Seagate Momentus XT

I think I will give the clone idea a try this weekend. I preiously had a Samsung HM500 drive installed in the unit for a year and half with absolutely no problems whatsoever. In fact this Macbook Pro has been absolutely stellar in every other regard. I bought the Seagate from Newegg where there are currently over 700 reviews on the drive with a 4 star rating. A number of those installations are in MacBook Pros going back a couple of years so I have to be doubtful that the 2010 model would be a factor. I may try doing a clean install on the drive also, as when I purchased it I imaged the drive with a time machine backup. I will report back to this thread with results.

Interesting. I have been using Carbon Copy Cloner with no issues and Winclone did a fantastic job of restoring my Bootcamp Win7 Ultimate when I installed the replacement Seagate drive.

@ techND

did you get any working noise from your momentus.

i don't mean clicks or unusual things, just a low whir while it's on, much like a small fan going

i'm about to send mine back for this reason and should get a replacement, but i'm wondering is it wishful thinking to get one as quiet as the stock drive that was in it (mid 2010 MBP)

thnaks

Yes it is Very Quiet though. The only time I really hear it is if I put my ear near the right palm rest and after I close the lid I can hear it power down as the MBP goes to sleep.

(i originally came to the discussion because of drive noise)

just to let folk know i sent my momentus XT 500GB back for a replacement (due to noise levels) and it was no different to the first

the momentus drive sounds like a small fan whirring to me

it would be fine for somewhere with ambient noise or in the workplace etc, but for me just using in my MBP in bed or in the living room (where its pretty quiet) i found the noise levels excessive

you might say this is obvious because its a 7200 drive but it is advertised as a quiet drive!

anyway i'm now getting a higher capacity 5400 drive to replace my 250GB stock one

my final advice: get the momentus XT for a VERY quick drive that will definitely improve performance

but avoid if you would like a drive with quiet operating noise

🙂

I wonder whether your problem is bad blocks.

Check the system log ("console") for any sign of I/O errors from the filesystem.

Disk Utility does not always catch drive failures - you should also check with SMART Utility or similar program.

This will look at the underlying SMART parameters and is a more rigorous test. It also allows you to invoke the drive's built in self tests.

I've had three of these drives fail (Momentus XT 750) in my macbook pro 8,1 2011. They all failed withing weeks of install and they were manufactured in late 2011. I don't know whether seagate had a bad batch? Two were bought from newegg in early 2012 and one was a warrany replacement.

I am really hoping I can get one to keep working because the speedup is incredible!

Hi guys!

I also have the 500 gb seagate momentus xt and it was working fine until i update the to latest apple EFI sata frimware from apple. The drive was no longer accessible and would not boot. I think the update caused a hardware support problem that made the hard drive unsupported. I also made some reading and there were also a lot of people who had this experience. I reverted back to my old 200gb hard drive and had the momentus xt as an external with osx SL.

I was just wondering, is there another way of finding a resolve to this so that i can use the seagte again (other than downgrading the EFI firmware)?

By the way, I'm using a mid-2009 MBP 2.53Ghz Core 2 Duo with 8GB Ram running on Lion.

The os in the momentus xt still runs. I tried to connect it externally and it works. I just couldn't put it back in the MBP cause the os just won't load.

I think I might just use the momentus xt as an external should it remain unsupported (maybe good as a backup HDD for the time machine).

I had to move mine to the optical bay. I can't use any 3Gbit drives in my MBP drive bay.

The interal hard drive in my MBP drive bay, a Samsung HM500LI SATA, is spec'd at 3Gbit/s and runs with absolutely no problems whatsoever. I am still working on the issue with the Seagate Momentus XT 500 internally however.

TechND:

On 2009 Macbook Pro, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, our Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB SSD drive just gave up the ghost for no good reason. In your comment you mention that you've had problems running that drive internally. Is that a problem where the drive won't run properly inside the notebook, but *will* run externally? The computer froze a few minutes after book and we had to swap out the drive and recover the data to make it run.

I have all the latest Apple Firmware updates and Lion OS updates on my Early 2011 MBP and my Seagate XT 500GB is still fine and is quieter than the 320GB Hitachi drive that it replaced. Knock on silicon :>)

I've replaced my 500gb momentus xt that did some strange vibrations with the new 750gb momentus xt and now there're no vibrations when I move my laptop! So the older HD had problems..

Just out of curiosity, have you tried jumpering the drive to 1.5Gb/s? I was having issues with a replacement 7200RPM drive in what appears to be the same model of MBP (Mid-2009 2.53Ghz Core 2) which was a 3.0Gb/s drive. Put it to 1.5Gb/s and the performance stayed the same and no more issues. The reason I ask is that I am looking a picking up this SSD/HD drive.

" Is that a problem where the drive won't run properly inside the notebook, but *will* run externally? The computer froze a few minutes after book and we had to swap out the drive and recover the data to make it run."

Yes, exactly. It runs fine from the external USB port but crashes in short order when run internally. I just installed a 256gb Crucial SSD in the Macbook Pro 2 days ago and it is running flawlessly. I am just going to see if I can return the Seagate for a replacement and possibly get a 750 for price differential from Seagate and use it in a mini. Hopefully no more problems.