Seagate Momentus XT (500gb) HD for MacBook Pro 13' (2011)

I was thinking of grabbing a Seagate Momentus XT (500gb) HD for my 2011 MacBook Pro (i7,13inch). Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with using this drive? I currently have the 500gb 5200 drive. I mainly use my MBP for heavy browsing and some Final Cut Express/iMovie work with some light gaming (WoW, SC2). Let me know what you guys think

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 8GB Ram, 13inch i7

Posted on Jun 12, 2011 9:41 PM

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8 replies

Jun 14, 2011 11:57 AM in response to Jammer Jones

Don´t buy that thing. I have it on my Macbook Pro 15" glossy 2Ghz early 2011. And it was a mistake to buy that drive. im thinking to change it to the original Hitachi drive there are no freezings like the Seagate Momnetus XT 2,5" 500GB. Quicktime is freezing safari is freezing. when i use my usb 2.0 harddrive it won´t freez like the xt. If i watch a movie from my internal drive i will have all 5 seconds a freezing. and i have the new firmware on it Version 25. but the boottime is great 15- 20 seconds. But i boot only once a day or week so this is not so important for me. !!!!SAVE your Money till the issue with the Macbook Pro early 2011 with Seagate Momentus XT 500GB is solved. They are working on it. They say it is problem with the SATA3 connection that my Mac is using. I had the drive on my old MAcbook Pro late 2007, and it was dream, But now i can´t reconsider it. I hope this helps you.

Jun 21, 2011 8:34 AM in response to Jammer Jones

Just for your info. I've installed a Momentus XT (500Gb) in my MBP 13" (2011) and haven't had any problems with it. It's fast (boot time went from 43 to 19 seconds, mail is started almost before I have lift off my finger from the touchpad etc.).


Fact is that Momentus XT drives with early firmware revisions (SD23 and SD24) are known to have had issues like freezing or not wanting to spin down to save power. My drive (bought couple of weeks ago, manufactured january 2011) had firmware SD24. Before I installed the drive in my MBP, I upgraded to the actual firmware revision SD25. Then restored my MBP from the most recent Time Machine backup. As said, all without any problem. Maybe others in this thread didn't have the latest firmware on their Momentus XT installed?


I love the speed of this drive and certainly don't want to re-install the original drive.


Currently, in the firm I'm working for, we installed the Momentus XT in 5 different laptops as well (cloned the drives). These laptops are all running Windows XP Pro and haven't shown any problems since the drive swap. Boot up times have creatly improved (from about 2 min 45 sec to 1 min 30) and applications start much faster.

Jun 21, 2011 9:08 AM in response to emeu1

I agree with emeu1. I have an XT in my 13" MBP and upgraded to the latest firmware as well, with zero performance problems. When I first got my drive it was SD23 (early adopter) and I must have been a lucky one because I've had no performance issues, no freezing and have definitely seen some marked improvements in program loading and file access for frequently used content.


That being said, for the price, I don't think the performance is worth it. It's a novelty feature that if you want the performance of an SSD... buy an SSD. Even though the drives have come down significantly in price they're still almost double (at MSRP) the identical model in storage capacity at 7200 RPM.

Aug 29, 2011 7:11 AM in response to JKJunior

I Installed one on my macbook pro 13” last weekend. It has the version 26 which I think it’s the latest. This is my impression: It’s faster but it is 3x louder the the original hitachi. and the computer runs hotter as well. If you tilt the computer a bit it gets even louder.

I’m taking it back and put the original hitachi back. However I need something bigger than the stock 320GB.


Regards

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Seagate Momentus XT (500gb) HD for MacBook Pro 13' (2011)

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