Seagate Momentus Thin ST320LT007 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5″ Internal Notebook Hard Drive

Pros: The Seagate Momentus Thin ST320LT07 is a solid contender for 7mm drives, fitting slim laptops with small size requirements. Many laptops are now shipping with tighter requirements for 2.5 inch hard drive dimensions, and this drive is a worthy upgrade. Seeing average read/write speeds of 95/89MB/s, this won’t come close to Solid State performance, but it’s in the upper tier of 2.5 inch platter drives.

This is also one of the quietest 7200rpm drives I’ve ever tested, making nearly a hum and never a clicking sound, even when putting my ear close to the drive. This would be a great pick for any laptop upgrade on a budget, with no added drawbacks, much faster average transfer speed and lower access time over 5400rpm drives.

Cons: It’s worth noting that, while using HD Tune to benchmark, this drive had a higher access time of 17-31ms. This is well above the 4.17ms advertised, however in real world performance this isn’t something to scoff at. Using a faster SATA 6 Gbps connection may provide enough overhead bandwidth to reduce the access time.

With the increased cost to capacity ratio in the last year, the price gap between SSDs and traditional hard drives is closing in. Manufacturers are now squeezing every bit of performance they can out of platter drives, but they are still far behind solid states in speed and access time. It’s very difficult to justify the added capacity over speed and reliability when solid state drives are in the next price bracket up. Consider your needs when deciding on an upgrade, as SSDs are in the next price bracket up with significant performance increases.

Overall Review: For convenience, I’ve included benchmark tests below. Tests were achieved over an average of 5 runs in HD Tune using a SATA 3.0Gb/s connection.

Read speed benchmarks:
Minimum transfer speed: 56 MB/s
Maximum transfer speed: 120 MB/s
Access time (average): 17.5 ms
Burst rate: 153MB
IOPS (Random): 41
Access time (Random): 24.3ms

Writespeed benchmarks:
Minimum transfer speed: 16.8 MB/s
Maximum transfer speed: 112.5 MB/s
Burst rate: 87.6 Mb/s
IOPS (Random): 31
Access time (Random): 31.4ms

Pros: This drive is thin, quiet, and light. I installed Windows on it in my Thinkpad T520 with no issues. This skinny little Seagate works just as well as the original WD drive, and is even quieter.
According to HD Tune, the maximum transfer rate achieved was 121 MB/s with a minimum of 60.2, and a 96.5 MB/s average rate.
It’s better than my Scorpio Blue, and costs about the same.

Cons: The drive is slightly too thin to fit into my external enclosure, which uses rubber shims to hold the drive in place. This is not the fault of the drive, rather the enclosure. A typical laptop drive is too thick, and this one is just slightly too thin to fit tightly.

Overall Review: Time will tell, but this seems to be a very good drive. I really need more storage space in my Thinkpad, and now I have no reason not to buy an adapter so I can replace my optical drive for more storage.

Pros: Solid choice for a laptop drive Sata2 and 7200 rpms.
When adding a 2nd hard drive ,you will have no regrets or surprises with a slim 2.5 drive.
Fits in just about any bay from laptops to micro systems.Gets a 5.9 in WEI on windows 7.
I was getting about 105-110 read/write speeds which is very good for a non ssd laptop drive.
You really don’t need a Sata3 laptop drive unless you are one of the few that has Sata 3 controllers on your motherboard.

Cons: Not a con but all hard drive prices(post flood) still are a bit to high.

Overall Review: I have a Tosiba mk5056gsy also a very good 7200 sata2 hd and this Seagate is just a tad faster. I had a problem with adding 2nd hard drives in laptop before as laptop manufacturers sometime use 2 different size bays and the reg 9mm drives have a poor fit ,this 7mm drive leaves you room to spare in just in case of any hard drive bay size snafus.

Pros: +At the time of this Review, the Momentus Thin 320GB Hard Drive is the lowest price available for a similar drive (59.99).
+This drive has a z-height that’s 2.5 mm shorter than the standard. It fit perfectly in my Acer 3830T Laptop.
+The AF 4K HDs are meant to maximize storage on the drives platter and they are the industry standard. They also can cause problems with older OS’s that need a 512b/sector based drive (eg. Winxp). Seagate’s solution to this is SmartAlign Technology. This tech does the 4K to 512b emulation on the fly so that it doesn’t matter which OS you use.
See Other Thoughts for Benchmarks.

Cons: All types of Emulation (including SmartAlign) will allow you to use this drive on older OS’s, but at the cost of some performance.
**This shouldn’t affect Win Vista/7 or any other new OS users.

Overall Review: Benchmark Read:
58.2 MB/s min – 119.5 MB/s max – 94.2 MB/s Avg
Access Time: 17.4ms – Burst Rate 145.7 MB/s – CPU Usage 3.0%

Benchmark Write:
55.8 MB/s Minimum – 110.5 MB/s Maximum – 89.7 MB/s Avg
Access Time: 16.8 – Burst Rate 78.6 MB/s – CPU usage 4.9%

File Benchmark:
Sequential Read 96763 KB/s | Write 95373 KB/s
4 KB random single Read 100 IOPS | Write 217 IOPS
4 KB random multi Read 173 IOPS | Write 185 IOPS

Read burst rate:
2727 IOPS – 0.367 ms – 170.427 MB/s
Write burst rate:
948 IOPS – 1.055 MS – 59.244 MB/s

Random Read Access:
41 IOPS – Avg Access Time 24.135 ms – Max Access Time 50.825 ms – Avg Speed 21.023 MB/s

Random Write Access:
32 IOPS – Avg Access Time 30.386 ms – Max Access Time 128.498 ms – Avg Speed 16.698 MB/s

*Benchmarked using HD Tune Pro

Windows 7 HP 64Bit – Acer 3830T laptop (8Gb Ram upgrade):
Avg. Time from Bios to Login: 23.5 seconds
Avg. Time from Login to Desktop (Eset Smart Security Loaded): 4.5 seconds

Pros: Writing a two-week HDD review is practically an oxymoron — the #1 thing we all want in a hard drive is reliability. A hard drive isn’t worth the screws that hold it together if it requires an RMA every six months, no matter how fast or quiet it is inbetween.

Either way, knowing what to expect from a hard drive is half the battle, so here is what you need to know. If you thought a 7200RPM single-platter drive couldn’t also be quiet, cool, and sip on power, you’ll be surprised to see this!

– SINGLE PLATTER slim design. Most laptop drives have two platters — not favorable!
– Max read ~110-120MB/s, average ~95MB/s — keeps pace with most desktop hard drives
– ‘Slim’ does not mean ‘hot’ in this case. Drive remains under 45°C in my cramped 12″ Thinkpad
– Quiet as a mouse’s fart; it is plain-and-simple completely inaudible even within a few inches
– No noticeable vibrations despite being a 7200RPM drive
– Power consumption is <2.5W at its peak, right in stride with other drives
– Spin-up time is nearly immediate; quickly resumes operation from standby
– Slim enough for use in Ultrabooks and other super-skinny notebooks!

Cons: Reliability has yet to be determined. However, based on initial quality, Seagate hasn’t given us any reason to be concerned about this. See below…

Overall Review: If Seagate has also left a bad taste in your mouth after the firmware bugs running rampant a few years back, remember that these were only in a few of their drive models; all drive manufacturers have had a few flawed drives in their history.

HP’s Business-class workstations commonly include Seagate drives and I still see them surpassing the 30-40,000 hour mark, outlasting the workstation they were installed in.

Seagate also purchased Samsung’s hard drive division at the beginning of this year — even more reason for confidence in the new drives they’re rolling out now.

All things considered, I give this drive a stamp of approval on initial quality and a thumbs-up on potential long-term reliability.

Pros: Very thin, fast 7200 rpm, 16384 kb buffer size,and Absolutely silent!
Drive arrived very quickly, and very well packaged

Cons: 4 degrees warmer(40) than standard 9.5 mm due to it very thin profile, Sata-II

Overall Review: I really like this drive due its thin profile, high specs,7200rpm,and 16384 buffer size
Here are the benchmarks:
Test System: ASUS G74SX-BBK7
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate
Software used: Everest Ultimate Edition
Linear Read (Begin) 119.9MB/s
Linear Read (Middle) 96.3MB/s
Linear Read (End) 59.3MB/s
Random Read 96.7MB/s
Buffered Read 157.0MB/s
Average Read Access 16.64ms
Boot time is really good, just 36 seconds. In
my opinion this is a very fast 2.5″ drive compared to other 7200rpm 2.5″ i have used in the past. Game load time were excellent, BF3,Crysis2,and MF3.
I am going to be using this drive in my Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA for its low power draw,thin profile,and size.

Pros: This Seagate 2.5 format drive is fast, taking advantage of SATA 3.0 Gb/s making it an ideal drive for high end laptops. While it won’t go head to head with an SSD unit it’s the closes you’ll come to an SSD with a traditional HD. Traditional 2.5 format HD get very hot this unit only got hot when being used in full copy/write mode none stop with 30 Gb file transfers. Even so compared to other drives I was able to touch the drive without the fire of getting my fingers and hands singed.

Cons: Non that I can find with the HD but I wonder when Seagate will get into the SSD world, if they are in it I have yet to hear of it or see a single unit for sale.

Overall Review: Seagate has produced one very fast and well thought out 2.5 HD that will satisfy those of us who want the speed, silent operation with enough room to store those large files we have to carry at one point or other.
Nice job Seagate.

Pros: This is a compact powerhouse hard drive. First, I installed this into a jam-packed MATX system for additional storage space. I had no drive pay room, so I velcroed it to the side panel and hooked it up. It performed almost as well as the standard 7,200 rpm drives already installed and they have 64 meg cache while the Seagate has only a 16 meg cache. Later, I installed this in my wife’s laptop to replace her old 5,400 rpm unit. The difference was fantastic. It loaded Win 7 in a heartbeat (for a laptop) and didn’t seem to get very hot doing it. The difference in overall performance is quite noticeable. If you are looking for a hard drive for any unit that takes a 2.5 inch form factor or a nice drive to squeeze into a very tight space, this is the one for you. The cost performance ratio is off the chart. If you’ve been waiting and can’t afford an SSD, this is the one to get.

Cons: Not really a con, but would like to see units with a higher cache.

Overall Review: This is a fantastic unit for the size and price. When I received it I started thinking of the various ways this could be used. I used it in two different environments and it performed very well in both. I’m sure, given enough time I could think of other ways this could be used.