Seagate Momentus XT is a second generation hybrid harddrive, joining mechanical drives with solid state technology at the hip. Momentus XT is a 2.5″ drive with a 7,200 RPM engine and 32MB memory buffer and last but not least 4GB SLC NAND flash memory. The flash memory is the key and Seagate says that in this way Momentus XT will offer SSD like performance.
Now that the first review are out it turns out that isn’t quite the case. Seagate has managed to take the hybrid technology to a new level where the actual performance during regular use is a lot better, without the price skyrocketing. The system and program load are affected the most, since Seagate’s hybrid technology only improves read performance.
Seagate Momentus XT is just what it sounds like, something in between SSD and mechanical drive, both considering price and performance. The advantages seems to outweigh the negatives where Anandtech says that all notebooks should be shipped with hybrid drives like Momentus XT, that is if they don’t go all the way and pick the more expensive alternative, SSD.
Seagate has at least shown that there is a use for hybrid harddrives and we now look forward to seeing more of this technology.
Reviews of Momentus XT can be found at Anandtech and HotHardware.
