Momentus XT Hybrid Drive Combines Platters, Flash Memory

[Android1]

A once-dead concept reborn — with a twist.

Early this morning, Seagate lifted the lid on the Momentus XT, a 2.5" hybrid notebook hard drive that combines capacious mechanical platters with speedy flash memory. On the mechanical front, the drive offers 250, 320, or 500GB of storage capacity on platters spinning at 7,200 RPM. Seagate pairs the mechanical storage with 4GB of SLC flash memory, using a scheme it has dubbed Adaptive Memory.

Unlike previous attempts at the hybrid drive concept, the Momentus doesn't rely on Windows to manage the contents of its flash module. Instead, the drive intelligently populates its flash memory based on user access patterns. As one might expect, frequently accessed data is a prime candidate for caching. Adaptive Memory can also favor data that may not be needed as often but is particularly slow to access due to its physical location on the drive platters.

The drive's flash memory isn't used to cache writes. However, the Momentus XT has an ample 32MB DRAM cache to help on that front.

The hybrid drive also comes with a 3Gbps Serial ATA interace and has a standard 9.5-mm height, which should ensure compatibility with most laptops. You can expect to pay $113, $132, and $156 for the 250, 320, and 500GB variants of the drive, respectively.

Source: The Tech Report

[DaNdo]

interesting solution. But if i think again, you could achieve same thing with usb stick and vista/win7 readyboost.

[Android1]

interesting solution. But if i think again, you could achieve same thing with usb stick and vista/win7 readyboost.

That, however, is not nearly as elegant, especially for a laptop.

[ShaidarHaran]

interesting solution. But if i think again, you could achieve same thing with usb stick and vista/win7 readyboost.

That, however, is not nearly as elegant, especially for a laptop.

Not only is it not as elegant, but it is also not at all accurate. Commodity NAND flash is nowhere near as fast as the SLC or MLC NAND used in SSDs.

I like this drive. I hope they introduce desktop variants (hopefully with more NAND) sooner, rather than later.

[Android1]

Not only is it not as elegant, but it is also not at all accurate. Commodity NAND flash is nowhere near as fast as the SLC or MLC NAND used in SSDs.

Is the limitation with the USB 2.0 bus or the flash memory itself?

[ShaidarHaran]

Is the limitation with the USB 2.0 bus or the flash memory itself?

The primary issue is the speed of the NAND flash itself, but if the flash were fast enough it could saturate a single USB connection long before it did the same to a SATA connection.

[Android1]

The primary issue is the speed of the NAND flash itself, but if the flash were fast enough it could saturate a single USB connection long before it did the same to a SATA connection.

Thanks for that.

Bjorn3D has a review up.