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CES: Seagate demos Momentus XT hybrid drive

At CES, Seagate demonstrates the performance of the Momentus XT hybrid drive and suggests that it will be widely adopted by hardware vendors this year.

Dong Ngo SF Labs Manager, Editor / Reviews
CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now manages CNET San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D printers, networking/storage devices, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world.
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Dong Ngo
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Watch this: Seagate Momentus XT demo

LAS VEGAS--Since the review of the Seagate Momentus XT, the first and only mass-produced solid-state hybrid hard drive on the market, I've received many e-mails asking when computer makers will start building it into machines. I have the answer now.

The summary of the Momentus XT's performance. The computer took just 21 seconds to boot with the drive. Check out the video to see how much longer the other computer took to do the same tasks.
The summary of the Momentus XT's performance. The computer took just 21 seconds to boot with the drive. Check out the video to see how much longer the other computer took to do the same tasks. Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET

At CES 2011, Seagate demoed the performance of the 7200rpm Momentum XT drive against a regular 5400rpm hard drive. The demonstration was done with two Asus laptops with exactly the same specs, other than the main hard drives.

The demo consists of a script that automatically executed a series of tasks as soon as the computers booted up and measured how long the computers would take to finish them. This, by the way, is very similar to how CNET Labs tests computers for reviews. The result, well, as you might have expected, was heavily in favor of the Momentus XT.

That's nothing new. What's new is that Seagate said the drive will be adopted by Dell and Asus this year and will be available for consumers to customize their system with, for select high-end desktop and laptop computers. If you're buying a machine with this option, the Momentus XT is an easy choice as it carries a very similar price tag to a traditional hard drive of the same storage space (500GB) and spinning speed (7200rpm).

If you've not heard of the Momentus XT internal hard drive, it's worth checking out CNET's full review. Those who want a similar hybrid solution with a much larger amount of storage, however, should wait for the system that supports Marvell's new HyperDuo hybrid storage controller.