Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD w/ built-in 4GB SSD

[stamar]

thanks for that

the apm is what you want to disable in seagate drives.

[regli]

I changed the APM setting to 255 with quietHDD and the HDD definitely makes LESS noise, but it's all not GONE yet - are there any other tweaks or ways to do anything about it? Also, what does AAM do?

Here is the essence of AAM from Wikipedia:

... Though there is no definition of the function implemented to provide acoustic management in the ATA standard, most drives use power control of the head-positioning servo to reduce vibration induced by the head positioning mechanism. Western Digital calls this InteliSeek(tm) which uses only enough head acceleration to position the head at the target track and sector "just in time" to access data. Previous seek mechanisms used maximum power and acceleration to position the head. This operation induced the familiar clicking vibration emanating from a seeking hard drive. Western Digital provides a demonstration flash movie illustrating just-in-time head positioning on their web site. ...

Based on my experience with other Seagate drives, setting AAM to 128 (the default set by SD24) from 254 might reduce real world performance by up 20%.

There is a significant tradeoff you make in order to have a more quiet drive IMO.

[husky55]

@regli,

Would you buy this drive again? I am really tempted, but I read there were reliability problems.

[regli]

@regli,

Would you buy this drive again? I am really tempted, but I read there were reliability problems.

I actually don't own this drive. I visit this board because I consider the XT concept the near term future of large capacity hard drives and am very interested in peoples' experiences with the drive in real world applications.

That said, now that Sandy Bridge has hit the street though in rocky fashion, I am in the market for a new laptop and will likely get the cheapest available drive from the manufacturer and then install the XT or its descendent in place of it. Teasing problems, it seems, have been worked out with the newest firmware and I therefore won't hesitate to get one.

[Mjolner]

@regli,

Would you buy this drive again? I am really tempted, but I read there were reliability problems.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I own this drive and I actually RMAed the first one I got from Newegg because it failed one of Seagate's own diagnostics. I returned it directly to Newegg and not the manufacturer, so I am not really sure what was wrong with it. However, my current momentus XT drive has been working fine for a number of months without issue, and it makes my laptop a lot more responsive than my desktop with a samsung spinpoint F3 drive.

[husky55]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have several laptop hard drives, WD, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi, etc...some internal some external. Never had a bad one so I cannot say which brand is better or worse. The grapevine is that WD is the most reliable but I really don't have any data to support it.

I am lucky enough to have the Intel X25-M 128GB. That one is flawless so far except that SSD is still too expensive for the storage capacity.

I am interested in the Seagate Momentus XT for a while. I am hoping to put it in a SB laptop in the near future. Amazon has it at a really good price right now so I just pulled the trigger. I just hope that I am not setting myself up for some aggravation. As the saying goes, put your money down and take your chance!!!

[abaddon4180]

So I just got one of these and everything worked fine for a while but now I am getting a weird crackling noise whenever the hard drive is active. It is not that loud, I can not hear it over average room noise and I can't even hear it while I am typing, but it is worrisome. Is this normal for this drive or should I RMA? This is the sound except mine is not as loud or continuous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBpZ3bp18w

[maiki]

Here is an article that reports a problem with the drive. Have many users here experienced that problem? If so, has it been fixed with firmware updates?

Good idea to get this drive, or better to wait until Hybrid drive version 2 comes out?

[TANWare]

Here is an article that reports a problem with the drive. Have many users here experienced that problem? If so, has it been fixed with firmware updates?

Good idea to get this drive, or better to wait until Hybrid drive version 2 comes out?

That is an old issue, not sure why they would be addressing it now. With 23 version of the FW spindowns were eliminated totally and 24 supposedly alows spin down but much lesss frequently and controlable where as the default 22 FW version spin down was not controlable.

There are some people stating something about beeps but I have yet to encounter this with my two XT's................

[maiki]

That is an old issue, not sure why they would be addressing it now. With 23 version of the FW spindowns were eliminated totally and 24 supposedly alows spin down but much lesss frequently and controlable where as the default 22 FW version spin down was not controlable.

There are some people stating something about beeps but I have yet to encounter this with my two XT's................

So you would recommend the drive?

When one does a firmware update, does that reformat the drive, or is all one's data intact?