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

[fakk]

I really love the momentus xt, it just speeds up every notebook AFFORDABLE. I use them in 4 PCs now, wrote a review about the 500 GB piece shortly befor switch to the new 750 GB stuff:

http://www.tweakpc.de/forum/erfahrungs-und-testberichte-usern-fuer-user/84681-lesertest-adata-s511-6...

One thing I am wondering about: My Laptop (OS on a 750 GB XT) boots faster than rewaking from hibernation! How come? Are those Hib.sys files not cached in the SSD part, because they are overwritten "completely"?

Got 8Gig RAM so maybe thats more than the SSD part holds, but still. Strange effect

[Cantbecanit]

My desktop is the same and that's using a full SSD drive, I can only think it's because not all the system is off on hib, where the whole lot is off and systematically loads on a boot up, where the PC has to go select bits n' pieces when returning out of a kip, that's the only logical answer I can think of other than it's a Windows thing, which as you know does things at it's own pace.

[lemon]

I'm using an SSD and before momentus xt 500. Both woke up much much much much faster than a re-boot. I consider this kind of behaviour strange.

Maybe the computer goes into 'deep' sleep...... Cutting of the power to the drives. But in the SSD that should not make any difference. 

[fzabkar]

AISI, if the computer is returning from hibernation, then it needs to restore 8GB of RAM from a similarly sized file on the HDD. Even if the data transfer rate were 200MB/s, reading an 8GB file would require 40 seconds. That said, I understand that the HIB.SYS file is compressed, in which case the wake-up time would reduce to 20 seconds. OTOH, when the system is booting normally, perhaps it only needs to load a relatively small portion of memory. Maybe that accounts for the difference?

Do you have any numbers for your boot times?

[fzabkar]

I would compare the hibernate and wakeup times for 8GB RAM with those for 4GB RAM. If the numbers for 8GB are double those for 4GB, then this would suggest that the system spends most of its time reading and writing to the HIB.SYS file on the HDD, with no system overhead.

Otherwise if we consider a speculative example, let's assume that the hibernate/wakeup times for 4GB are 25 secs, and for 8GB they are 40 secs. This would suggest that both times incorporate a 10 sec overhead that is not directly related to reading or writing the HIB.SYS file.

overhead (10s) + 4GB R/W (15s) + 4GB R/W (15s) = 40s

overhead (10s) + 4GB R/W (15s) = 25s

[lemon]

Well those 40 secs that you spec are absolutely not the case on my computer. When I put it to sleep it is INSTANTLY awake on opening the lid. Both computers in my home, windows (normal HD) and Mac with SSD and XT are immeadiately awake.

In most cases the computer writes data to the disk but... in case of a 'normal' sleep' it also keeps these data 'alive' in it's RAM. There is no 40 secs lag whatsoever.

It can be that when you close the computer and put your settings so that all the energy is shut off, you may have a lag of 40 secs when restarting. But then I wonder why not shut the computer down?

My boot times on the SSD is about 10 secs.

[fzabkar]

lemon, ISTM that you are confusing Suspend-to-RAM (S3 mode) with Hibernation (Suspend-to-Disk, S4).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation_(computing)#Comparison_to_sleep_mode

"The advantage of sleep mode is that resuming is much quicker than for hibernation. A hibernated system must start up, then read back data to RAM on resuming, which typically takes about ten seconds or more. A system in sleep mode only needs to power up the CPU and display, which is almost instantaneous. On the other hand, a system in sleep mode still consumes some power, while a hibernated system does not require any power at all."

[lemon]

Hi Fzabkr!

I guess you are right. But if it takes such a long time to wake up from Hibernation, why use it at all?

[fzabkar]

Hibernate mode doesn't consume any power, so it would be useful in laptops where battery life is an issue.