Perfect Notebook Storage: Seven 2.5” 500 GB Drives

Seagate Momentus 5400.6

Seagate has already gone through five model generations that all ran at 5,400 RPM; the Momentus 5400.6 is its sixth product. The drives utilize two platters and come with 8 MB cache and a SATA/300 interface with NCQ support. The 98.8 g drive weight is less than other drives’ total weight, but the difference should not matter much. The same applies for the operating range, which is 0-60°C, while most other drives are specified for 5-55°C. Seagate’s G-force protection feature is available for several models of the Momentus 5400.6 as well.

We measured access time of 18.6 ms, which is an average result. Western Digital proves that it can be done faster, but most others do not deliver significantly shorter access time either. Although the 83.2 MB/s peak read throughput does not beat Hitachi’s 84.7 MB/s, the average and minimum sequential read throughput are top of the class, only beaten by the 7,200 RPM Momentus 7200.4. The Momentus 5400.6 also happens to dominate our streaming read test by a significant margin, but it doesn’t dominate the streaming write test. I/O performance is great, only beaten by the WD drive in some tests, and the new Momentus shows strong application performance in most PCMark Vantage HDD tests.

Seagate offers 500, 320, 250, 160, and 120 GB capacity points. Models ending in –G have the built-in G-force protection system and come with an acceleration sensor to park the heads if strong acceleration is detected.

You can find more information on the Seagate Web site.