered drive. It doesn't get too hot, or vibrate (as some users report), and it is louder than my old Western Digital drive but not by a lot. There are also performance benefits once my compter is running, like being able to load firefox 10 seconds after booting.
So why did I only give it 3.5 stars? Well, I was disappointed that the learning mode doesn't do all that much. The 3rd time I booted up with this drive it got faster, then that was it. It never got faster than that even after a dozen or so cycles. Besides feeling like it should be a little faster for $130, I also wish it had some supporting software so that I could see what it is doing. Right now I have no real way of knowing if this thing is working at full potential.
If I went back in time I would probably save my money and get a regular, non hybrid 7200rpm drive.