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

[moleman4eva]

I did... too much words at one time... My puny brain could not comprehend all those info in one go... :P

I still do not understand the part where u get Windows to automatically save data on the d drive, which in my case would be my second hdd. Was doing fine until the part where you said to move all the files from C/user except AppData and downloads. Then I saw T drive or something and I crashed and burn. I suxxor.

I get what you are saying but not sure about the implementation.

Just to make sure. Your summary.

Move everything from folders inside my username except downloads and Appdata to my new folder in the second drive. This will enable OS and all software installed to remain in hdd1 while my other data will be in hdd2. Downloads is left in hdd1 so that it stays in the same hdd as the OS. Files are then moved to hdd2 manually. (you said something about temp and downloads being in same partition. din get that part.)

[tilleroftheearth]

Yeah, a lot of info to digest, I'll agree.

Try looking at the second link I provided and see if automatically moving the Users folder during a clean Windows 7 x64 Ultimate install is something that you would want to do (make sure you read that thread fully...).

I do provide a file that you simply have to have on your Windows install media (USB key, preferred) and it will automatically setup your Users folder to the drive specified (as long as that drive was partitioned (optionally) and formatted first.

Cheers!

[moleman4eva]

Another thing I still dun get is the partitioning. Must I still do the partitions even though I have 2 hdds?

My laptop came in today and I couldnt wait. Reinstalled Windows 7. Now I have the second hdd empty. Most likely gonna try your first move method.

p/s haha troll post got deleted.

[mauriciolguin]

Hi, does anyone have temperature issues whit this hard drive. Mine is above 52 °C in normal use (that is 15 degrees higher than my 5400 rpm disk) and during hard use is around 60 °C, and my highest registered, is 61 °C.

Which are your temperatures during normal use?

[9800xpv]

Hi,

Yes it is hot, too hot
Here you are my t°C, normal use, internet, not gaming, room t°C is about 22°C :


Check for dust anywhere ?

[crashnburn]

How does the Boot-time caching and other performance respond on this HDD for people who might have tried Dual / Triple Booting with multiple operating systems.

e.g. Windows 7 | Windows XP | Mac OSX SL / Lion | Linux Distros?

ADDING OTHER COMMENTS AND PEOPLE WHO ASKED THE SAME QUESTION: Dual/ Multi Boot Performance

Maybe this has been covered alread (search says no results) but does anyone dual boot with one of these?

I'd like one of these for my laptop but I'm also thinking about setting up to dual boot Vista and XP. Would this cause problems or negate the effects of the NAND portion?

Since the nand is 'invisible' to the rest of the computer, I don't see any problems arising from dual booting.

As to negating the effects of the nand - I still think this is faster than any other mechanical HD - whether the nand is boosting performance or not (the 32MB cache helps, I'm sure).

Hi guys, I have a question about the Seagate Momentus XT and OS X/Boot camp. I was thinking about putting one in a Macbook. I know that the 4GB SSD is for frequently used files. So when I boot into OS X it will load OS X files, and when I boot into Windows it will have to erase the OS X info on the SSD and re-write the Windows files. Will this be problem, will it make the HDD slow(er), and is that even correct?

This I think is why some reviewers wanted to see more SSD cache space. At some point though I think there would be deminishing returns. With Windows 7 you can experience it slowing down as it kicks files from the SSD cache and then I would imagine with a dual boot from the drive you would only experience this that much more.

Personally I think even under casual use 8GB SSD would be usable. For a dual boot maybe 12GB or 16GB would be better. If you figure another $50 per 4 GB that would put the drive at close to $300 street of a 16GB SSD. Personally at that point maybe a 120GB SSD would be a better option so long as you could have a second drive for storage or could live with the reduced space.

If your intent is too kill cache performance you might be better off getting a WD 500 black or waiting to see what the Seagate 750GB 7200 has to offer........

wow. I didn't see this drive coming. I might sell my brand new SSD for this. seems to provide serious speed increases without my having to sacrifice internal components to run a dual-boot setup.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[tilleroftheearth]

As it's not dependent on specific O/S drivers to work - the nand caching is transparent and works at the block (not file) level - the performance increase will be similar for all O/S's.

When triple booting though; if you don't go into a specific O/S a few times in a row, then you will most likely not see any benefits - especially if you boot into each different O/S on every boot. You'll still see some benefits, but much less than when you're concentrating and using a single O/S between boots.

[crashnburn]

Hmm.. Ok. Lets do a specific scenario. Alternatively Booting Mac OSX and Windows 7

Or any two OSes, but always alternating.

Can someone here please test that out?

As it's not dependent on specific O/S drivers to work - the nand caching is transparent and works at the block (not file) level - the performance increase will be similar for all O/S's.

When triple booting though; if you don't go into a specific O/S a few times in a row, then you will most likely not see any benefits - especially if you boot into each different O/S on every boot. You'll still see some benefits, but much less than when you're concentrating and using a single O/S between boots.

[tilleroftheearth]

Given that all we're doing is simply booting up and shutting down and booting into the alternate O/S and repeating...

With 4GB nand I would expect the XT's superiority to be almost exactly like a single O/S setup vs. a normal HDD.

This is based on the boot files being ~2GB or so per O/S. This way, they could all get cached to the nand (of course, I'm assuming that Mac OS/x is the same - I don't know; just guessing).

With the upcoming 8GB nand XT - this will almost certainly be true for 3 or possibly 4 O/S's. The necessary boot files are not that large (overall) and even 4GB nand is enough to dual boot and see performance increases.

I too would like someone to test this out: but you're asking a lot for someone to setup a system (exact/identical) on their XT and a regular HDD and then proceed to reboot a few dozen times...

[Hungry Man]

I don't know what you're asking. Running two OS's won't matter.

The XT starts caching chunks as soon as the HDD begins to read. This is entirely independent of the OS.

As I've said before in here the way a cache works is that as soona s the read begins it attempts to learn what will be needed next and moves it to the cache. You can run Windows and OSX and you'll see the same exact benefits on both of them with 0 degradation.