Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I replaced my 500GB 5400rpm WD with this Momentus XT after doing exhausting research. I use my MacBoook Pro laptop for analytical work involving large datsets. Here is why I settled on the Momentus XT vs an SSD. Momentus XT - 4GB SLC SSD integrated into the hard drive for speedy access commonly used files - Although not as fast as an SSD, but soooo much cheaper than 300GB+ of SSD space. - More vibration and a little more noise than my WD 500GB, but not significantly so. - Mac OS X doesn't support TRIM. I was concerned that a SSD drive would slow down significantly overtime without it. - Toms Hardware highly recommended it over other 7200 rpm laptop hard drives. See their review for all the techy details. Note that the integrated SSD is used only for reading, not for writing. It essentially clones your commonly used files on the 4GB SSD. If you are looking for a sweet spot between speed and space this is it. The Momentus has a 4GB SLC SSD integrated into the hard drive which allows for very fast reads of commonly used data. This translates into really fast application loading like an SSD. It uses a learning algorithm to decide what to store on the SSD so it takes some time to get to optimal performance. Most people have a lot of data that is accessed infrequently on their hard drive. Thus an SSD is overkill since there isn't much benefit to to storing infrequently accessed on a really fast drive. If you are accessing almost all of your data all the time (like in a server application) then maybe an SSD is for you. For the rest of us there is the Momentus XT. I am very particular about the noise with my MacBook Pro. The stock 250GB Seagate hard drive my laptop shipped with was virtually undetectable. When I tried the WD 1TB 5400rpm and WD 500GB 5400rpm, I was disappointed to find that they both made audible white noise like that of a small cpu fan. The Momentus 7200rpm makes slightly more noise than the WD drives, but not significantly so. It does produce more vibrations than the 5400rpm drives which you can feel if you put your hand on the laptop case, but I am willing to live with it for the performance gains. I deducted one star for the less than optimal acoustics. Here are some performance specs from my MacBook Pro using Quick Bench. Note that these times do not reflect the benefit of the integrated SSD. There reflect only the performance of the hard drive portion. The throughput is similar to the WD 1TB 5400rpm which I also reviewed, but the random reading/writing is a bit faster. QuickBench(TM) 4.0 Test Results Standard Test Results in MB/Sec Averages: Seq. Read 70.815 Seq. Write 59.756 Ran. Read 17.265 Ran. Write 30.618 Table: (Cycles: 1) < Insert Chart Here > Seq. Read Seq. Write Ran. Read Ran. Write 4 KB 21.829 5.266 0.663 1.675 8 KB 38.852 10.527 1.24 2.857 16 KB 59.379 21.098 2.932 5.685 32 KB 85.593 37.539 5.519 10.918 64 KB 88.714 68.469 9.239 21.527 128 KB 85.232 118.508 17.088 44.092 256 KB 87.634 106.457 29.255 57.775 512 KB 86.992 85.88 36.296 61.612 1024 KB 83.111 84.061 53.157 69.426 Standard Ave 70.815 59.756 17.265 30.618 If you found this review helpful, let me know with your vote below.