Seagate launches first laptop HHD -- blames Vista drivers for poor performance

Finally, Seagate has joined the fray by shipping its first hybrid hard drive (HHD) to OEMs and thus making good on its pledge to the Hybrid Storage Alliance. The 2.5-inch Momentus 5400 PSD ships in 80-, 120-, and 160GB capacities with a SATA 1.5 interface, 8MB of cache, and 256MB of flash memory to buffer cached write requests to disk. Seagate's HHDs are said to reduce boot time from 40 to 32 seconds while cutting average power consumption from 0.78 to 0.45 watts. Not quite the hysterical orders of performance improvements and battery savings originally promised eh Microsoft, Samsung? According to Melissa Johnson, a Seagate product manager, the sub-par performance for all HHDs stems from first generation issues with both the BIOS and Vista device drivers, "they don't know how to utilize the flash." Oh dear.

[Via Extreme Tech]

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2007 11:56AM]

Apple users getting def... uhh... offensive.

Funny.

I liked the comments in the post about using a external screen for a Mac. Somehow, engadget was bashing Apple.

LOL!

Wait, what does post have to do with Apple again?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2007 12:28PM]

No, the original comment was absolutely right.

My windows mobile cellphone boots in 10 seconds -- that doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean that it is better than _anything_ else out there.

When a Mac boots, it's nothing but a kernel. It's a blank slate. Some people consider this a feature. Good for you, now get lost.

Other people, including myself, want a machine that creates an attractive, powerful, and friendly environment that'll support a wide range of software. This involves a bulkier kernel that has an initial lug.

So what? Don't turn your machine off. Just suspend your workstation instead of cold booting every time.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2007 1:37PM]

get on the inside! dam it :D private joke..
http://insiderr.com/

[joshbw Posted Oct 8th 2007 2:30PM]

crap, sorry about the double post. The first one apparently took it's time to appear, since a couple forced refreshes didn't do the trick.

Incidentally, the second one is a bit more edited and worth reading than the first. I read "drive encryption" rather than "driver encryption" originally, hence the pointless reference to bitlocker.

[joshbw Posted Oct 8th 2007 2:31PM]

crap, sorry about the double post (at the risk of making this also a double post since I just typed this comment and it didn't appear).

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 16th 2007 8:35AM]

Are you kidding me? The drive maker is blaming the software of another company for poor performance? Come on people! You are providing a product. Provide all the software needed for the product (SUCH AS DRIVERS). Quit playing a blame game and start producing quality products.