Seagate Momentus 750GB 7200rpm Hard Drive Review Discussion

by Philip Bloem

Today we are going to have a look at the industry's first 750GB 7200rpm notebook hard drive: the Seagate Momentus ST9750420AS. This model has two 375GB platters inside a normal 2.5” 9.5mm high case. That's a total of 750GB spinning at 7200 revolutions per minute. Could this be the ultimate notebook hard drive? Read on to find out.

Read the full content of this Article: Seagate Momentus 750GB 7200rpm Hard Drive Review

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Good review Phil! I must say I'm a happy camper so far with my Momentus XT. Thanks to reviews like these, people can make the best decision when it comes to shopping for a new hard drive

 

Nice concise review, Phil. SR's review mirrors your opinion -- it's a good option for those looking for a larger storage drive; however, it can't compete on performance vs. the fastest 7200RPM notebook drives.

I wonder how WD's 750GB Black will compare.

 

Great! It is outperforming 5400rpm drives.

Thanks for the review.

I think that will be far better than Seagate since WD 500GB black is even better than this one. Add the 50% increase in the data density on top of that...



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WD Blue 640GB and especially the 750GB are significantly slower than the WD Blue 500GB, even though they have a higher data density.

It will be interesting to see if the 750GB Black can beat the 500GB Black in real life. I personally doubt it. Most drives above 500GB seem to take a performance hit.

 

Ya theres some factor here that defies logic.

The drive has larger platters and spins faster but is slower?

its slower than a drive with smaller platter that goes at 5400 rpm
Theres a 750 gb 5400 rpm hd that hitachi just broughht to market i wonder if its faster than this one.

Overall this review does a good job of selling you a momentus xt or a scorpio black.

Or even the other two drives

 

Increased data density can come at a cost. Take a one page document that's typed up completely in 8 point font. How long will it take you to find a single word in that document? Now take a one page document that's completely typed up in 12 point font. How long will it take you to find a single word in that document? The point being that the tricks they've had to do to squeeze 375 GB onto a single platter may also be affecting the speed of the drive.

Seagate also isn't usually known for having the fastest drives, although they do tend to be the first to market with new technology... with the concomitant issues.

 

And I was hoping 1TB 2 platter drive will twice as fast as 500GB 2 platter drive...

 

As usual, a very nice review.

However, I have been reading user reviews/remarks on Newegg. And it looks like Seagate in general doesn't make very reliable drives. In addition, is it just me or the hard drives with larger capacities tend to be LESS reliable then the ones with lower (for example, 750 or 500GB vs 160GB)?

I am aware this would be hard (or impossible) to test in a review - presumably it will only show up during months or a year/two of usage. In terms of long term reliability (say 2-4 years) what's a better choice?

I'm looking to buy some kind of 2.5" HD for storage, which I believe is most people are going to be looking for, since the Momentus XT obliterates HDs in performance. So I am not that interested into squeezing the maximum of the performance, but more into having a quiet, colder and a reliable drive.

 

Yes there is data that hard drives with higher capacities are less reliable than ones with lower ones.

Ya theres some recent russianstudy that would tell you western digital and hitachi are the way to go.

The average seagate in the study made it 1.5 years and the average hitachi made it 6 years.

They also did not have a hitachi in the study that failed from manufacturer defects.

 

I almost felt bad about my 500gb drive there for a second.

 

An excellent review Phil, real usage scenario tests beat any type of benchmark, your selection of tests is spot on.

A bit disappointed at the 750GB Seagate compared to the WD, that's a fair sort of performance deficit, wonder if one of Seagates world famous firmware upgrades will improve things for it.

It does show the XT in a good light, I consider it an amazing value upgrade compared to obsessing over spending another $300 on a cpu that has a very limited set of scenario's where the difference can actually be felt

 

Not suprised... still a long way to go till we see a fast and proper 750GB hard drive.

Panther214

 

Thanks for the compliment Weegie. I wish more sites would run their benchmarks this way on a laptop.

Anyone looking for a 750GB drive would probably be better off with the WD 750GB Black. Going by Techreport.com it's faster than the Seagate. Techreport still uses a desktop for their benchmarks though, but in this case I don't think it will make a lot of difference.