By Elaine J. Hom
Seagate, a storage provider, has launched the second generation of its Momentus XT, a solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) for consumer and commercial laptops. Seagate’s fastest drive yet for PCs, the Momentus XT will be shipped by seven OEMs and is available through Amazon, Canada Computers, CDW, Memory Express, Newegg, and TigerDirect.
The Momentus XT boasts Seagate’s Adaptive Memory, which identifies data usage patterns and moves the most frequently retrieved information to solid state memory for later access. Adaptive Memory also tailers the hard drive performance to each user, as well as the applications they use. The hybrid drive brings together solid state technology and hard disk drives using FAST Factor technologies.
“The combination of these two technologies compensate for each other’s weakness when you combine them and add [Adaptive Memory’s] algorithm,” says Joni Clark, senior product manager at Seagate. “You can drop this drive into any OS, whether it’s XP, Vista, Windows 7, Mac, and [it] will fill everything it needs to make the magic happen.”
According to Clark, the product is ideal for any environment with repeatable patterns, such as “the applicaton rich media person,” she says, “a gamer, or any IT audience striving to build the best and fastest machine.”
Clark also points out the value of this product for the channel. “Traditionally, very few [notebook drives] are going through the channel,” she says. “This drive is the opposite. There’s a larger mix of a channel audience for the product because it’s such a great upgrade solution. A lot of folks are carrying this product and integrating this into the channel. It can take an existing laptop and give you more capacity but also breathe more life into that system.” This kind of upgrade is more cost efficient than buying new systems for employees. All an integrator or solution provider needs to do is swap in this type of SSHD to improve machine performance across the board, not just in terms of storage capacity.
Some features include:
- Speeds of up to 70 percent faster than the previous Momentus drive version, and up to three times faster than a traditional hard disk drive
- Serial ATA 6Gb/second interface
- 8 GB of Single Level Cell NAND flashEasy installation and upgrading for any laptop, desktop, and operating system
- 750 GB of storage capacity
The Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB is shipping at a suggested price of $245. Visit the Seagate information site for more on this SSHD.
For more information, Seagate is holding a live webcast on Tuesday, December 6, at 11 am PST. Register at http://www.seagate.com/MomentusXTWebinar.
