1. Momentus XT is a hybrid solid state drive, but do you expect it to compete with SSDs in the laptop space?
Yes. Today’s high-performance SSDs for mobile computing cost several hundred dollars more than laptop hard disk drives of the same capacity, with the price of a 250GB SSD outstripping even the cost of many laptop PCs. As a result, many people are unwilling or unable to pay the high price for the greater speed of SSD. The Momentus XT can provide SSD-like performance with flexibility in higher capacities and no sacrifice to power consumption, acoustics or heat compared to notebook drives today.
2. What type of Flash is used in the Momentus XT?
The Momentus XT uses a 4GB Single Level Cell NAND Flash Technology.
3. How did Seagate arrive at 4GB of flash as optimal for this solution?
We looked at use cases and analyzed different amounts of flash taking into consideration capacity, cost and form factor. 4GB was the optimal amount to improve performance, and meet a price point.
4. What is the difference between SLC and MLC Flash?
SLC, or Single Level Cell, technology stores a single bit per each Flash cell, whereas Mutli-Level Cell stores two bits per cell by dividing the cell up into more, smaller amplitudes.
5. Why SLC over MLC in Momentus XT?
SLC Flash is three to four times faster than MLC Flash.
6. How long does Seagate expect the flash on Momentus XT to last?
Internal tests were conducted using a script that mimics 250GB of data written to the drive every day for 5 years, and the flash in Seagate’s unique solution showed no signs of degredation. If the flash ever fails, the data is never lost because it is mirrored to the disk and the drive would continue to operate as a traditional 7200RPM drive with 32MB of DRAM cache.
Keep in mind that data from the application is not written to the flash directly. Instead, the data is written to disk first, then analyzed for usage patterns and mirrored to the flash for faster access. This reduces wear and tear on the flash because the drive is only writing the most used content to flash versus all content being written to flash.
7. Which company supplies the hard drive controller for Momentus XT?
The drive features a proprietary Seagate controller that manages both the spinning disk and the flash module.
8. Which OEMs will be shipping laptops featuring Momentus XT?
ASUS is the first OEM to offer a laptop with Momentus XT, and others are qualifying and/or considering the drive for their systems. ASUS will offer Momentus XT as an upgrade option for its new Republic of Gamers (ROG) G73Jh notebook. Like Momentus XT, the ROG G73Jh offers great price-performance. The system is powered by an Intel i7 720Qm quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and DX11 capable ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870.
9. Will Momentus XT be available in the channel too?
Yes. Momentus XT will see wide channel availability in June.
10. How fast does the Adaptive Memory technology learn?
The Adaptive Memory technology within Seagate Momentus XT learns your habits and patterns constantly. On the fist boot it looks and acts like a standard 7200 RPM hard drive. By the 2nd boot your experience is about 80% faster, and by the 3rd boot, the drive knows you well, and you will experience maximum performance benefit. As you continue to use the system, the drive is continuing to learn – placing frequently accessed data in flash and allowing data to drop out of flash that has become less used.
11. Can you restore the drive flash to its original state to teach the drive over again?
Because the drive is constantly learning, the drive constantly adapts to the changing needs of the user, thus reducing the need to restore the flash.
12. Does the Solid State Hybrid compete with SSD in real-life performance?
Yes, the Solid State Hybrid competes within seconds of a SSD drive in real life end-user experiences. While it typically works as a normal 7200 RPM drive, the embedded 4GB of NAND memory and Seagate’s Adaptive Memory technology results in overall performance closer to that of 10,000 RPM hard drives along with read performance near that of consumer Solid State drives.
Using Asus’s G73jh laptop, PCMark Vantage benchmark results in the HDD Test suite indicate performance improvements in the Gaming test of up to 29% and up to 33% in the Productivity test over the standard disk drive in the G73Jh. Microsoft’s Velocity benchmark showed a 40% reduction in system boot to desktop time.
13. Does the system see two drives or one?
The Solid State is embedded onto the disk drive electronics and to the system is only one drive.
14. Is the data on the SSD duplicated on the drive?
Yes, all data is saved to the disk drive and frequently used data is qualified, compressed and moved to the solid state using background operations.
15. How is Momentus XT different from Seagate’s first hybrid drive?
Seagate’s first Hybrid drive, Momentus PSD, differed in two major ways. First, it was designed around Windows Vista, and utilized Windows drivers to prioritize what was fed to the flash and what wasn’t. Nothing knows data access patterns better than the hard drive itself, so with Momentus XT we eliminated the dependency on the operating system.
Secondly, the Momentus PSD featured 256MB of flash and was designed primarily to reduce boot time. For the new Momentus XT drive, we felt that the hybrid approach should show more than faster boot times, but also provide more real performance benefits from the use of flash memory on the drive. And that’s exactly what it provides.
16. Is Adaptive Memory a firmware?
It’s an algorithm that the drive uses to analyze data access patterns, learn and adapt to the user.
17. Will Momentus XT carry a price premium?
Yes. Momentus XT street price is about $50.00 more than a traditional 7200 RPM drive but considerably less than an SSD-based solution with nearly the same performance.
MSRP on the drive family is as follows: 500GB = $156, 320GG = $122, 250GB = $113
18. Are any similar products available today?
No. Momentus XT is the first Solid State Hybrid drive designed for performance client systems.
19. What competing technologies exist for Solid State Hybrid drives?
Flash cache modules – Tend to be expensive and more complicated to enable, and the drivers used tend to be rudimentary in how they select files that need to be written to the flash. This sacrifices performance.
SSD – Users love the performance, but not everyone is willing to pay the price or sacrifice capacity the way you have to with SSD. Momentus XT targets users who crave the performance of SSD but don’t want to pay the price. Momentus XT enables the average user to get SSD-like performance with the massive capacities and lower cost of HDDs.
20. Is Momentus XT operating system-independent?
Yes. Unlike the first generation Momentus PSD, Momentus XT is 100% OS independent.
21. Is Momentus more durable than a traditional hard drive?
Momentus XT has the same shock, acoustics, power use, and MTBF rating as a traditional 7200RPM laptop drive.
22. Will Momentus XT help extend battery life?
Momentus XT looks and acts just like a 7200RPM hard drive, so the 4GB flash component does not increase battery life of the laptop. But in real-world usage, SSDs have not show significant increases in system battery life.
23. Does Seagate plan to introduce desktop and enterprise drives using the Flash and Seagate’s self-learning technology?
Seagate is exploring the applicability of this technology to other drive platforms. We will continue to introduce products that respond to changing market needs.
24. Do you expect any of your competitors to introduce a similar drive? If so, when?
Yes. We expect Solid State Hybrid technology to be introduced by other hard drive manufacturers.
25. What’s the spin speed, cache size and top capacity of Momentus XT?
Momentus XT spins at 7200RPM and carries a 32MB cache – twice the cache size of traditional 7200RPM laptop drives.
26. Can Momentus XT be used in ultra thin laptops?
At a Z-height of 9.5mm, Momentus is designed for mainstream laptops, not ultra thin models, though Seagate does offer a 7mm drive, Momentus Thin, for the thin computing market.
1. Momentus XT is a hybrid solid state drive, but do you expect it to compete with SSDs in the laptop space?
Yes. Today’s high-performance SSDs for mobile computing cost several hundred dollars more than laptop hard disk drives of the same capacity, with the price of a 250GB SSD outstripping even the cost of many laptop PCs. As a result, many people are unwilling or unable to pay the high price for the greater speed of SSD. The Momentus XT can provide SSD-like performance with flexibility in higher capacities and no sacrifice to power consumption, acoustics or heat compared to notebook drives today.
2. What type of Flash is used in the Momentus XT?
The Momentus XT uses a 4GB Single Level Cell NAND Flash Technology.
3. How did Seagate arrive at 4GB of flash as optimal for this solution?
We looked at use cases and analyzed different amounts of flash taking into consideration capacity, cost and form factor. 4GB was the optimal amount to improve performance, and meet a price point.
4. What is the difference between SLC and MLC Flash?
SLC, or Single Level Cell, technology stores a single bit per each Flash cell, whereas Mutli-Level Cell stores two bits per cell by dividing the cell up into more, smaller amplitudes.
5. Why SLC over MLC in Momentus XT?
SLC Flash is three to four times faster than MLC Flash.
6. How long does Seagate expect the flash on Momentus XT to last?
Internal tests were conducted using a script that mimics 250GB of data written to the drive every day for 5 years, and the Flash in Seagate’s unique solution showed no signs of degredation. If the Flash ever fails, the data is never lost because it is mirrored to the disk and the drive would continue to operate as a traditional 7200RPM drive with 32MB of DRAM cache.
Keep in mind that data from the application is not written to the Flash directly. Instead, the data is written to disk first, then analyzed for usage patterns and mirrored to the Flash for faster access. This reduces wear and tear on the Flash because the drive is only writing the most used content to Flash versus all content being written to Flash.
7. Which company supplies the hard drive controller for Momentus XT?
The drive features a proprietary Seagate controller that manages both the spinning disk and the Flash module.
8. Which OEMs will be shipping laptops featuring Momentus XT?
ASUS is the first OEM to offer a laptop with Momentus XT, and others are qualifying and/or considering the drive for their systems. ASUS will offer Momentus XT as an upgrade option for its new Republic of Gamers (ROG) G73Jh notebook. Like Momentus XT, the ROG G73Jh offers great price-performance. The system is powered by an Intel i7 720Qm quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and DX11 capable ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870.
9. Will Momentus XT be available in the channel too?
Yes. Momentus XT will see wide channel availability during summer 2010.
10. How fast does the Adaptive Memory technology learn?
The Adaptive Memory technology within Seagate Momentus XT learns your habits and patterns constantly. On the first boot, it looks and acts like a standard 7200 RPM hard drive. By the 2nd boot your experience is yet faster, and by the 3rd boot, the drive knows you well, and you will experience maximum performance benefit. As you continue to use the system, the drive is continuing to learn – placing frequently accessed data in Flash and allowing data to drop out of Flash that has become less used.
11. Can you restore the drive Flash to its original state to teach the drive over again?
Because the drive is constantly learning, the drive constantly adapts to the changing needs of the user, thus reducing the need to restore the Flash.
12. Does the Solid State Hybrid compete with SSD in real-life performance?
Yes, the Solid State Hybrid competes within seconds of a SSD drive in real life end-user experiences. While it typically works as a normal 7200 RPM drive, the embedded 4GB of NAND memory and Seagate’s Adaptive Memory technology results in overall performance closer to that of 10,000 RPM hard drives along with read performance near that of consumer Solid State drives.
Using Asus’s G73jh laptop, PCMark Vantage benchmark results in the HDD Test suite indicate performance improvements in the Gaming test of up to 29% and up to 33% in the Productivity test over the standard disk drive in the G73Jh. Microsoft’s Velocity benchmark showed a 40% reduction in system boot to desktop time.
13. Does the system see two drives or one?
The Solid State is embedded onto the disk drive electronics and to the system is only one drive.
14. Is the data on the SSD duplicated on the drive?
Yes, all data is saved to the disk drive and frequently used data is qualified, compressed and moved to the solid state using background operations.
15. How is Momentus XT different from Seagate’s first hybrid drive?
Seagate’s first Hybrid drive, Momentus PSD, differed in two major ways. First, it was designed around Windows Vista, and utilized Windows drivers to prioritize what was fed to the Flash and what wasn’t. Nothing knows data access patterns better than the hard drive itself, so with Momentus XT we eliminated the dependency on the operating system.
Secondly, the Momentus PSD featured 256MB of flash and was designed primarily to reduce boot time. For the new Momentus XT drive, we felt that the hybrid approach should show more than faster boot times, but also provide more real performance benefits from the use of flash memory on the drive. And that’s exactly what it provides.
16. Is Adaptive Memory a firmware?
It’s an algorithm that the drive uses to analyze data access patterns, learn and adapt to the user.
17. Will Momentus XT carry a price premium?
Yes. Momentus XT street price is about $50.00 more than a traditional 7200 RPM drive but considerably less than an SSD-based solution with nearly the same performance.
18. Are any similar products available today?
No. Momentus XT is the first Solid State Hybrid drive designed for performance client systems.
19. What competing technologies exist for Solid State Hybrid drives?
Flash cache modules – Tend to be expensive and more complicated to enable, and the drivers used tend to be rudimentary in how they select files that need to be written to the flash. This sacrifices performance.
SSD – Users love the performance, but not everyone is willing to pay the price or sacrifice capacity the way you have to with SSD. Momentus XT targets users who crave the performance of SSD but don’t want to pay the price. Momentus XT enables the average user to get SSD-like performance with the massive capacities and lower cost of HDDs.
20. Is Momentus XT operating system-independent?
Yes. Unlike the first-generation Momentus PSD, Momentus XT is 100% OS-independent.
21. Is Momentus more durable than a traditional hard drive?
Momentus XT has the same shock, acoustics, power use, and MTBF rating as a traditional 7200RPM laptop drive.
22. Will Momentus XT help extend battery life?
Momentus XT looks and acts just like a 7200RPM hard drive, so the 4GB flash component does not increase battery life of the laptop. But in real-world usage, SSDs have not shown significant increases in system battery life.
23. Does Seagate plan to introduce desktop and enterprise drives using the Flash and Seagate’s self-learning technology?
Seagate is exploring the applicability of this technology to other drive platforms. We will continue to introduce products that respond to changing market needs.
24. Do you expect any of your competitors to introduce a similar drive? If so, when?
Yes. We expect Solid State Hybrid technology to be introduced by other hard drive manufacturers.
25. What’s the spin speed and cache size of Momentus XT?
Momentus XT spins at 7200RPM and carries a 32MB cache – twice the cache size of traditional 7200RPM laptop drives.
26. Can Momentus XT be used in ultra thin laptops?
At a Z-height of 9.5mm, Momentus is designed for mainstream laptops, not ultra-thin models, though Seagate does offer a 7mm drive, Momentus Thin, for the thin computing market.
27. What’s the best method of transferring data from my old drive to my new Momentus XT?
If the old drive is out of a PC, then Ghost image software works well to image onto your new Momentus XT. If your current drive comes out of a Mac system then Carbon Copy Cloner is a good Mac image software.
28. How can I disable the Auto Spin down of Momentus XT drives?
The Momentus XT drive is designed to spin down into standby mode automatically whenever the host side is idle for more than 32 seconds. Some users have found this to be a nuisance and have requested this function be disabled as the default but allow users to enable the function via the operating system if they desire the extra power savings of around 40mW.
Seagate has provided a new firmware for the Momentus XT that will change the default behavior of the....
If the end user has not experienced issues with the Standby timer and you would like to benefit from the average 40mW power savings, then Seagate suggests that you go into the power options settings of your O/S and change the "System Standby" setting for the system to enable Standby and set the time value to a value that is as low as possible without being shorter than 32 seconds. The method for making this change will vary between different O/S's. Please refer to the instructions for your particular O/S.
29. Can I run Defrag on my new Momentus XT?
The Momentus XT Adaptive Memory algorithm is an LBA-based algorithm that looks for small portions of data that take the drive a disproportionate amount of time to access. It then puts these portions of data in the Solid State storage for quicker access. A disk defragmentation operation in some cases will move these small portions of data and as such invalidate the need for having the previously associated LBAs in Solid State storage. However, Seagate's analysis has shown that many of these data portions are not moved with a disk defragmention because, while small, they are entire 'files' which the defragmentation cannot determine a need to move.
With this understanding Seagate recommends that a user should run disk defragmentation on a Momentus XT for the following reasons:
-- Disk defragmentation will be beneficial for data that remains on the disk.
-- The majority of the data that was in the Solid State storage prior to the defragmentation will still benefit from being in the Solid State storage after defragmentation.
-- In the case where the data that was in the Solid State storage no longer benefits from that location the Adaptive Memory algorithm will appropriately remove it and free the space up for more pertinent data.
30. My new Momentus XT is not as fast as I thought it would be.
System configuration can sometimes limit the potential of all components in the system if they are set primarily for power savings and if that is what is most important to the user, then those are great settings to activate. However, if your primary goal is high performance, then there are couple of areas where users can fine tune their system and realize the full potential of their storage.
a. Make sure you have given the drive adequate time to learn your usage behavior
b. Turn off Windows automatic defrag. Like SSDs, Momentus XT works best without frequent defrag.
c. If you are using an anti‐virus application, turn off automatic scanning.
d. In the disk device properties, enable advanced performance or install the Intel Matrix drive.
e. In some configurations with Windows 7 and Momentus XT, disabling super‐fetch can improve performance.
31. Will my Momentus XT improve the performance of my PS3 Console?
The Momentus XT is primarily designed for client notebook PCs although the learning algorithm, Adaptive Memory, can benefit any client application where repeated patterns are frequent. Unfortunately, there may be systems where the storage is not the performance bottleneck and therefore performance advantages you would normally see with a faster drive may not be as impactful. The drive should install and integrate into a gaming console like any normal notebook drive without issues.
32. Is there a SMART attribute that can tell me the life of the flash on my Momentus XT?
Currently, Seagate does not have a SMART attribute that reads the Flash useful life status. Seagate is looking at the best method to determine this and how/when it can be implemented if possible.
33. I’ve read that Lenovo and Momentus XT have some compatibility issues with Windows 7 and PC Doctor; is that true?
It’s true a few users have found some issues with PC Doctor, Windows 7 with a Lenovo system and the Momentus XT drive. We’re not quite sure how the four entities might be conflicting but we are certainly investigating this issue. If a specific firmware for Lenovo systems is required, Seagate will provide one as soon as we fully understand the resolution. Stay tuned for more information.
