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

[macstar]

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jdeeee wrote:

i just received a momentus xt 320gb with firmware 22 and put it in my macbook pro. tried it with and without the jumper to force sata 1. noticed no speed difference when benchmarking with xbench but i expected that since my mac is an early 2008 model, which only has a sata 1 bus. i'm still getting a 1-3 second lag from time to time performing certain actions and i can hear the drive spinning up when it happens.

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SD22 Produces these random (to you, logical for the disk itself I guess) spindowns (disk's power management). If you don't mind draining your battery life more to get a more stable experience, try SD23. The disk's own power management is disabled with this firmware update, and so you won't experience those, in expense of battery life...

Andreas

[DarkPeanut]

Reporting back on my results as promised:

Short and Long Drive Self tests both passed on Windows after installing BootCamp. So my Momentus XT seem to be ok.

Two options I'm considering to fix the random spin downs: Jumpering my drive to force it into SATA I (150 MB/s) mode or disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor of my MBP 2007.

I just disabled the Sudden Motion Sensor about two hours ago and so far so good. No random spin down. This is just a very preliminary observation as I didn't use my Macbook heavily. Just wanted to let you know that disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor might help to fix your Macbook with Momentus XT problems.

I'll keep watching this and let you know if I just spoke to soon or if the SMS is really the cause for my random spin downs. Would be a shame if it only worked with an original Apple provided HDD with custom Apple firmware.

[DarkPeanut]

Well there it goes. Rejoiced too soon because it just spun down again. So disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor is not the solution. Only thing left to try is to put the jumper in.

[kcstuff]

I own a Momentus XT 500GB and also suffered from the random spindowns with OS X, even with firmware SD23.

I tryed a tool named hdapm which disables apm (advanced power management).

For 5 days of use I did not recognize any spindowns and hickups.

Url of the tool: http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

Maybe it can help others until Seagate releases a firmware which works like it should

[adriensmart]

And if you put maximum power saving, is it only the SSD which runs ?

Thank you by advance

[jorrami]

Hello everyone,

I would like to mention my case and my situation

Lenovo T61 Model 7664-1GG

Windows Vista x64, EN

Momentus XT 500Gb original SD22 -> upgraded to SD23

TPFan Control 62

Lenovo Software (as of Sept/06/2010):

- ThinkVantage Active Protection System

Version: 1.71 (6ISK03WW)

>>>INSTALLED, NOT ENABLED<<<

- ThinkVantage Power Manager 3

Version: 3.30

>>>ENABLED<<<

- Lenovo ThinkVantage Tools (LTT)

>>>NOT INSTALLED<<<

I haven't had any problem at all.

When I had Active Protection System (APS) which protects the HD against shocks and vibrations I think I use to have frequent system FROZEN/HANG and after some minutes, a BIOS message will display "Error 2100 - Hard drive initializa tion error" and the only way to recover was to turn off the computer to restart.

Since more than 1 week, the system is running without any problems about the HD.

I don't feel comfortable installing the latest version of LTT unless Seagate releases the new firmware which should address the problem with the drive.

Any change in my installation, I will report back.

Regards

jorrami

[nikon1]

Here's my situation:

I downloaded the Windows Update version of the softwarefor use on my Lenovo T61, running Windows 7 x64. I start the update program, get through all the warnings and legal pages, agree to the terms and hit enter.  Within a second or two, I'm met with a failure message, with the following details:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
  Application Name:    activate.exe
  Application Version:    0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:    4bf65681
  Fault Module Name:    snapapi.dll
  Fault Module Version:    3.8.0.523
  Fault Module Timestamp:    4b8a15ba
  Exception Code:    c0000005
  Exception Offset:    00011e5f
  OS Version:    6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.49
  Locale ID:    1033
  Additional Information 1:    0a9e
  Additional Information 2:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:    0a9e
  Additional Information 4:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

My drive is at firmware revision SD22.  I downloaded the program several different times with the same result; If I try to run the program from thw Seagate website, I get an "invalid security" message.

Any ideas as to how to get around this situation?  Thanks in advance.

[Ninjaboy]

I'm currently running x2 Momentus 500GB drives in a RAID-0 on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and they are absolutely fantastic.

They were preloaded with the latest firmware SD23 and are running flawlessly however I did have to RMA one of the two original drives.

I am not getting the numbers listed on the OCC review however these drives are performing very well and much much faster then my RAPTOR-X drivers that these replaced.

HDTach 3.0.4.0 - I was around 320MB/s burst rate and around 150MB/s avg read. 2% CPU utilization and a rediculously low access time of under 1ms. This was using the quickbench 8mb zone.

I was looking at picking up the REVO 240mb or a really fast SSD drive but with the performance of these drives (as well as the capacity and price) I am reconsidering.

This was a test experience that has gone really well so far for me.

Also use the CDROM ISO if you are using an Intel RAID controller because it will pickup both drives and update properly if it's needed.

[adriensmart]

Kcstuff if you put maximum power saving, is it only the SSD which runs or what's happening ?

Thank you by advance

[mikeosm]

Ninjaboy:

It is unusual that you are having 0 problems in RAID yet most are. I was considering purchasing two of these drives for my VMWare WS VM images, since I read your post, my faith in the drives might be restored... I am using an Asus Rampage III Extreme Mobo, what board are you using?