Analysis
Looking over the specifications the first thing we noticed is the SSD is just 4GB and seems a little small for much of any anything. To get a better understanding of how the drive uses the 4GB SSD of the Hybrid drive, we will have to explain the architecture of the drive first. The Momentus XT has a set algorithm which dynamically updates the 4GB SSD side with most recently accessed information in order to keep the files and other pertinent data readily available to you. This algorithm is what Seagate® has patented as Adaptive Memory ™. During benchmarking the Momentus XT in the lab, we did find that running the benchmark programs a second time and third time immediately after finishing the last run the resulted in getting a better score by a point or two. This small increase in benchmark scores is like attributed to the benchmark program being loaded into the SSD segment of the drive. The SSD and the 7200RPM spindle are not seen as separate drives by PC’s BIOS or Operating system, so there is no need for any special setup of the drive. Simply install the drive in your laptop or PC workstation and load your operating system and that is it. The Momentus XT can also be used in external storage devices also and with the recent release of USB 3.0, you will be able to take advantage of the great read/write and access times.
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| Top of the Momentus XT hard drive | Bottom of the Momentus XT hard drive |
Quick close up the Momentus XT shows us that from the outside of the drive, it looks just like any other 2.5″ SATA drive on the market today. So for being a hybrid having platters and SSD there is not increase in size.
Benchmarks:
| Benchmark System: |
| HP Mini 2140 |
| OEM hard drive: Samsung HM160HI / Seagate® Momentus XT |
| 2GB RAM |
| Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit Operating System |
| Intel® Atom ™ CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz |
HD Tune Pro
| Samsung SATA: HM160HI | Seagate® Momentus XT Hybrid |
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| This is about the average result for a 5400RPM SATA drive | The Momentus shows very positive results in comparison. |
There is very little variance in the results between our Samsung SATA drive and other 5,400RPM 2.5” drives on the market, so to use that as a comparison point for the Momentus®XT we can clearly see the Momentus® XT really puts up some very positive scores.
| Samsung Sata: HM160HI | Seagate® Momentus XT Hybrid |
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| File system benchmark against Samsung | File system benchmark against Seagate® Momentus XT Hybrid |
The file system benchmark against both drives came out as expected with the 5,400RPM drive holding its own. Though when we ran this benchmark a second and third time the Momentus XT drive resulted with a much better score.
You have a very valid point with the exception that we compared it against a 5400rpm drive on purpose. Traditional SATA drives included with most notebooks today are 5400rpm. This drive is intended as an economical upgrade that is no where near as expensive as an SSD and yet offers similar performance. Most users will be more interested in the performance they will gain over their existing drive than to compare this to a standard SSD. In such cases our comparison is both relevant and conveys value to our readers.
What is the point of comparing 5400rpm drive with 7200rpm drive and tell that the 7200rpm puts out positive scores?
Besides, did you even check the AAM/APM settings of the drives and match them before the test?
It appears that these benchmark results are rather useless since it is comparing apples and oranges…