when comparing this HDD to a standard 7200rpm HDD, the Seagate Momentus XT 500gb is definitely faster at boot up and displaying your desktop, and programs. However, the reason for the "SSD hybrid classification" is only because of the caching ability this HDD has. It is not as fast as a SSD drive. Having said that, The new Momentus XT 750 GB is touted as being only 40 percent slower than a SSD drive. This HDD is not a fast as the new XT 750gb because it only has a data transfer rate of up to 3gb/s. The new XT 750gb has a data transfer rate up to 6gb/s. If you have a new laptop than get the new one. If your computer is a few years old like mine, you will do fine by getting this HDD because chances are your computer won't be able to handle data transfer rates any faster than 3gb/s anyway. There is also a big price difference between this HDD and the new one. For the money, I like this HDD. Not nearly the speed of a SSD drive, but much better than a standard 7200rpm HDD.Read full review
I heard that these Seagate hybrid SSD drives were speedy and I wanted more HDD space, so I decided to try one. A little background: My laptop takes two drives and I had, a very short time earlier, already upgraded one of them (the primary windows drive) to a Seagate 500GB 7200.4. The speed increase, switching from my old 160GB 5400 primary drive, was noticeable but not stellar. So I therefore had something good to compare it with. I now have the Momentus XT hybrid as the primary/windows drive and the 7200.4 as secondary (as above, the 7200.4 was previously the primary drive). Upon first startup I noticed no difference, but after a short time my laptop started turning on MUCH more quickly (i.e. loading windows on startup more quickly). Now when I turn on my laptop... BLAM, windows starts faster than I have ever previously experienced! And my music program (which I use everyday) also starts FAR more quickly than it ever has. Nice one Seagate :) Note: I have never played with a laptop that has a full SSD drive, I expect these would be even quicker.... it's a shame full SSD drives are so freaking small and costly at present. All up, if you can afford the extra dollars (or need the speed) I highly recommend Seagate hybrid drives.Read full review
This is an excellent HDD, easy to install and you immediately see the difference once you boot up. It is incredibly fast and responsive. I would recommend this to everyone looking for a performance boost and not looking to buy a new computer. Also, it was easy to install. You can get free software to clone the disk and once that is done you just swap your old hard drive for your new one. I am using Windows 7 and it gives you a choice of disks to boot from. Also, for some reason, expect that once you install the hard drive and boot it up, it takes 2-3 reboots to get the best performance. It is like your machine is learning how to use the HDD. Don't get me wrong, it works on the first reboot but it gets better after two or three. Only idiosyncracy I have noted. Enjoy!
Great balance of price, performance, and capacity. Big improvement in my macbook's startup time for a good price. FAR cheaper and far more capacity of any SSD in the same price range. I'm using it in a late-2007 MacBook 2.2 GHz w/6GB RAM running Lion. It's s great way to lengthen the life of moderately old to older systems.
Getting a little old now but still a very good medium capacity drive. Seagate calls it a Hybrid Drive because of the 32MB buffer and software in it operating system, It is faster than a comparable mechanical hard drive like the WD black but only when used for repetitive tasks- like boot drive up a laptop (not as an auxiliary/portable drive). The boot speed actually decreases with use as the drive "learns". I have several of these drives spread amongst my laptops and they perform well- not SSD speeds but well... and for a small portion of a comparable SSD. I have noticed that when using Seagate's Disc Wizzard, all the drives show errors when starting the clone process. This appears to be an artifact of the software/hardware and is not a "real" error- just enter "ignore" and your copy will still be perfect.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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