Seagate pairs 7200RPM HDD with 4GB of NAND in 2.5-inch Momentus XT hybrid drive
By Darren Murph 
posted May 24th 2010 8:01AM
posted May 24th 2010 8:01AM
Update: The reviews are already pouring in, and at just $155 for the 500 gigger, it's receiving a fair amount of praise.
SEAGATE DELIVERS WORLD'S FASTEST HARD DRIVE FOR LAPTOP COMPUTERS; MOMENTUS® XT SOLID STATE HYBRID DRIVE OFFERS SOLID STATE PERFORMANCE WITH THE CAPACITY AND VALUE OF HARD DISK DRIVES
New ASUS Gaming Laptop to Deliver Unprecedented Speeds Powered by Momentus XT Drive
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. - May 24, 2010 - Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) today announced channel and OEM shipments of the Momentus® XT drive, the world's fastest 2.5-inch laptop PC hard drive, combining SSD-like performance with the massive capacity and much lower cost of HDDs. The Momentus XT drive also features Adaptive Memory™ – a groundbreaking new technology from Seagate that learns and optimizes the drive's performance to each user by moving frequently used information into the flash memory for faster access. The Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive boots up to 100 percent faster than traditional 5400RPM drives, the mainstream spin speed for laptop PCs, and sets new benchmarks for real-world system performance for laptops and gaming systems.
Today's high-performance SSDs for mobile computing cost as much as 10 times more than hard disk drives of the same capacity, with the price of a 250GB SSD outstripping even the cost of many laptop PCs. As a result, most consumers and system builders are unwilling or unable to pay the high price for the greater speed and quiet operations of SSDs. Additionally, SSDs offer fewer capacity options than hard disk drives.
The Momentus XT drive is a best-of-both-worlds solution that combines a 7200RPM spin speed, 4GB of solid state memory and Seagate's Adaptive Memory technology to deliver unprecedented hard drive performance. The unique Adaptive Memory technology works by identifying patterns in how often certain digital data is used, and then moving the most frequently used information to the embedded solid state memory for faster access – effectively tailoring hard drive performance to each user and their applications.
"For notebook PC users looking forward to faster PC performance without sacrificing storage capacity or affordability, now there's an option," according to John Rydning, IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "Seagate's new Momentus® XT drive is the first storage device for notebook PCs that raises the bar for affordable capacity and performance."
"We see the Momentus® XT drive as a game changer, a product heralding a new generation of hard drives that combine SSD and HDD capabilities so that laptop users don't have to make trade-offs on speed, cost or capacity," said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management. "The feedback we've received from customers, industry experts and early reviews has been overwhelmingly positive, and Seagate will continue to drive innovation that provides more value and a better computing experience to consumers."
Momentus® XT Drive Brings Unprecedented Speed to New ASUS Gaming Laptop PC
ASUS has also announced that it will offer the Momentus XT drive as an upgrade option for its new Republic of Gamers (ROG) G73Jh notebook. The system is powered by an Intel i7 720Qm quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and DX11 capable ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870.
"With the Momentus® XT drive, ASUS gives gaming customers who prefer the ASUS ROG G73 the capacity they need and the performance they crave," said PC Wang, vice president of the ASUS Systems Business Group. "Seagate's innovative solid state hybrid drive hands down delivers the best value, capacity and SSD-like performance to a wide audience."
The Momentus XT drive installs as easily as a traditional 9.5mm-high notebook drive for new systems or laptop upgrades and, unlike early hybrid drives, operates independently of the operating system and the motherboard chipset.
ASUS and Seagate Unveil the Momentus® XT Drive and the ROG G73JH with a Live Webcast
On Wednesday, May 26, Seagate and OEM customer ASUS will co-sponsor a live webcast unveiling not only the new Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive, but also featuring the new ASUS ROG G73JH system with two Momentus XT drives. Three lucky attendees of this webcast will win a new G73 system just for attending*. Special guest speakers will provide an in-depth look at how this drive will transform high-performance computing.
Seagate also unveils new addition to mainstream Momentus® Family: 750GB spinning at 7200RPMs
In addition to the Momentus XT drive, Seagate is delivering the world's highest capacity 7200RPM drive at 750GB. This new Momentus 750GB drive is a traditional hard disk drive designed for mainstream to high-performance computing and external backup enclosures. The Momentus 750GB drive also features a SATA 3Gb/s with NCQ interface, 16MB cache with silent acoustics and low power consumption. The Momentus 750GB drive delivers high capacity with high performance and further enhances the feature-rich options already available in the Seagate Momentus family of 2.5-inch notebook drives.
Will it blend?
It is a blend!
@d0mth0ma5 touché
@MVMNT
On newegg now
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591&Tpk=momentus%20xt
@MVMNT yeah! a fast hdd with amazing specs that i cant used because of size constraints
ugh... when will hdd manufacturers learn?
And with all new technology, especially with something as volatile as HDDs... how long before its release and reports come in of it simply not working and failing...
@Vylen
It's really not all that new. It's two tried and true technologies put together. Like bread and cheese, except this time it's toasted instead of cold cut, if you get my comparison.
@BuryTheCastle it's still a new technology - even if uses two separate tried and tested techs.... cause well, new technology one way or another always uses an old and tried method...
so two great things put together doesn't necessarily make one super awesome great thing. it can still make a pile of crap (if not done properly in this case)...
@Vylen
There have been hybrid drives before this -- it's not new.
The only thing that could cause problems is firmware issues -- so we better hope seagate has their code thoroughly, unlike the stupid 7200.11 series!
You got chocolate in my peanut butter!
YOU got PEANUT BUTTER in my CHOCOLATE!
...
*YAY!*
@Vylen
Actually, you should take a look at the existing Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB drives. Users are reporting a staggering failure rate for drives manufactured Jun/Jul 2009 (some claim as high as 35%; check places like Newegg for reviews).
I actually own one of those drives which I purchased in July of last year, and in fact it has just died on me the other day.
This doesn't necessarily affect the design of a hybrid drive, but I would be cautious about buying Seagate until they resolve some of these problems in the Momentus 7200.4 line.
SSD like performance for not much more than a standard drive?
Yes please!!
@inutopia I reckon you didn't take the time to read a review of the harddrive ...
@Andr
I read 2 of the reviews. Why do you say that?
@inutopia I just browsed at the review and noticed the drive just isnt up there yet with real SSDs. Its cheaper and faster than a standard notebook drive, and has a good bang for buck compared to SSDs though.
@inutopia That say make good point
All kiding aside, i give it a "meh" cuz IMO kills the battery to much. But a "Eh!" (with eye brows lifted) for performance/storage on the go.
The review benchmarks show it does not have the sustained random read rates as an SSD, which is to be expected. The reviewer qualifies this with real world qualitative assessments saying that, moving to this Moment XT hybrid drive from an SSD felt like there was little difference in booting and opening programs, while benchmarking the WD platter drive to compare it with the hybrid resulted in frustratingly long waits.
This drive stores your operating system and commonly used programs in the 4GB SSD and loads them as instantly as an SSD, while it will keep all of your documents on the platters. This seems ideal to me, especially considering the price is not that much higher than a pure platter drive.
If you do a lot of random read and writes throughout the day (???) then great, get an SSD for four to ten times the price. I'll take the hybrid.
@inutopia It's not quite SSD performance yet but it offers better performance than a standard drive at little extra cost so it's going to be a good bridging point until SSD drops to $1 per GB in 2-3 years.
Okay, I like. I want. However, I'd prefer there to be a 3.5" version, unless I'm missing something. Yes, I know I can get adapters but it would be nice to get the normal benefits of a full-size drive (increased capacity, etc.)
Hmmm. This is definitely worth looking into.
@Slygathor
But what are the chances of premature failure? I'm all for the technology but we need more assurance here!
@hero785 You make a valid point. But I doubt the failure rate of these drives is high.
Most important spec of 'fastest 2.5 inch drive' -- the speed?
Can't help but think that the SSD part of it will fail relatively quickly given the thrashing that this technology will be giving it.
@Leindurstit
It's a 4GB SLC.
SLC can take up to 100 000 writes.
It only stores stuff that you use a lot. Unless you change what you use very frequently, it's not going to reach the ~ 400 000GB write limit very quickly.
The drive has a 5 year warranty.
@xsacha
Also it sounds like even if the SSD part failed, the hard drive would still operate normally. You wouldn't lose data.
Could someone explain how this would actually work with where the data would be stored? Would the 4GB act as a partition or just to speed up the writing to disk?
@bitingback
It would be invisible to the user and work in every operating system. It's not a partition, just to speed it up.
@xsacha
Thanks for that. It might be time for an upgrade at that price!
finally. i hoped for such a drive since...i don't know since. but long ago
That's a maddening chart - you have to read the whole thing to find out the details are the same for all three drives, except for the capacity and model number...
They obviously haven't found the "merge and centre" button in excel
Looks interesting. Given the fact that a 500GB flash drive cost 10 times the price I'd definitely give this a try.
I'm getting one of these as soon as someone shows me a UK retailer selling them. I already have an Intel 80gb X-M25 SSD for my desktop, so this will be for my laptop, because that is the only part i'm not too happy about, the speed of the hard drive.
@DeathroW22
Dabs have them for pre-order
Wow, I hadn't heard much about hybrid drives for a while and thought they were a dead concept.
*stands corrected*
Good to see some advancement being made :D
Intel needs to release the Gen. 3 25nm X-25s already ;)
It sort of reminds me of Intel's Turbo Memory.
When is this thing going retail? and by that i mean us blokes down under can grab one of em' from ebay? cant wait to get my tech-hungry fingers on this bad boy
Maybe this would help reduce pricing off SDD a bit
Fap! Fap! Fap!
sweet. I can throw one of these into my PS3!!
Would the Mac OS know what to do with this? I'd love to throw one in my MacBook Pro!
@DTJ Yes any operating system will even a PS3 or Xbox 360.
Not sure that "It can boot up to 100 percent faster", otherwise it can boot up to 0 seconds, no matter to what is compared. Maybe what you tried to say was that the regular HD is 100% slower, which is not the same, since it would make the new HD 50% faster. It's just proper math terms :)
@mannyeng That seems a little odd, maybe they actually mean 50% faster.
@mannyeng
I thought it sounded weird as well. I think they meant twice as fast - which isn't really that impressive (considering they are comparing it to a 5400 RPM drive).
@RampantNinja 100% faster actually just means twice as fast as conventional hdds
@Hamdiya
My point is that because they mention "boot up" which is measured in the unit of time, you cannot claim that is 100% faster.
In another hand, it can be 100% faster or even more if you are talking about data transfer rates (on MB/sec), which will do better on the boot up time, but certainly will not be 0 seconds.
@mannyeng
100% faster means twice as fast.
if youre computer boots in 10 seconds it will now do so in 5.
whats so hard to understand?