Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB Hybrid HDD Review

PCMark Vantage

We decided to use PCMark Vantage to benchmark hard drives, as it mimics a number of real-world situations. We ran the test three times on each hybrid drive and have included results for the first and third runs. This is to show the improvement in performance when the drives have had time to “learn” the way we use the PC. Please read on to find the results.

On the Windows Startup test, the OCZ Agility 3 exhibited the best performance by far. However, when considering only the hard drives, the second-generation Momentus XT 750 GB exhibited the best level of performance after three runs. In fact, its performance improved by 118% after it had cached the Windows startup files, beating the first-generation Momentus XT 500 GB by 24%, also after three runs, and the Western Digital Scorpio Black 750 GB by 151%, and the standard Momentus 750 GB by 172 percent.

The Application Loading test yielded very similar results to the Windows Startup test. After the second-generation Momentus XT 750 GB had cached the applications on its SSD portion, the application load time improved by 152%, with a result similar to the one achieved by the first-generation Momentus XT 500 GB, also after three runs. The performance of the second-generation Momentus XT 750 GB after three runs was 227% better than the Western Digital Scorpio Black Momentus 750 GB’s and 236% better than the regular Momentus XT 750 GB’s.

Again, the OCZ Agility 3 exhibited a much better level of performance than the mechanical drives on the Importing Pictures test. Here the performance of the second-generation Momentus XT 750 GB improved by 80% after the drive had “learned” the usage pattern, beating the first-generation drive by 34% on this test, also after three runs. The second-generation Momentus XT 750 GB exhibited performance 48% better than the Western Digital Scorpio Black 750 GB’s and 56% better than the regular Momentus 750 GB’s.