Hybrid Seagate Hard Drive Has Performance Issues

EconolineCrush writes "The launch of Seagate's Momentus XT hard drive was discussed here last week, and for good reason. While not the first hybrid hard drive on the market, the XT is the only one that sheds the Windows ReadyDrive scheme for an OS-independent approach Seagate calls Adaptive Memory. While early coverage of the XT was largely positive, more detailed analysis reveals a number of performance issues, including poor sequential read throughput and an apparent problem with command queuing. In a number of tests, the XT is actually slower than Seagate's year-old Momentus 7200.4, a drive that costs $40 less."

Re:Well

[dimethylxanthine]

Quite a common occurrence with hybrids, actually. There are unique difficulties when cross breeding heteroploid organisms, which manifest in.... oh wait.

Re:Why Can't It Just Act As Write-Back Cache?

[Glonoinha]

I'm curious - what sort of algorithm would you use that can effectively store the data needed for a cache search that can represent 4096 byte sectors in 16 bytes.

As for the 'only time the system will slow down is when you have out-read the cache' - that's exactly the scenario that the OP is describing - massive serial reads on files that are larger than the cache. IIRC the cache was sized on the order of a few Megabytes, and every multimedia file I read all day / all night (music files, video files, gave vobs, etc) is at least that large, most are much larger.

PS - A CS101 undergrad could implement a reasonable implementation in a hour.
Now that's funny. Most first semester CS 101 undergrad students I've met couldn't pour rocks out of a box if the instructions were printed on the underside of the box.

Re:Well

[sparrowhead]

Worst case used to be having a WD and a Seagate drive mounted close to each other. The WD killed the Seagate slowly with it's vibrations while the Seagate fought back with heat