momentus_xt_magic_100

Review: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Hard Drive

Rating: 4.5/5

Posted in Mac, Reviews on 08/11/2011 by Chris Hauk

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Who hasn’t sat and waited for the hard drive in their MacBook Pro to load an application or file, and wished for a way to cut a few precious seconds off of the wait? The Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hard Drive could be the solution you’ve been longing for. Seagate claims that it delivers an 80 percent faster performance than traditional 7200RPM hard drives.

I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, and its 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive, while snappy when I first took it out of the box, began to bog down as it was loaded with applications and user files. Boot times of over 3 minutes weren’t unusual. Firefox could take up to 20 seconds to load. Microsoft Word 2008 would take up to a full minute of loading before I could begin to edit a document.

Enter the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Hard Drive. With a 7200 RPM drive speed, and 4GB of solid state flash storage, this seemed like the answer I’d been looking for.  At first glance the 4GB flash storage seemed small considering the 500GB hard drive it would be working with. I read more about the feature and discovered the drive uses what Seagate calls “Adaptive Memory Technology”. This technology watches how you use the drive, which files and applications you load most, and then stores these files and apps in the solid state flash storage to be loaded from there when required. This in theory speeds up loading times.

Installation was a breeze. I installed the drive in about 10 minutes. Installation can differ according to the model and manufacture date of your MacBook Pro, so please check Apple’s website for information.

Upon first turning on the MacBook Pro, I noticed no immediate decrease in boot up time. The initial boot still took just under 3 minutes. I then did a shutdown, and turned the unit on once more. This time boot up time was under 2 minutes. Subsequent reboots brought the time down to right at 1 minute, where it remains.

I then tested loading times of my most used applications. The apps I use most are Firefox, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Microsoft Word. Results are in the list below. All times are with extensions and add-ins turned on, and reflect how long it took before a file or website loaded into the application.

  • Firefox – Before: 20-30 seconds. After: 1-3 seconds.
  • Dreamweaver – Before: 25 seconds. After: 5-8 seconds.
  • Fireworks – Before: 30 seconds. After: 10 seconds.
  • Microsoft Word – Before: 23 seconds. After: 5 seconds.

Load times trimmed by seconds may not seem like a lot, but considering how many times I load various applications and files each day, it really starts to add up.

Verdict: I consider my purchase of the Momentus XT to be a worthwhile investment, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a way to speed up their MacBook Pro.

Rating: 4.5/5

Rating: 4.5/5

Pros:

  • Faster loading times for applications and user files.
  • Better performance then normal 5400 and 7200 RPM drives.
  • The drive is quiet, no noticed increase in drive noise over the original drive.
  • Price: While this drive doesn’t have the performance of a full SSD drive, the price is considerably lower.

Cons:

  • Capacity: The drive capacity of 500GB is identical to the stock drive I replaced. A larger capacity model would be nice.
  • Instructions supplied with the drive are sparse, but this shouldn’t be an issue if you’ve ever replaced a hard drive.
  • Anonymous

    I’ve been eyeing this hard drive for a while now for my early 2011 MacBook pro. I have two concerns: battery life and also the fact that it has been available for quite some time now, with no updates (8GB Flash would be ideal). For battery life, what were your experiences compared to the stock drive? Does the hard drive spin down and have decent power saving features, or does the fan have to run a lot more often?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129480577 Caleb Wilson

      I agree I When I thought about this drive I realized that I have more ram in my computer then there is flash memory paired with this hard drive.

    • Chris Hauk

      I wish I had made benchmarked the two items you asked about, but I did not. My experience has been that since the drive is storing the most used data in the flash memory that the hard drive hasn’t had to spin as much. I don’t have any measurable data, so it’s all just casual observation. The battery life seems as good, if not better than before, and the fans don’t seem to have to run as much. Again, I didn’t make any measurement on battery life or temperatures before installing the new drive, so this is all just how it seems to me.

  • SurfKevinSurf

    I purchased this hard drive for my MacBook Pro (mid 2009) which came with a 5400 rpm. About a year after installing and experiencing faster loading speeds like you, my hard drive burned up and stopped working. A “computer guy” told me that unless my Mac came with a 7200 rpm, I would have issues like this because the 7200 rpm has a more efficient case to cool it. Not sure how accurate that info was, but like I said, it was nice and fast for about a year until it overheated and nearly destroyed all my files. (thank you time machine)

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Chris Hauk

Chris Hauk owns Phoenix Rising Services and writes for everyone's favorite "bad movie" website, Big Bad Drive-In. His first Apple product was an iPod Classic 5 years ago, and he has since added a MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, and 2 Apple TVs to his collection. He lives somewhere in the great Southwest.