Seagate Momentus XT 500GB - $149 + Post (+Other Deals)

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Scorptec Computers

• 

  Pizza The Hut on 24/09/2010 - 08:44

  -1

  Wouldnt it be cheaper to buy a small ssd and normal hard drive separately? You're paying $110 more than a normal hard drive which could be put towards a bigger ssd than 4gb.

  • 

    cmdwedge on 24/09/2010 - 08:57

    This is a 2.5" laptop drive. So no, this is better.

    • 

      Pizza The Hut on 24/09/2010 - 09:26

      Yea youre right, the price jump isn't that much.

      This wouldnt be bad in my laptop. hmmmm

  • 

    butwhy on 24/09/2010 - 09:25

    Its a laptop 2.5" drive. Its the best drive if you want a compromise of SSD style performance, but Hard disk price and capacity.

    It works by essentially read caching your most commonly used files to the 4gb SSD portion - similar but far more effective than Readyboost. And its Operating system independent - so no drivers are needed, and its completely transparent. It only boosts read performance.

    "The Seagate Momentus XT is an excellent notebook hard drive and under the right circumstances surpasses drives well out of its class. The 4GB of cache helps to significantly improve the access of common read/write patterns that a user might see in their daily routine. At its worst it still offers a significant boost in performance over its older 7200.4 brother, but at its best it outperforms even the 10,000RPM Western Digital Velociraptor desktop hard drive.

    For the user who might load the same programs multiple times a day this drive might be a better choice than a low-capacity SSD. At $155 for a 500GB Momentus XT it is priced under even the 80GB Intel X25-M SSD which currently sells for about $200. Power users might still want to consider other options in their workhorse machines however, if speed is worthwhile at all costs and capacity is less of a concern.

    Overall the Seagate Momentus XT makes the most sense for a anyone who just wants a noticeable increase in notebook performance, while still getting capacity without a huge jump in price. For its intended market this drive is very hard to pass up, especially considering the highest capacity model only costs $155 retail."
    http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_xt_review

    I bought it about 3 months ago, and it was then out of stock for about a month due to the huge demand. I don't normally like Seagate, but its a game changing hard disk.

    Of course you'll get better performance with a pure SSD drive, but you'll pay an arm and a leg for similar capacity.

    Great price too - I paid $210 3 months ago.

    • 

      Pizza The Hut on 24/09/2010 - 12:09

      EDIt: found answer to my question

      "SLC has a useful life of around 100,000 write cycles with MLC reaching its limit at 10,000 write cycles"

      So it lasts longer than a SSD too. thats a big plus

• 

  mudguppy1 on 24/09/2010 - 08:46

  http://www.linkecomputer.com/products/1008957/ST95005620AS/S…

  • 

    bigheadache on 24/09/2010 - 09:38

    You have to pay shipping, so after that you only save about $15-20 compared to the Scorptec deal. I hardly think thats the kind of saving that warrants buying from Hong Kong.

    • 

      gavinshim on 24/09/2010 - 13:03

      For me, it works out a bit cheaper because I'm in Perth. With our strong dollar, it works out to $138.56 AUD delivered from Linkecomputer. Compared to the $166 from Scorptec delivered.

      But, is the $27 worth the wait? It will probably take 2 wks+ to come from HK (10 days minimum).

      I'm not in a hurry to buy this, so I'll go with linkecomputer.

• 

  busterau on 24/09/2010 - 08:52

  great price!

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  stumo on 24/09/2010 - 09:55

  I' ve been waiting for drives like this for a while. Was expecting a bit more than 4gb though, not much better than ready boost.

  • 

    cmdwedge on 24/09/2010 - 10:56

    Remember that the 4GB is not managed by you though, the SSD/HDD manages the space itself. Go read some reviews, the speed increase is really incredible.

    • 

      ptfff on 24/09/2010 - 11:48

      4gb is still rather small.

      Most games these days require more than 4gb of data to be loaded…

      I'm running a 128gb SSD in my laptop and damn is it good.

• 

  MrGareth on 24/09/2010 - 10:35

  I am so tempted to get one, I've seen the reviews for these drives and they are VERY good… but I don't really need one. Hmmm… bring on the day when they start making mainstream 3.5" drives for desktops with the flash memory and I'll be a very happy chappy! It should be standard by now!

  EDIT - In my case, I won't get one though… I have a HTPC server with 6Tb of storage, so I don't need lots of space in my laptop. And my laptop has twin 160Gb drives, so it's probably best I wait till the next generation of smaller (and cheaper) SSD's come out for $100, and just swap it with one of my 160Gb drives. :)

  But for everyone else with more "normal" laptops with only one hard drive, these drives are really good upgrades. :D

  • 

    Cap N on 24/09/2010 - 11:50

    I have a "normal" laptop. Am tempted but since my existing drive is already 500GB can't justify $149 just to speed things up… :(

• 

  gadgetguy on 24/09/2010 - 12:26

  -1

  Bit sceptical that 4Gb will make a lot of difference? How is this any difference to cache?

  • 

    gavinshim on 24/09/2010 - 13:15

    I think it indexes your most frequently used files for faster access. That data is still physically on the hard drive and is only mirrored in the 4GB. For example, if you used Photoshop a lot, it would copy those files to the SSD part to reduce loading times.

    • 

      stumo on 24/09/2010 - 13:29

      But you've just described ready boost, which is basically free. this drive is about a $50 premium over the 7200.4

      So has anyone tried one of these drives plus ready boost?

      In theory using rb with this drive should be slower than not using rb.

      • 

        gavinshim on 24/09/2010 - 13:50

        Ready boost is a part of Windows, this drive's caching is OS independant so it works behind the scenes to give you faster load times. Does ready boost work when the system is booting up?

• 

  strat on 25/09/2010 - 15:56

  Check out this review out: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/seagate_momentus_xt_…

  2 in raid 0 run nicely just as good as a ssd in most test.

  To get this much storage on a ssd would cost you over $1000

  I purchase one 3weeks ago for $180 and just pickup another today for $149 to run them in raid 0

  Will test my own results tonight.

  Pros:

  • Hybrid design with SLC SSD and high capacity HDD
  • Seagate Adaptive Memory Technology
  • Up to 500GB capacities
  • inexpensive compared to SSD's
  • Faster than traditional mechanical drives
  • RAID 0 performance is on par with SSD's

  Cons:

  • None