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

[John Ratsey]

Who knows what the third generation might bring. 32GB SLC with 750GB 7200rpm. Sign me up please.

Yes, that's the one I would want: A very fast partition for Windows + programs and plenty of space for everything else. That would give most of the performance of an SSD without the prohibitive cost needed for big capacity.

And if there's not enough space for a board with 32GB of chips then the HDD part could be slimmed down and hold one platter (currently at 375GB).

John

[laststop311]

This idea is pretty cool for poor people that cant afford SSD. This isnt gonna make me sell my 160GB intel drives and go buy this tho lol.

[newsposter]

additional complexity that doesn't add significant additional functionality is worthless. remember also that additional complexity also represents additional potential points of failure.

IMHO that is what a hybrid hdd with a bolt-on 4Gb ssd is. Complexity without a payoff.

If the SSD portion of a hybrid drive can't hold an entire OS image (linux maybe......) then what's the point?

The idea of the 4Gb space holding important windows files is kind of silly. How will those files get put there, how are they maintained, how do you recover in case of a partial failure, etc, etc. None of that can occur without some radical surgery on a windows %systemdrive%. More added complexity that takes a user install out of the known envelope for configuration and supportability.

I'd maybe be comfortable with putting the page space and/or hibernate files and/or Adobe temp scratch space there. Windows can accommodate that with the flip of a system variable value. If you're going to try and unload system overhead from a conventional HDD, you really need to unload all of it. 4Gb ain't going to cut it.

In the absence of some solid work from both Seagate and MSFT showing us how to fold this hybrid into the established windows configuration processes, I really don't see a real-world upside to this. If SSD prices continue the very slow downward trend, hybrids like this might well turn out to be nothing more than interesting trivia questions at the Seagate company Christmas party.

[Phil]

If the SSD portion of a hybrid drive can't hold an entire OS image (linux maybe......) then what's the point?

The Anandtech review answers all your questions.

The point is: the intelligence copies the most used files onto the SSD part. That's how it speeds up processes like booting and launching applications by a large margin.



Source

[bumbo2]

Agre! I will not buy this thing

[ramgen]

Waiting for the Intel's G3 SSDs. I don't have time and money to waste for such interim garbages.


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[sgogeta4]

Looks to be a nice bridging solution between HDD and SSD. It even out performs the much more expensive VelociRaptor, while being cheaper, quieter, cooler, and consuming less power. Despite the higher cost, the SLC NAND chip really is integrated well with HDD operation and is a nice middle ground between performance, capacity, and price when compared to HDDs and SSDs. Definitely worth it for those who aren't willing to spend the money on SSDs and want the high capacity that HDDs offer.

[newsposter]

"intelligence" being the same as providing intermediate space for ReadyBoost to run properly.

[Pitabred]

Waiting for the Intel's G3 SSDs. I don't have time and money to waste for such interim garbages.


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Garbage? If you have the money to drop $600+ on an SSD that will hold half of what this drive holds because you need more power, that's great (I have a 128GB SSD in my machine for that reason... I'll spend a bit for good performance). But this type of drive looks like it would be an awesome addition to most business machines or for users who don't want to double the price of their laptop or sacrifice storage capacity in the name of speed.

This hybrid may not be as fast as an SSD, but it is sure a heck of a lot faster than a normal hard drive. It's keeping up with and in many cases beating a Velociraptor. And it fits in a notebook. What's not to like? I'm gonna get my wife an Envy 14 when they're released, and it looks like this drive may be perfect for her since she doesn't want to put all of her music and movies on an external drive, and I'm not gonna pay more than the price of the laptop to get a 500GB SSD.

"intelligence" being the same as providing intermediate space for ReadyBoost to run properly.

It doesn't require Windows from what I can tell. If it's all invisible on-drive, it just means your 500GB hard drive just doubled in performance for most tasks for 50-70% more cash, as compared to losing storage capacity and skyrocketing performance for something like 6000% more cash (on a per-gigabyte basis)

[ramgen]

Garbage? If you have the money to drop $600+ on an SSD that will hold half of what this drive holds because you need more power, that's great (I have a 128GB SSD in my machine for that reason... I'll spend a bit for good performance). But this type of drive looks like it would be an awesome addition to most business machines or for users who don't want to double the price of their laptop or sacrifice storage capacity in the name of speed.

This hybrid may not be as fast as an SSD, but it is sure a heck of a lot faster than a normal hard drive. It's keeping up with and in many cases beating a Velociraptor. And it fits in a notebook. What's not to like?

It doesn't require Windows from what I can tell. If it's all invisible on-drive, it just means your 500GB hard drive just doubled in performance for most tasks for 50-70% more cash, as compared to losing storage capacity and skyrocketing performance for something like 6000% more cash (on a per-gigabyte basis)

Personally speaking, Seagate lost its credibility for me. I was one of the first generation Momentus 7200.4 500GB owners... and you should have already heard the story before...

As someone mentioned, adding more and more hardware (or merging different technologies) will end up with much more potential point of failure. If you want something "reliable", you should look for either a "fully traditional HDD" or a SSD. I am not sure if Seagate would be able to handle this after the Momentus 7200.4 disaster.

"Garbage" could be a bit overstatement but if ever I have to buy this drive, I will surely be not among the first ones. Let us see the reviews for 3-5 months and talk about it again.


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