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

[KrypteX]

You could try going back to SD25 and do the file corruption tests... detailed in post 8 of this thread:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-Momentus/Momentus-XT-corrupting-large-files-Linux/...

But you need Linux installed. And a second drive, both of them connected in SATA 3.0 Gbps mode....

The only last thing I can say is this: d a r n I really hoped you get SD28 working... Now... I really don't understand what is the problem with these g o s h  forgotten drives....

It is time for a real SSD.

[madnj]

Well, from reading the linked thread, it appears that the corruption issue was not able to be reproduced with Windows OSes, so it's likely only related to Linux based systems.  I'm actually going to forceflash back to SD25 to see if performance is what I had prior to messing around.

All I know is that the drive ran amazingly fast with the original SD25 firmware, and it wasn't until I moved off of that that I started having problems.

Will post update once I reflash to SD25.

[KrypteX]

Be VERY careful. Ironclaw told me that flashing back to SD25 bricked one of his drives...

First, I'd do more tests with SD26. Is it behaving like a normal mechanical drive for you too ? Or am I the only one seeing that the SSD is actually turned off in SD26 ?

[madnj]

Ha!  Confirmed...  SD25 has MUCH better performance than SD26/SD28.  I just force flashed back to SD25 (successfully obviously), and immediately my performance is better and the stuttering issue in SC2 is fully resolved.  SD25 definitely uses the SSD memory, whereas I think you're right about SD26 not using it.  Flashing SD26 takes far less time than flashing SD25 or SD28, so I think they basically waved the white flag with the SD26 drives and just wanted to quietly get a batch of drives out that no one would complain about despite the fact that they aren't using the SSD functionality of the XT.

In any case, my issues are resolved, and my last reboot test was 75 seconds.  I expect that to get faster as the drive SSD cache fills.

In any case, I'm happy with reverting.  I saw the post about corruption, but reading deeper into it looks as though it's limited to Linux and specific kernels.  For Windows though, SD25 drive performance is great, and for me much better than SD28 which has some definite issues that Starcraft 2 shows right away.

[madnj]

And the MONSTER is back!!!!   SD25 is the way to go for Windows firmwares...  My last reboot was 65 seconds from shutdown to reboot/login...  I'm using a VBS that timestamps the shutdown time and then timestamps on windows login and messageboxes the difference.  65 seconds is SOOOOOO much better than anything I had with SD26 and SD28, so I'm much happier than I was.

I'm not sure how forceflashing could brick the drive though unless you either fatfinger the command or somehow kill power to the drive midflash.

I'm so glad that I'm back on SD25 though... 

[madnj]

Here's the reboot script for reference:

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim Wsh, Time1, Time2, Result, PathFile, MsgResult, MsgA, AppName, KeyA, KeyB, TimeDiff
MsgA = "Please close all running applications and click on OK."
KeyA = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RestartTime\"
KeyB = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\RestartTime"
AppName = "ReBoot-Time"
Set Wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
PathFile = """" & WScript.ScriptFullName & """"
Result = wsh.RegRead(KeyA & "Times")
if Result = "" then
MsgResult = Msgbox (MsgA, vbOKCancel, AppName)
If MsgResult = vbcancel then WScript.Quit
Wsh.RegWrite KeyA & "Times", left(Time,8), "REG_SZ"
Wsh.RegWrite KeyB, PathFile, "REG_SZ"
Wsh.Run "cmd /c Shutdown -r -t 00", false, 0 
else
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA & "Times"
Wsh.RegDelete KeyA
Wsh.RegDelete KeyB
TimeDiff = DateDiff("s",Result,left(Time,8))
MsgBox "Your computer reboots in " & TimeDiff & " seconds", VbInformation, AppName
end if
wscript.Quit

[KrypteX]

What about the file corruption issues ? You know... that IS serious stuff...

It seems that SD25 "forgets" to write blocks of 512 kB or 1MB of data, for files as large as 4 GB, but ALSO for files of size as low as 80 MB in size... which is pretty common.

You should definitely do Ironclaw's tests.

[KrypteX]

you should check your private messages... You have Inbox.

[madnj]

I read the thread, but everything is specific to Linux, and the most telling was the user who was able to reproduce the error on a T61 in Linux, but not in Windows on the same drive.  I'm not saying the firmware doesn't have some issue that is causing the Linux based corruption, but I ran the SD25 firmware for months stable as could be without a single problem.

In fact, immediately flashing to SD28 I noticed things were slower, but when I tried to flash back it wouldn't do it via the Windows utility.  It wasn't until I found out how to manually flash that I was able to test SD26 and find the fix for the issues I was having with SD28.  SD25 though, for me using my Windows 7 x64 Ultimate build gives me the best performance of any of the firmwares.  SD28 is a no go because of the stuttering issue when gaming (which I believe is indicative of other problems).  SD26 is a waste of time because SD26 makes the drive a plane Jane spindle drive.

SD25 on the other hand provides better hybrid performance than SD28, and has been completely stable in Windows for me and in the testing thread where they were able to cause that corruption.

[juhanuus]

madnj, hate to ruin your parade but the lagging issue that promted me to write this thread in the first place appeared while the drive was on SD25.

Since my last post I have full formated, force flashed, clean installed Win7 a total of three times - nothing helped. Only difference: End to end error count increased by 2.

Finally I read madnj's post about SD26 and KrypteX's comment about it probably disabling the SSD feature. Since at this point all I want is a drive that actually allows me to get some work done I force flashed to SD26.

With SD26 there is no random freeze! But yes the performance is just like a normal HDD.
Conclusion: Theres something seriously wrong with the firmware or worse with the SSD hardware itself!
 

I have decided to run the drive on SD26 firmware for now since I don't have the energy to under go yet another full install just yet.
Lets see what the coming months bring - with my luck the laptop probably implodes.

PS: SeaTools for DOS also failed on my drive. For one test there was an error drive not responding to command or something. The others just froze.