Momentus XT, Momentus, Momentus Thin, MobileMax, and other notebook drives

[DanSan]

Hello, I am a prospective buyer for the (ST750LX003) Momentus XT 750 GB HDD w/8 GB SSD.

My plan was to take two (2), three (3), or four (4) Momentus XT drives and stripe them into a RAID-0 array. After doing only a tiny bit of research on the issue, I figured I had better sign up to get the questions asked and hopefully answered before I make any purchases.

My suspicion based upon reading other articles is that the Momentus XT is either (a) not suited for any kind of RAID, or (b) can be put into a RAID, but with a plethora of problems.

Question (1): (a) Can Momentus XT 750 GB (ST750LX003) function in a RAID-0 Array, (b) if yes, what problems are associated with doing so?

Question (2): If the Momentus XT 750 GB (ST750LX003) cannot be placed into a RAID configuration, does Seagate plan a remedy for this?

Comment (1): If I could not use the Momentus XT 750 GB (ST750LX003) in a RAID-0 configuration, I wouldn't have any use for it.

Comment (2): To me, a RAID-0 config with 2-4 drives would supply and satisfy all of my gaming, editing (image, video and audio) and storage needs, and then some.

Comment (3): If I'm going to drop $200-$300 per drive, I want the best of both worlds. If not, I'll just get a top of the line SSD and risk the problems this market has with reliability.

I also wanted to add that this new setup will be using Windows XP 64-bit as the OS.

[WiseDrive]

AFAIK, there is no technical reason why the XT2s cannot be used in RAID.

But lets have Seagate give the official answer.

I have 2 MT2s here, but am too lazy to do a test to see for myself.

[Klok]

Hey,

From this post, the user suggest that Seagate isn't supporting RAID for the MXT1. Also take note that it took about 2 months to get this reply. Again this say nothing for the new drive, since the drive is recently out, I'm guessing that Seagate as planned to make more resource available to reply to potential costumer inquiry. Maybe you should try to call customer support if you don't want to wait for an unofficial reply on this forum.

Klok

[WiseDrive]

Certain models of Asus G 7x series laptops come with dual 500gb MX1s from the factory.

http://ca.asus.com/en/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G74SX/#specifications

I would be profoundly surprised if those drives cannot be RAIDed.

If you are asking if you can plug it into any legacy RAID arrays and make it work... the answer is ... no or risky.

If you are asking about a late model RAID setup (no more than 1 year old hardware and drivers), I'd say the chance is pretty good.

Having said that... many SSDs are also sold without explicitly supporting RAID use.... and they do work... more or less.

A lot depends on how much the RAID implementation has hard coded into it optimization for "hard" drives and whether that interferes with (e.g. SSD) or Hybrids.

On the older OSes pre TRIM that was a major issue.

See my thread re Benchmarking --- and so on.

[DanSan]

I can't say for sure which it is, XT1 or XT2. Here is a link to the hybrid HDD I am thinking of buying:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837

Suffice to say, I need to know soon because I want to put my computer together soon. Withstanding some other parts, the HDDs are the final pieces waiting to be purchased.

[WiseDrive]

That is the XT 2 (750gb) 2nd generation with the SATA 6.0gbs interface.

Be sure you turn off all power saving / APM stuff.

It should work fine --- I am testing the same here in a week or so.

[Klok]

The link you gave is the Momentus XT2, you can validate this by yourself with the product model from Seagate page.

In this case this is st750lx003.

Come to think of it, is there any Seagate official announcement that this is a new MXT?

Klok

[DanSan]

So far, no good.

So, it is an XT2, which is kind of what I thought.  Yet, no official response on the matter.

For any of those who are running in a RAID-0 setup:

1. Does it work?

2. Any special parameters need disabling (i.e. APM)?

3. Do you notice any delays or is it working as expected?

Any information helps.

As mentioned, I'm a prospective buyer.  By no means will I drop $200+ per drive and not have the advertised performance.

[ajarmoniuk]

As far as I know, there's no way of permanently disabling the APM in this drive. It gets back to 128 with every restart of the machine.

[WiseDrive]

---

ajarmoniuk wrote:

As far as I know, there's no way of permanently disabling the APM in this drive. It gets back to 128 with every restart of the machine.

---

APM and power management / saving can be disabled in BIOS and also OS and Applications.

e.g. sleep / suspend etc.

Do that for a start.

[ajarmoniuk]

Uhm, not really.

[KrypteX]

APM can't be modified in BIOS... only via software (temporarily, until another cold boot): CrystalDiskInfo or HDDScan or similar softwares.

[DanSan]

Could APM management also be controlled through a registry entry?  Perhaps a registry entry that you can force via Startup folder?

[WiseDrive]

Basically, do everything to disable any and all power management in your system.

BIOS cntrols some in some implementations.

Then there is OS level -- it is written into the Registry for Windows 7

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744300%28WS.10%29.aspx

Furthermore, some apps also access the power management stuff on their own.

A simple way is to set Power for "High Performance" and be done with it.

Turn everything off to start, and then re-enable them to see if you have problems with each one.

[wahii02]

Was there any more info on using Momentus XT 750's in Raid 0?

I have 2 that I am attempting to use in RAID 0 but Win7 Pro 64bit can't make a system partition and it can't see my partition I made with diskpart! Any advice would be helpful. I have been researching this for 2 days now and am getting frustrated.

System Info:

MSI 890FXA-GD70

AMD 8150

4x Corsair 4gb DDR3

2x XFX 787A

Samsung 222 optical

2x Momentus XT 750

fed by Antec 900wt PS

[Jarzac]

Hello, Have you tried to use 64 k stripes instead of 128 ? I red somwhere it fixed this kind of issue for someone. Also have you tried to unraid your drives, format them and raid them again ?

[AluminumHaste]

I have 2 750GB hybrid drives running in Raid0 on my Alienware M17x laptop.

I didn't install windows, I simply imaged my partitions with Acronis Tue Image Home 2011, installed the new drives, used 32k sectors.

I then loaded up the bootable disc, and copied back over the backup. Booted up Windows and away I went.

I came from 2 SAMSUNG Spinpoint MP4 HM640JJ 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache drives in RAID 0.

No problems at all. Running great. Here's my before and after results:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   200.819 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   194.975 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    41.776 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    56.427 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.539 MB/s [   131.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.905 MB/s [   465.1 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     1.062 MB/s [   259.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     1.859 MB/s [   454.0 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 59.6% (598.2/1003.1 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2012/11/13 2:41:02
    OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
 
 
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   211.534 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   208.237 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    46.125 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    95.152 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.585 MB/s [   142.8 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     2.143 MB/s [   523.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     1.942 MB/s [   474.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     2.415 MB/s [   589.6 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 42.8% (598.3/1397.2 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2012/11/13 12:16:18
    OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

A nice boost in speed and IOPs.

[guswah]

I have a failed 1Terrabyte Seagate in a RAID-1 array that uses a pair of Seagate ST31000524AS. 

I purchased a Momentus XT ST750LX003, hoping that I could slip it into place and let the RAID config do its magic in replicating disk 0 on disk 1 -- just as it would if I'd used an identical HDD.  Then, I thought, I would replace the remaining original HDD with another Momentus XT and repeat the process.

Apparently I took a heck of a lot for granted.  Does anyone know if this is even possible?  If so, where might I find help in accomplishing the RAID configuration?