When first released several years ago, hybrid disk drives – which have large NAND flash cache to boost performance – did not become popular. But Seagate believes that maturity of technology along with increased performance will help to make the newly launched Momentus XT hybrid drive to become accepted on the mass market.

“We see the Momentus XT drive as a game changer, a product heralding a new generation of hard drives that combine SSD and HDD capabilities so that laptop users don’t have to make trade-offs on speed, cost or capacity. The feedback we’ve received from customers, industry experts and early reviews has been overwhelmingly positive, and Seagate will continue to drive innovation that provides more value and a better computing experience to consumers,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of sales, marketing and product line management. “.”

Seagate Momentus XT 2.5” hard drive feature 250GB, 320GB or 500GB capacities, 4GB of flash memory, 32MB DRAM cache as well as 7200rpm spindle speed. Seagate declares 4.17ms average latency, 11ms random read seek time, 13ms random write speed time and 300MB/s I/O data transfer rate.

The Momentus XT drive features Adaptive Memory – a new technology from Seagate that learns and optimizes the drive’s performance to each user by moving frequently used information into the flash memory for faster access. The manufacturer claims that Momentus XT hybrid drive boots up to 100% faster than traditional 5400RPM drives, the mainstream spin speed for laptop PCs, and sets new benchmarks for real-world system performance for laptops and gaming systems.

The Momentus XT drive installs as easily as a traditional 9.5mm-high notebook drive for new systems or laptop upgrades and, unlike early hybrid drives, operates independently of the operating system and the motherboard chipset.

“For notebook PC users looking forward to faster PC performance without sacrificing storage capacity or affordability, now there’s an option. Seagate’s new Momentus XT drive is the first storage device for notebook PCs that raises the bar for affordable capacity and performance,” said John Rydning, IDC’s research director for hard disk drives.

Seagate on Monday announced channel and OEM shipments.

Tags: Seagate, Momentus, HDD