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

[ScottishDan]

Well said and couldn't agree more. Seagate should just pony up and give us all the option of a refund or different drive as replacement (I wouldn't mind a 750Gb Momentus instead, even if it is about half the cost).

Have to say it's kinda funny how Seagate have gone all quiet recently on this topic...

[otooto]

A number of MacBook Pros that are tested and have stated support by Apple for 4GB actually will recognize 6GB (1x2GB, plus 1x4GB). I mention this as I know a MacBook Pro user that was able to go from 4 to 6 and noticed significant performance improvement (notably Photoshop). If you are spending a premium on a hard drive for performance, you may want to check this out:

model 5,1 supports 6GB, and a few faster processor configs even 8GB.

http://www.mactracker.ca/

and

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade

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[otooto]

Agreed. Seagate whiffed on MacBook support. They should make it right for MacBook Pro users who purchased.

I may go with a true SSD drive, and replace the DVD drive with a hard drive (using a third party caddy and repurposing the DVD in an external case). It's more expensive, and more extreme, but users's reports are good.

-

[annaylop]

That, I hear, is a great option. I hope Seagate will take back my Momentus XtraTerrible and my plan is to grab the fastest SSD in the smallest size, make that my boot volume with only Mac OS X and then all data, apps, etc will sit on a more power/cost friendly disk (even a 7200 RPM disk, but one that can actually powerdown/not cause the entire system to hang/lock up).

Yes, it is more expensive, but as premium customers, I think we all have shown we'll pay more for performance (the XT isn't expensive, but it *is* expensive for what it is - a 500GB hard drive). Unfortunately, premium customers typically don't take well to being treated poorly (no one should have to put up with what we have, regardless of price paid, frankly), but we're a segment of the market that spends a lot, are early adopters, and will spend on high-margin products. You'd think Seagate would be more dedicated to taking care of us, because you know what, unless Seagate comes out breaks their silence/stops the PR lipservice we've had so far and does the right thing as I mentioned earlier and either takes back my XT and/or replaces it with a 7200 rpm normal disk with a Seagate badge on it, I can tell you this: Seagate won't be in the running for the secondary drive in my MBP, purely on principle.

I'll do what I need to do to make sure I have the performance out of my systems I need, Seagate can choose to be a part of that spend or not...ball is in their court. Hope they're listening (they don't appear to be...). 

[arumba]

Hi folks,

not only MAC Users are affected by this bug – I am using Windows and also discovered this slowdowns and freezes.

My configuration:

Notebook: Acer Aspire 8920G

Bios Version: 1.16

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9400

Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2-667

OS: Windows 7 64Bit (With or without SP1)

System HDD: Seagate ST95005620AS

Second HDD: Hitachi HTE545050B9A300

I bought the drive about 6 month ago and it did its job very well, but after 4 months I discovered the first slowdowns and freezes.

I've recently upgraded to SD24 last week and the performance has been getting increasingly worse over the past days (several freezes per minute which take 1 to 2 seconds).

I disabled the APM feature but without success but I discovered that the system does not freeze as long as a benchmark like HDTUNE is running on the Seagate drive.

Starting the same benchmark on the Hitachi drive has no effect on the freezes.

I do not think that this is just a firmware bug, because my HDD worked very well during the first 4 months.

[SwapSnake]

Hi,

I also have this problem with frequent "spikes" or 1-2 seconds of freezelag.

Its more frequent in games than in windows, but happens everywhere.

It started to occur after 2 and a half month of frequent use. Actually, it started the same week as I downloaded a really big batch of anime, around 60gig in 2 days.

This is my ASUS G73JW Setup:

CPU: Intel Core i7 2630QM

Memory: 6 GB, 3x2048MB, DDR3, 1333MHz

HDD: Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB

Graphic: Nvidia Geforce GTX 460, 1500 MB, GDDR5

OS: Windows 7 64bit (With or without SP1)

In windows: I notice lag every 2-3 minutes normally. But when I go surfing the web, there's spikes everytime i load a new page or something like that.

In Starcraft 2: The spikes seems to be connected to when a sound needs to be played. And in Starcraft 2, that is everytime I click on a unit =/. Also, the music that plays in the games lobby lags frequently.

In Mass Effect 2: Funnely enough, Mass Effect 2 seems to be quite stable. There is barely no gameplay lag. But text and sound in dialogues syncs really bad, the sound is almost always some seconds to late. And because of that: I never get to hear the end of a sentence...

Tried solutions

I've upgraded from sd22 to sd24 with the command-line-trick that can be found in this forum, didnt help. I've shut down APM and AAP, with no change. I've formatted my drive, installed all new drivers and windows updates and blah blah blah. I have tried alot.

I really do hope that you can solve this problem with just a firmwire. But, like other ppl here, I fear that the disk is broken completely. But hey, isnt Momentus XT supposed to be your new "flagship"? You should really put a lot of resources and effort to solve this as quickly as possible!

Anyway, its nice that you actually answer people here, but you could do that more frequent to.

Joel

[lemminkainen]

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annaylop wrote:

If I'm wrong, and I hope I am, please, tell me, Seagate. But the only credible response that will prove me wrong is if you STAND UP AND DO THE RIGHT THING: MAKE ME WHOLE. That means either in 7-10 days I have a new drive at no cost to me that WORKS or I have a check for what I spent on this doorstop and a box to ship it back to you in - note that none of these options involve me being with a disk to use in my computer or asking me to pony up the cash to provide for one, that's what making your problem right means - I feel awkward having to explain this but I don't see Seagate acting responsibly here. So, what'll it be?

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I agree with annaylop.

I think that an option could be if Seagate will send us a normal 7200 rpm drive so that we can make our computer work.

Then we can continue to give free support to Seagate to troubleshoot the Momentus XT problem.

Lem

[aamp]

I would have to agree. The 500GB XT costs more than a 64GB SSD at the moment. We've paid about £40 more for a built in 4GB SSD that doesn't necessarily work properly. Seagate need to provide better support or lose premium customers!

[arumba]

Hello SwapSnake,

I can confirm that surfing the Web increased the vulnerability for these spikes.

I use the Opera browser, and this program seems to be very susceptible to this problem.

This Browser is quite unusable due to this problems if I open several tabs.

[Fozzie]

Hi guys,

Did Seagate contact someone here ?

Where did STX_NB disappear ?