Seagate Momentus Hybrid SSD/HDD in my X200
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 4:22 pm
After much research and review, I upgraded to this hard drive (500GB) over the weekend. The upgrade itself was pretty painless.
After working with it for a couple of days, my review is double thumbs up so far. Some high points:
1) Love the extra storage capacity (its 500GB vs. my OEM 320GB)
2) The speed is noticeable- the 7200 rpm and the SSD- not only on bootup (which seems to be cut by half) but also on launching of applications. I've only had it a couple of days so I"m not sure how the adaptive technology that controls the SSD portion will continue to perform, but it is impressive out of the box.
3) Perhaps the biggest surprise is the power usage- I had read there were some reports that the drive sucked more power, but I"ve noticed a minimal decrease. With WiFi connected and highest CPU settings, with my 12 cel battery, I got about 5-6 hours with heavy use. With WiFi off and lowering the CPU I can usually turn this into 8-10 hours. So the drive itself does not seem to have a big power impact.
4) The other concern I had was heat- however as I check the drive area it does not seem to be overly warm
I looked at SSD's but the price per gig is still too high. To get a 7200RPM + SSD drive with 500GB for $119 is too good a deal to pass up given the benefits.
Anyway thought folks would want to know that the upgrade process was great and the drive is so far very impressive. A good alternative to the more expensive SSD's if you still want a boost in speed.
After working with it for a couple of days, my review is double thumbs up so far. Some high points:
1) Love the extra storage capacity (its 500GB vs. my OEM 320GB)
2) The speed is noticeable- the 7200 rpm and the SSD- not only on bootup (which seems to be cut by half) but also on launching of applications. I've only had it a couple of days so I"m not sure how the adaptive technology that controls the SSD portion will continue to perform, but it is impressive out of the box.
3) Perhaps the biggest surprise is the power usage- I had read there were some reports that the drive sucked more power, but I"ve noticed a minimal decrease. With WiFi connected and highest CPU settings, with my 12 cel battery, I got about 5-6 hours with heavy use. With WiFi off and lowering the CPU I can usually turn this into 8-10 hours. So the drive itself does not seem to have a big power impact.
4) The other concern I had was heat- however as I check the drive area it does not seem to be overly warm
I looked at SSD's but the price per gig is still too high. To get a 7200RPM + SSD drive with 500GB for $119 is too good a deal to pass up given the benefits.
Anyway thought folks would want to know that the upgrade process was great and the drive is so far very impressive. A good alternative to the more expensive SSD's if you still want a boost in speed.