Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB

Power savings is the big idea behind Seagate’s newest consumer laptop drive, but don’t think for a moment that its performance isn’t up to scratch. Although it won’t make recent SSDs scurry for cover, there’s a lot to like in the Momentus 7200.4’s benchmark results. (That is, if you can push Seagate’s recent firmware debacle with the Barracuda 7200.11 and other drives out of your mind.) The dollars-per-GB ratio still heavily favors hard drives such as this one, even if an SSD such as Solidata’s X2-512 can match it in capacity. And although eminent tech journalists have rightfully declared that a good SSD is currently the PC upgrade with the most noticeable across-the-board performance boost, most users would still rather pay $145 for 500GB than $1,999. With fluid dynamic bearings, a head offload ramp, and various power management techniques, the 7200.4 manages to eke out a living on slightly more than a couple of watts. In fact, Seagate claims that it’s the most power-sipping 7,200rpm laptop drive around. Like its 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB brethren, this 500GB Momentus 7200.4 (model ST9500420AS) features a 16MB cache. For a hard drive, the Momentus 7200.4 is quiet, speedy, spacious, tough, and green-ish.

Specs: 16MB cache; 7,200rpm; 3Gbps SATA; NCQ; 11ms advertised random seek time; 9.5mm thickness; 600,000 load/unload cycles; 0.69 to 2.2W; 23 to 27dBA; 350G/2ms operating, 100G/1ms non-operating shock tolerance; 4 heads/2 disks; RoHS; three-year warranty

Benchmark Results
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB
PCMark Vantage 1.0.0 (Nov 07 patch)
HDD score (points) 4129
Defender (MBps) 18
Gaming (MBps) 12
Photo Gallery (MBps) 42
Vista startup (MBps) 17
Movie Maker edit (MBps) 32
Win Media Ctr (MBps) 95
WMP music add (MBps) 9
App loading (MBps) 5
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, Long Bench
Read, avg/max (MBps) 87/110
Write, avg/max (MBps) 85/111
Random access (ms) 15.4
Burst read (MBps) 205.2
CPU utilization (%) 2
Iometer 2006.07.27
File Server (IOps) 95
Web Server (IOps) 121
* Test system specs match those used
in the Solidata X2-512 review.

Source of Information : CPU Magazine 07 2009