Pngwyn
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Anyone have Momentus XT HD with the newest 2011 Macbook Pro?

So I have heard many many mixed reviews on the Momentus XT and the Macbook Pro.. many of them are for earlier models. I am wondering if anyone here has the 2011 Macbook Pro and is finding positive bug-free results from the hard drive?

Overall the HD has great reviews across the web, usually 3.5 or 4/5 stars, but I would hate to install a ticking timebomb or a faulty/defective product into an expensive brand new computer :S

Macbook Pro 2011, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 2.3 Ghz 17" 8 GB RAM

Posted on Mar 30, 2011 4:36 PM

by Millman82,Solvedanswer
Millman82 Millman82
Level 1 (15 points)
A:
You're welcome, glad I could help! You'll love the drive. I would install it as your primary HD and use the stock as the secondary. There will be a slight increase in performance using that configuration.

Posted on Apr 4, 2011 11:52 AM

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Pngwyn

Q: Anyone have Momentus XT HD with the newest 2011 Macbook Pro?

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  • by Millman82,Helpful

    Millman82 Millman82 Mar 31, 2011 5:44 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 5:44 AM in response to Pngwyn
    My personal experience with Seagate is horrible. Every Seagate drive I've owned has failed within 2 years time. I prefer to stick with another manufacturer. I would actually recommend the WD 750GB Scorpio Black. Here is a performance comparison chart http://techreport.com/articles.x/20255/3. I've also seen a lot of negative user reviews regarding the Momentus XT with regard to failure rate.

    Edit: Changed from Caviar Black to Scorpio Black. Caviar is the consumer desktop line of drives.

    Message was edited by: Millman82

  • by Pngwyn,

    Pngwyn Pngwyn Mar 31, 2011 2:47 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 2:47 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Do those charts account for the Adaptive Memory of the Momentus XT? I really have no need for anything larger than 500GB in my HD slot, and the Momentus caught my eye because it basically will run programs I use often at SSD speeds.

  • by alin0steglinski,

    alin0steglinski alin0steglinski Mar 31, 2011 2:50 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 2:50 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Seagate has one of the best warranties in the world the Momentus XT HD i have had two and both of them chug along beautifully as externals. I love them.

    Beauty of a seagate is if its failing, ya run Seatools on it, get a Seatools FAIL code, send it in to Seagate get a new one.

  • by Millman82,

    Millman82 Millman82 Mar 31, 2011 3:51 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 3:51 PM in response to Pngwyn
    It is hard to say if those tests accurately reflect the Adaptive Memory. From other source I've seen you have to repeat the same test 3 times before you accurately reflect the benefits of Adaptive Memory. The issue is only so much can reside in that 4GB area at a time. Anything not contained in the Adaptive Memory will be slower than a Scorpio Black.

  • by Millman82,

    Millman82 Millman82 Mar 31, 2011 3:54 PM in response to alin0steglinski
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 3:54 PM in response to alin0steglinski
    Personally I could care less how good a warranty is on a Hard Drive. I'd rather it not fail and cost me a week in getting my system back up and running with a new drive. My last laptop had two Seagate HDs both of which failed within a year and a half and both within a month of each other... Last time I had Seagate drives in a desktop they both failed within 2 years. My time is more valuable to me than to spend it constantly restoring my systems. I'm 4 for 4 with Seagate failures. I'll never own another one unless Western Digital quality drops.

  • by Pngwyn,

    Pngwyn Pngwyn Mar 31, 2011 9:49 PM in response to Millman82
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2011 9:49 PM in response to Millman82
    I wonder how much can reside in that 4GB? At the risk of sounding like an idiot, what exactly is being transferred into that 4GB space?

    Anyways, I'm starting to lean away from the Momentus XT now.. it doesn't really make sense to buy a harddrive for speed that will only outperform other harddrives in certain tasks. I'd rather have a more consistent hard drive that I can rely on, and frankly all of the negative Momentus posts have me frightened, but perhaps if the SD25 firmware fixes major problems I may reconsider it. It's silly that Seagate wouldn't consider putting a slightly larger SSD for a tiny bit higher cost, I'm sure many people would opt for it.

    Are there any smaller Scorpio Black drives that run at similar speeds with less cost? I really don't see myself using 750GB on the main drive in any situation, and I'd rather save the $$ if I could.

  • by Millman82,

    Millman82 Millman82 Apr 1, 2011 5:20 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 1, 2011 5:20 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Well, it is supposed to somehow figure out blocks of data you use most and store them in that 4GB space so that they can be accessed quicker. How exactly it does it though is beyond my knowledge. Here are two links to Scorpio Black drives on newegg.com. I'm providing a link to both the 500 GB and the 750 GB models because they sell the 500GB Momentus XT for $99.99.

    The 750GB WD Scorpio Black is on sale currently for $109.99 and the 500GB WD Scorpio Black is priced at $69.99.

    500GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136692&cmre=Scorpio_black-_-22-136-692--Product

    750GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136835&cmre=Scorpio_black-_-22-136-835--Product

  • by Pngwyn,

    Pngwyn Pngwyn Apr 4, 2011 12:17 AM in response to Millman82
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 4, 2011 12:17 AM in response to Millman82
    Thanks Millman!

    I went ahead and ordered the Scorpio Black 750GB. Just wondering.. will I want to install this in my main HD drive and throw the stock 7200RPM drive into the optical bay?

    I heard that you generally want the slower drive in the optical bay, and boot off the faster drive, but in this case I don't know how much difference it would make. Should I swap out the stock drive or just leave it?

  • by JoeyR,Helpful

    JoeyR JoeyR Apr 4, 2011 8:57 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 6 (8,280 points)
    Apr 4, 2011 8:57 AM in response to Pngwyn
    I've replaced relatively low capacity older drives with Momentus XT drives and I have not had any problems. I probably would not replace the stock drive in a new machine with one however... at least not if you are replacing it expecting significant gains in performance. You may shave a few seconds off your boot time and get faster app launches provided your usage patterns are consistent (meaning you basically use the same applications over and over). If you use something like BootCamp and bounce back and forth between OS X and Windows, you're pretty much eliminating any benefit (although, if you only switch once in a while, you may see some benefit until you switch again). I don't think they're bad drives and the idea is a good one. They just really need to have more onboard flash memory to make a significant difference. Unlike the hype, they really do not give you anything like SSD performace. Maybe slightly better than standard 7200 RPM drives and only under specific conditions.

  • by Millman82,Solvedanswer

    Millman82 Millman82 Apr 4, 2011 11:52 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 4, 2011 11:52 AM in response to Pngwyn
    You're welcome, glad I could help! You'll love the drive. I would install it as your primary HD and use the stock as the secondary. There will be a slight increase in performance using that configuration.

  • by Pngwyn,

    Pngwyn Pngwyn Apr 4, 2011 12:25 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 4, 2011 12:25 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Should I be worried about the lack of Sudden Motion Sensor in the Hitachi 7k500 (I believe what the stock drive is) going in the optical bay?

  • by Millman82,

    Millman82 Millman82 Apr 5, 2011 7:37 AM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 5, 2011 7:37 AM in response to Pngwyn
    I don't see why there should be any issues with it. As long as you don't drop your laptop you won't have any issues with the lack of a sudden motion sensor in the Western Digital. I don't expect you would see any issues with placing the Hitachi with the sudden motion sensor firmware in the optical bay either since it is a firmware managed function. Though, we won't know for sure until you give it a try.

  • by don montalvo,

    don montalvo don montalvo Apr 22, 2011 4:08 PM in response to Pngwyn
    Level 2 (349 points)
    Apr 22, 2011 4:08 PM in response to Pngwyn

    I would never replace my 2011 MacBook Pro's original 500G/5400RPM drive with anything that does not have sudden motion sensor technology built in. It's not just protection against falls. The technology will protect your drive if there is any sudden motion, such as your colleague pounding his fist on the table while you're working on your Mac. Yep, it's happened - hard lock, reboot and all is fine.

     

    Don

  • by telefonique,

    telefonique telefonique Apr 22, 2011 4:53 PM in response to don montalvo
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Apr 22, 2011 4:53 PM in response to don montalvo

    These MBP's actually have a sudden motion sensor themselves, so this feature is not required to be built into the disk if said disk will be installed in the standard HDD bay. 

     

    Putting a disk in the optical bay without a sudden motion sensor built in will mean that disk won't be protected from a fall or motion etc.

     

    That said, I recently removed the stock Hitachi 500GB/5400 RPM drive from my 13" 2011 MBP and replaced it with a Seagate  750GB/7200 RPM.  I put the Hitachi in an enclosure, and have been experimenting with it.  Seems to me that it might have a sudden motion sensor built in after all as I can hear the same audible tick of the drive parking that I used to hear when it was in my MBP when I do a bit of a fall test......

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