I’m not about to inundate you with all of the positive stories about Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid drive, but this one on geeknewscentral.com caught my eye. Probably because of all the activity around Momentus XT and upgrading MacBook Pro systems.
Why this particular story caught my interest was the fact that this particular user was experiencing overheating issues causing his system to shutdown automatically. First, I was like, “uh-oh, what is going on here?”, of course I read on.
The problem was not the drive itself, it was the system. Overtime, system chassis whether they are laptops or desktops can get filled with dust and debris leading to improper airflow over the processor, memory, drive, everything. When these components get too hot, they are smart enough to shut down saving the user from catastrophic loss.
Luckily, his local Mac service center was able to clean out his system, and in the process recommend a drive upgrade to Momentus XT solid state hybrid (SSHD) technology….and so he says, “Does it work? All I can say is “Wow!” I am amazed at the performance boost. The machine boots quicker, and overall it has a much more snappy feel. The Seagate Momentous XT 500 gigabyte hard drive is worth every penny as an upgrade.”
The moral of this story…first, if your system is running slow, clean it! I like to take some canned air to my desktop system at least once every 3 months, and it does make a difference when fans can flow freely and heat can get dissipated. Second, if you are considering a drive upgrade, look for stories like these to help you make the best purchase for your needs.
How dirty slow is your PC?
Image by: http://www.custom-computers.com/computer-cleaning/
[...] A Momentus XT story of a system overheating Best Buy customers ask for SSHD Need a 3.0TB ready motherboard? [...]
Hey! It is no MacBook Pro on the picture but veeery old desktop PC.
Retired, and on a low budget, I had received a damaged Toshiba Satellite Laptop. The original owner had walked on it, breaking the screen. Naturally the retailer told them that it would cost more to repair than replace.
Being an inveterate electronic troubleshooter and scavenger, I said”Thank-yuou very much!” and proceeded to open, document, photograph to death and repair the laptop.
Had I been paid a fair rate to repair this for someone else, of course that value would have been higher that the cost of replacement, however I do not have to count the value of my time
(- many hours over some weeks.
The parts I ordered from a Canadian Supplier (easier as I am in Canada). The total cash outlay was about $160.00, considerably less than a replacement laptop would have retailed for here.
Added to the broken screen and one other electronic part, there was a certain amount of mechanical damage to the inside of the case. This I modified, resulting in the need for a few small pattern nuts and screws to show outside the case, but I don’t mind the cosmetic blemishes.
Up and running, but not with Vista that it had originally used. It ran with Fedora 13 at the time – and then would not run Fedora 14.
After a short time, I was running out of Hard drive space with the 160 Gb. drive that was in it…
That is when I saw Seagate’s Momentus drives. Of the 3 sizes, the price difference was so small that I felt the lower 2 sizes were almost a nuisance, and bought the 500 Gb. for about $C130.00 at the time.
When I installed Fedora 13 on the new drive, it flew, and I had more adequate space for Fedora and some of my data. also, Seagate’s hybrid interface manages the Linux swap partition without the need for special partitioning as I have with a straight SSD on my desktop #1 machine where that SSD is the XP boot drive as well as the Fedora 14 64 bit swap partition (the boot image on that machine is on a separate HD, 1 of 4.)
For the rest, I have a 250 Gb. 2.5″ external drive on a Firewire box and I soon got an eSATA 2.5″ box for the old 160 Gb. as well as a media bus card for the eSATA.
With some more of my self created electrical and electronic gear, I can run all this and more on a coffee shop table top, fully powered, and having transported it all by public transit for an easy 20 miles each way.
As if this wasn’t the cat’s meow, when Fedora went to do its automatic upgrades, it automatically upgraded the whole system to Fedora 15 when before it would not even have accepted Fedora 14.
I know I can easily run one of these as an upgrade to my Second desktop, and for the first, when I buy the next MB, the SATA600 SSD on No.1 which is 2 generations younger than the MB will go to the new machine while I may well replace it with a 500 Gb. Momentus, since SATA300 SSD’s are in short supply.
All in all, I think this puts me in a “Solid State!”
Thank you for sharing your story Bruce!