The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Momentus XT or X25-M/Optibay?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by evnhvn, May 24, 2010.

  1. evnhvn

    evnhvn Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    31
    Messages:
    82
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I have an X25-M on the way and optibay alternative, should I go for that or return it and get the Momentus XT?
     
    evnhvn, May 24, 2010
    #1
  2. Phil

    Phil Retired

    Reputations:
    4,415
    Messages:
    17,036
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    455
    What does your usage pattern look like?
     
    Phil, May 24, 2010
    #2
  3. evnhvn

    evnhvn Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    31
    Messages:
    82
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I'm a light user, do web surfing, iChat, Skype, iTunes, occasional handbrake encodes for iPhone, photoshop, and probably some music editing software.

    No final cut or gaming. I already processed a return for the x25-m and am getting the xt. 500gb+ssdlike speeds = win for me. and about half the price. and the warranty will not be invalidated (although I wouldn't be too worried about taking the SuperDrive out and the install process).
     
    evnhvn, May 24, 2010
    #3
  4. formerglory

    formerglory Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    168
    Messages:
    394
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I'm planning on swapping out my Hitachi 500GB 7.2kRPM drive for a 500GB XT. I was going to go for the OptiBay/Intel SSD route, but the XT gives me a speed boost with no loss of capacity.

    I might even get two XTs and an Optibay, and do some RAID0 or have one drive for Win7 and one for OS X (I do a fair amount of gaming on my new MBP).
     
    formerglory, May 24, 2010
    #4
  5. k9hydr4

    k9hydr4 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    202
    Messages:
    1,321
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    I might get this for my 1810T-

    Any advantage, in terms of battery life?
     
    k9hydr4, May 24, 2010
    #5
  6. Phil

    Phil Retired

    Reputations:
    4,415
    Messages:
    17,036
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    455
    For light usage it's a good choice I think. You'll get close to SSD performance in booting and launching applications.

    There's only one downside at the moment. Tom's Hardware posted a benchmark where they got 50 minutes less battery life, on 7 hours vs. the Seagate 7200.4. This is measured with a synthetic benchmark though. I'm looking forward to hear real life experiences.

    Going by the only information so far it doesn't look like it. It's possible that you might even loose more battery life if you're 5400rpm drive is very power efficient.

    I'm expecting Laptopmag to come with their review soon, which will include real life battery life numbers.

    It's also possible that thet single platter 250GB Momentus XT will be more power efficient.
     
    Phil, May 24, 2010
    #6
  7. ajreynol

    ajreynol Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    941
    Messages:
    2,555
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    I think I'm going to buy one of these as well and see how it compares to SSD. I wouldn't mind NOT having to use the optibay thing if I don't *have to* in order to get the performance I want. we'll see what happens.
     
    ajreynol, May 24, 2010
    #7
  8. evnhvn

    evnhvn Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    31
    Messages:
    82
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    evnhvn, May 25, 2010
    #8