Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB Hybrid Drive

Designed to deliver the performance of a SSD at prices slightly higher than

normal HDDs, Seagate Momentus XT drive is expected to quench the high-end

performance needs of laptops and workstations. The 2.5 inch drive has a cache of

32 MB and works at 7200 RPM spindle speed and operates through a SATA 3Gbps

interface. The drive has 4GB of solid state SLC NAND flash storage. Adaptive

Memory technology intelligently monitors your frequently used applications and

data files, and place them into the solid state portion of the drive, so they

can be quickly recalled thereby increasing its performance as and when

required.We checked out the drive performance using the HDTune benchmark. The

drive delivered 83 MB/sec with an access time of 2.1 ms while the burst rates

achieved by the disk are in the region of 130 MB/sec. The IOMeter benchmarked

the Seagate Momentus XT drive at an astounding 133 MB/ sec which speaks volumes

for the drive.The disk fared well as compared to the fellow Seagate Momentus

7200 HDD (reviewed in August 2009). The said disk gave an average transfer rate

of 78.5 MB/sec with an access time of 17.2ms. Thus a clear demarcation from HDD

performance and SSD like access times are being observed with the Momentus XT.

These scores are accentuated by the fact that this drive is priced marginally

above the normal HDD price range and is able to deliver SSD like

performance.This disk gives us a cost per GB of about Rs 16 with average HDDs

being priced in the region of about Rs 14. Whereas SSDs burn your pocket at Rs

140 per GB and above.

Bottomline: SSD like performance at HDD price makes this hybrid drive a

desirable entity for all.

Shikhar Mohan Gupta