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

[WangChung]

Greetings,

I wanted to post some of my experiences in a cross post from a custom build I did last year. I notice a lot of people still ask questions about whether or not obtaining a set of Momentus XT drives and implementing them in any sort of RAID array. My experiences have been mostly positive, save for the couple of pauses experienced due to the already known ability to disable APM (which I've covered). I've tried to be as detailed as possible, and will continue to do so with further updates. What I'd like to have happen is for one of the engineers to get a hold of me so I can do some further modifications, with the understanding that any warranties would be far and beyond voided.  

System specs:

Case - APEVIA X-QPACK2

Motherboard - Asus Rampage III Gene

CPU - Intel i7-950 3.06GHz

Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 x6 (24GB total)

Storage -
-Crucial C300 64GB (OS)
-Seagate Momentus XT 500GB x4 (Data)

GPU - Asus EAH6950 x2 (CrossFire'd, shaders unlocked)

PSU - Thermaltake Black Widow 850W, Modular

Cooling -
-Scythe Ultra Kaze 120x38mm (intake)
-Modified CNPS8700 CPU cooler

Build thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?267202-MegaMini-v2-LAN-PC-build

Please keep in mind by no means am I a technical writer; apologies if you find some of it rambling. What I define as detailed others might find verbose.

[WangChung]

First of all, getting Hitachi's Feature Tool to work on a USB drive appears either impossible or just beyond my experience. I tried every option I could think of using HP's USB Format Tool and using the files from the various Feature Tool ISOs out there. Additionally, I tried using the Feature Tool .exe programs after using HP's tool to flash the drive that way, no go. My only solution is, and the one I highly recommend, is unless you're familiar with writing software for DOS don't bother doing this -> and just download the CD ISO. Go to Wal-Mart (or Tesco for you people across the pond) and pick up some CD-RWs to try the various distros.

The key versions you want to try are v2.09 and v2.11. After 2.09 Hitachi took out APM (Advanced Power Management) support and after 2.11 they took out AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management). There are some tricks to getting the Feature Tool to run or boot on a more modern machine:

1) The drives MUST NOT be in any sort of RAID configuration.
2) You MUST have the BIOS set to have the SATA mode as "IDE." You CANNOT have the option set to ACHI or RAID or you will get a boot loop trying to load into the Feature Tool.
3) You MUST have the BIOS set additionally to "Compatibility" mode for IDE, NOT "Enhanced."
4) You MUST have the CD drive be the first boot device before everything else.

That being said, once I was able to finally boot into any of the various releases, I could see the hard drives just fine. I could also see the various attributes, firmware versions, SMART information, etc. However, regardless of what version I tried (I've downloaded 2.00 through 2.12) I could NOT change the APM or AAM options on ANY of the Momentus XTs. When I tried to change the Acoustic option, which showed disabled on the status screen, Feature Tool said that this option is not available for this drive type. When I tried to change the more important (for my needs) APM option, the tool said something to the effect of "Changing the APM is not supported with this program."

As some background, before I had even bought the drives I did a month's worth of research into the drives themselves, the Feature Tool, flashing a USB drive for floppy use, and using the Momentus XT in a RAID. While some hardware review sites had great experience with the benchmark testing, from what I could tell they were ONLY running benchmarks and weren't performing daily tasks for weeks on end. I discovered that people were having issues with initial slow RAID response or freezing after idle time, and this was due to the APM feature in the drives stopping the spindles. The RAID had to wait for the platters to spin back up before responding to any requests.

There were many options to turn off AAM or APM within the Windows or Linux (hdparm) environment, but these changes were LOST on power down because it was only set within the OS itself. This meant that you could never shut down the machine (not even a conceivable option) or that each time you powered down you had to tear down the RAID, load into Windows, disable APM, restart the computer, rebuild the RAID, format/partition, and copy your data back.  The only permanent solution of changing drive attributes available was the Hitachi Feature Tool. Unfortunately, documentation of the Feature Tool, users' methods, and successes/failures was limited at best. The only option I saw was a 50/50 "Try it and find out."

All in all, this endeavor was going out on a lark to begin with. I was well aware that I was using basically a 4th party software on a more than likely unsupported drive. The original program was written by IBM, then Hitachi took it over, and I was trying to use it on a Seagate drive. Seagate's SeaTools does not support changing anything with any of their drives, it is purely a diagnostic program. From what I've read from various sources, some people have had luck with using the Feature Tool on non-Hitachi drives, but not this time. So once again, unequivocally, THE HITACHI FEATURE TOOL _CANNOT_ CHANGE ANY ATTRIBUTES ON SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT DRIVES.

[WangChung]

Finally, some tests!

All these tests were run with a 128KB RAID strip size, RAID 0 of course.  I also ran 64KB tests, and ended up staying with the 64KB as I found it handled files ~4MB in size a little faster. I found this out after an unfortunate incident which caused me to reformat both my OS and Data drive. Before I did however, I just happened to check the average file size of the Data drive with all my programs installed and it was right around 4MB, so...

Oh, write back cache was disabled for these drives as I wanted a raw testing of just the drive performance.

Test Setup:
Motherboard - Asus Rampage III Gene
CPU - Intel i7-950 3.06GHz
Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 x6 (24GB total)
Storage -
-Crucial C300 64GB (OS)
-Seagate Momentus XT 500GB x4 (Data)
*Drives are connected to the on-board Intel RAID controller*
GPU - Asus EAH6950 x2 (unlocked shaders)
PSU - Thermaltake Black Widow 850W, Modular



HD Tach 8MB


HD Tach 32MB


AS-SSD


ATTO


CrystalDisk


I found something interesting with HD Tune per some other tests that had been run from other review sites. The more often the test has been run, the more the HDD adapts to seeing what kind of data you're requesting. This is the first run of HD Tune


... and here's the 2nd. Notice the access time drops dramatically as the HDDs have adapted to usage pattern, and are now pulling straight out of the Solid State portion of the drive


Overall, I'm quite impressed with the performance. I have much quicker than standard hard drive performance with RAID 0, enhanced even further with the hybrid SSD storage. And you really can't beat the price either; for ~$400 I got nearly 2 Terabytes of storage, compared to the same price for a slower 1.2 TB VelociRaptor setup or only 256GB worth of a single SSD. While the speed isn't nearly as fast as a true solid state drive for random writes or QD, the overall package of speed and storage makes this an attractive package.

[WangChung]

By and large, the drive setup I have has been a success. I've moved the pagefile, system temp, user temp, and user profile folder to the RAID array. Additionally most programs that aren't run as services are installed to the RAID. I believe this prevents most of the lag other people have experienced as the array is almost constantly under some sort of access.The only time I run into a slight pause for some reason is occasionally under Firefox. I'll get a loading "circle" for a few seconds but then I'm good to go. To top it off, the array has been running in near 24/7 operation for almost a year. I only shut my computer down for hardware maintenance/mods or if I go out of town longer than a day.

The user profile was tricky to migrate, but I got it working. I used a program called Link Shell Extension to associate the folder to its original location under the Windows directory structure. Basically it "tricks" the OS into thinking the folder is still on the C: drive, but it redirects all access requests to the folder on the D: drive. The process itself is a capability that's native to the OS, the GUI just makes it way more simple. The process is completely seamless and the program written is very easy to use.

Link Shell Extension - http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html (NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT, FREEWARE)

In the next day or two I'm going to do a full BIOS and Firmware update to the build. Asus has been lax in terms to keeping its BIOS support up to date, so the creative solutions have been to grab their BIN file and have it modified with the firmware direct from the various OEM manufacturers of the components. With my board, the option ROM in the latest Asus BIOS for both the Intel and the Marvell SATA controllers are woefully out of date compared to the company's respective releases. So I had the fine folks at bios-mods.com compile a custom BIOS which is easy to request.

I'll also be updating the Momentus XT drives' firmware to SD28, currently I am on SD25. I haven't had any problems as I've mentioned, but I'd like to see if there will be a performance boost to the array. The C300 I have as the OS drive has a firmware update as well (0009), so there's a lot of flashing/nail biting I'll be doing this weekend. Bricking something is always a possibility, but the risk is just part of the game.

I should have an update Saturday afternoon, computer is archiving to my server right now. I'd have this all done already, but backing up ~400GB of data across a wireless N bridge isn't as fast as I thought it would be...

[WiseDrive]

Great work here!

[WangChung]

Did the BIOS update. Main BIOS and Intel OROM were successful, but the Marvell OROM seems to be hosed. Locks up when trying to access any drive. Tried to update the FW on my C300 from 0006 to 0007 and it failed every time; switched it over to one of the Intel ports (which normally aren't free) and worked just fine. So it's definitely the OROM/Marvell controller itself, so I have to fight with that.

SD28 update went well as far as I can tell. I used the USB method described here:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-Momentus/ANNOUNCEMENT-Firmware-SD28-Now-Available/...

Don't know if the data is still there since I can't boot my C300, but I'm working on that!

[WangChung]

Fixed the BIOS and got everything back up and running! SD28 seems to be working fine. Didn't really get a chance to see how it "feels" as far as performance as I had pulled an all-nighter trying to get the machine back up and running. I'm going to make sure all my drivers are updated and the Intel management software is updated and I'll go from there.

I'm not sure how valid any testing will be, as I still have my data on the drives and it's not really easy to just clear off because of the modifications I made to the directory structure. I'll at least run an ATTO and HD Tune run and see how it pans out!

Do any Techs ever read these boards? I'd love to get my hands on something to turn off AAM/APM on the drives. If absolutely necessary, I'm no stranger to NDAs in assuring whatever the solution is doesn't get distributed against your/their wishes.

Thanks for tuning in!

[WangChung]

Whoops, kind of forgot about this! Everything was successful, and SD28 seems to work fine. Here are the benches:

Test 1:

Test 3 (testing cache):

Crystal:

Now keep in mind, the original benches only had a couple hundred megs worth of data on the array, this now has a couple hundred GIGS worth of data/programs stored and installed. I'd love to get a RAW test of the array, but that will take some hardcore fanagling which I don't have the time for (this is my main machine). The array is stable though, still use it 24/7 though I've started using Sleep mode because summer billing for electricity has gone into effect. And yes, resume from sleep with these drives in R0 works fine. All in all, I definitely recommend a RAID setup even though it's not officially supported. I did get one of these drives for my PS3 as well, works terrific!

[JanJanowski]

I have a question for you.... For the past 1.5 years I've been using an external ESATA 2 drive Raid 0 array on a laptop using 2 Momentus XT 500Gb drives...  Used as Media storage for video editing and DVD/BR creation.

I've been very pleased with their operation...

I believe they started out life as SD23 firmware... and presently they are both SD27 firmware.  (When I upgraded their firmware, I cycled them one at a time through the 2nd drive slot in the laptop, and after both were done, placing them back in extrenal enclosure resulting in no issue with the raid media, which was quite surprising).... I saw minimal improvement of SD27 over I think it was SD25, so I stopped there, due to the amount of dis-assembly required for the upgrade.

However, my question is regarding SD27 VS. SD28 in a raid array....

Would you be able to comment on any preformance improvement of SD28 over SD27 in a raid 0 array?  

Just trying to get knowledgeable information on benifits vs. the amount of dis-assembly required for the update-I think you understand.........

I'd consider the upgrade cycling of the drive's firmware if your tests showed there was an improvemnent.... but due to the amount of dis-assembly required (Because the upgrade cannot be done through an external enclosure--Must be done on a SATA Internal location)......   I'd like to get data before attempting.....

Would you have remembered this type of test?  Thanks for your assistance!

[WangChung]

I can't say there's been a performance increase I've been able to see as far as daily use, I would say unless you're having any sort of issue the update isn't worth it. I was having a very slight pausing very seldom and random during internet browsing with SD25, it seems to have gone away with SD28. I know the benchmarks are kind of inconclusive since the test parameters aren't exactly the same, but I'm more than happy with the performance as is now.

Anyway, short of the long is if you're not having specific problems then there's no reason to upgrade at this point.