Seagate Momentus XT
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We have collected 18 reviews of the Seagate Momentus XT. Experts rate Seagate Momentus XT 8.4/10. Reviewsor.com helps you find reviews, best prices, user reviews of the Seagate Momentus XT and Seagate Hard drives.
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Seagate Momentus XT Reviews
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB 2nd Generation review
Solid-state drives offer a considerable performance advantage over hard drives, but they cost a lot more. Replacing a MacBook Pro's hard drive with a similar-capacity SSD could cost as much as the notebook, while a smaller, more affordable model might leave you short of storage space. Hybrid drives such as Seagate's Momentus XT are designed to resolve this dilemma. By combining a large solid-state memory cache with a regular hard drive, it offers a performance close to that of an SSD at a cost-per-GB that's more like a HDD. This second-generation Momentus XT is 750GB instead of the original Momentus XT 500GB, and the non-volatile cache is expanded to 8GB, up from 4GB. The SATA bus is now 6Gbps, and the hard drive speed remains at 7,200rps. A bootable image resides on the flash memory, giving it much faster start-up times than a standard hard drive. In our tests, booting a clean Lion install on a 2011 MacBook Pro took less than 26 seconds, compared to 39 seconds using its factory-installed hard drive. The hybrid's random read/write scores of 20.433/47.228MB/s roundly trounced the original hard drive's 17.202/16.046MB/s too. If you want to boost performance without sacrificing storage, a hybrid's the way to go.
Seagate Momentus XT
Some things never change: Even in the wake of the recent Thailand flooding that's caused a major spike in hardware prices, hard drives remain a better deal than solid-state drives (SSDs) when it comes to capacity, and SSDs still stomp them in terms of speed. Seagate made a major attempt to achieve the best of both worlds a year and a half ago when it released its Momentus XT hybrid drive, which fused a spinning drive's space with SSD's near-instantaneous flash memory. Now Seagate is revisiting the concept with a new Momentus XT ($245 list) that's bigger (750GB as opposed to 500GB) and supposedly even faster. Market shifts in the last year have made it less necessary for some users, but it remains an outstanding way to accelerate your system with a minimum of effort. Design and FeaturesIn most ways, the Momentus XT remains a fairly standard drive. Its 2.5-inch form factor makes it ideal for laptops (and its 9.5mm height helps it in that areas as well), though of course there's no reason it can't be used in desktops as well. The hard drive portion spins at 7,200rpm (good for laptops), and there's 32MB of DRAM cache on board as well. From there, things get considerably more interesting.
Seagate Momentus XT (750GB) Review
With speeds increasing and prices dropping, more and more users are upgrading their notebooks to solid state drives. But if you need much more than 128GB of storage, the cost of a larger SSD can be quite prohibitive--in some cases, well over $1,000. Those who want both high storage capacity and fast speeds without a huge bill will appreciate the $245 Seagate Momentus XT. This 7,200-rpm, 750GB drive comes with 8GB of Flash memory that seamlessly caches your most frequently used files for improved app opens and boots, resulting in speeds that fall just short of a solid state drive.On the surface, the Seagate Momentus XT looks like a typical 7,200-rpm hard drive, but in addition to its 750GB of magnetic media, the device has 8GB of solid state storage that's made out of high-quality SLC flash memory. This 8GB segment isn't visible to the user or the operating system, but the XT's unique firmware uses it to cache frequently accessed file. Because start times are so important, the XT uses an undisclosed portion of that 8GB just to cache Windows boot files.The first time you open a program or file, you'll experience only 7,200-rpm hard drive speeds.
Seagate Momentus XT
The Seagate Momentus XT (second generation) is a worthy upgrade to the original Momentus XT that was released more than a year ago. The new drive now comes with twice the amount of flash memory (also known as solid-state storage) and offers 50 percent more storage space. Performance-wise, the new hybrid drive is almost identical to most SSDs in terms of boot, wake-up time, and application loading. When it comes to copying a large amount of data from one place to another, however, it's just about average among all hard drives. However, the drive isn't designed for data transferring, it's mostly designed to be used as the main drive of a computer that hosts the operating system. The new Momentus XT looks exactly the same as the previous version, which is basically like any other standard SATA 2.5-inch internal hard drive. The drive is the standard 9mm thick, so it should fit all storage slots that use 2.5-inch hard drives. In short, just from its looks, nobody can say that it's not a regular hard drive. On the inside, however, the drive is anything but regular. This is a drive that comes with 8GB of high-speed single-cell flash memory--the type of flash memory used in enterprise-grade SSDs--on top of a regular platter-based storage.
Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 Hybrid 750GB Review
Over the past couple of years the Solid State Hard Drive has been chipping away at the market traditionally dominated by mechanical platter equipped hard disk drives. The performance of Solid State Drives for the most part has far out paced that of mechanical drives with spindle speeds of up to 10,000RPM. The stellar performance curve delivered by the Solid State Drive is not without its own liabilities in terms of longevity, cost and capacity. Seagate has been working to overcome the liabilities of the mechanical drive and have delivered several generations of hybrid drives that incorporate a small amount of robust SLC NAND coupled with a larger capacity mechanical drive. By using the NAND as a means to cache frequently used programs the access time to the most frequently used programs are significantly reduced without the cost of a full on Solid State drive. Seagate's newest Momentus XT Hybrid 750GB drive is the next generation of this technology that is improved with new FAST (Flash Assisted Storage) algorithms to generate Solid State drive performance for an improved user experience.
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Review
In the storage world, nothing matches a solid-state drive for speed, and nothing matches a mechanical hard drive for capacity and price per gigabyte. Recognizing these two great tastes would go great together, many vendors have attempted to find the perfect hybrid storage solution, with variable—and often clunky—results. Seagate’s Momentus XT, which we first reviewed in September 2010, offered a 500GB 2.5-inch drive with 4GB of NAND flash with an adaptive algorithm to ensure that the most frequently used files are mirrored in the NAND. This means your boot drive feels faster than a mechanical drive, if only for the stuff you use the most. We liked the first Momentus, but complained that it could use more NAND. Seagate aims to remedy that complaint with this new Momentus. The Momentus XT ups the mechanical portion of the drive to 750GB, while doubling the NAND cache to 8GB. The SATA controller is now 6Gb/s, the industry standard for all new drives. Unlike other hybrid solutions, the onboard controller performs the entire caching computation, so there’s no CPU hit. And there are no weird driver issues or frustrating installation procedures—we’re looking at you, OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid. Seagate’s adaptive memory algorithm simply moves the most-accessed LBAs to the NAND cache.
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive
Seagate's first Momentus XT hybrid drive arrived about a year and a half ago. The original drive featured a 500GB hard drive paired to 4GB of SLC NAND flash and a SATA 3.0 interface. At the time of its release, the original Momentus XT turned out to be a rather compelling product. Its price was relatively low and Seagate's adaptive memory technology \"just worked”, which resulted in increased performance that was seamless to the end-user, regardless of the OS being used. Today Seagate is ready to reveal its next iteration of the Momentus XT. The updated version of the drive we'll be showing you here today features a 750GB storage capacity, with 8GB of SLC NAND flash, and a faster SATA 6.0Gbps interface. Much of the underlying technology is similar, but this new drive has more magnetic storage, more flash memory, a speedier interface, and its adaptive memory algorithms and hybrid data management tools--dubbed Fast Factor--have been tweaked for better real-world performance versus the original. Full specifications are below, with a performance profile to follow... The Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Drive As we've mentioned, the Seagate Momentus XT 750GB drive features 8GB of integrated SLC NAND flash, linked to the traditional platter-based storage via an intelligent controller.
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Gen 2 (ST750LX003)
Seagate has sold over 1 million of the first generation Momentus XT hybrid hard drive. The Momentus XT was a big success that finally brought a hybrid hard drive to the market, striking a good balance of performance, price, and storage capacity. We all know that SSD's are the undisputed leader in performance. However, despite the fact that SSD pricing has been dropping significantly over the last year, it is still relative expensive at approximately $1.5-$2 per gigabyte of storage, and the price skyrockets as capacity. It is unlikely that we will ever see SSD prices fall to the range of mechanical drives ($0.05 per gigabyte). However, even if we assume pricing is not an issue, we still face the problem of storage capacity. Not only SSDs do have a lower price-to-capacity ratio, their storage capacity also pales in comparison to that of mechanical drives. The largest SSD with native SATA interface has 1TB of storage capacity (OCZ Colossus), which is a tiny volume compared to 3TB mechanical drives. As it was, the OCZ Colossus was expensive and did not stay in the market for long. Even if we compare SSD's against 2.5" form factor mechanical drives, a hard drive will still offer twice the capacity of the SSD.
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
As computer technology continues to advance, there is no doubt that the trends toward mobility and portability are by far the largest on vendor minds. Being tied to a desktop is quickly becoming something that many people just cannot do. The world is undeniably heading towards a computerized future and I even foresee the day in my lifetime that hand-writing will become obsolete. With even elementary schools beginning to focus heavily on the computer as a tool, there is no doubt we'll rely on some form of computer for everyday life needs sooner rather than later. One of the major stumbling blocks has been the fact that portable computers were just not powerful enough to fulfill the needs of most users. That is no doubt been untrue for some time. The modern processor has been able to scale down in power needs quite well and there are a plethora of low budget high-power notebooks/netbooks available for our consumption. Using a portable PC as a desktop replacement is now not only a viable option, it is an option even the mass market can consider. The other major area of concern has been storage space.
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB review
Seagate's magniloquently monikered Momentous XT has finally arrived in the TechRadar lab, sporting both traditional spinning platters and a chunk of flash memory, resurrecting a concept we'd long dismissed as vapourware. It's the first hybrid drive we've seen for years: a statement which will make younger readers ask, what's a hybrid drive?Back before solid state drives became the preferred option for every laptop from the ASUS EeePC to the Alienware M11x, hybrid storage was the Next Big Thing that everyone was excited about.Drives made entirely of flash memory, like the Kingston V+ series, had been conceived and generally approved of, but everyone assumed they'd be too expensive to be of any practical use for quite some time to come.While we waited for NAND flash prices to come down, so the theory went, hybrid drives like the Seagate Momentous XT would help sate demand for more performance. Hybrids have both spinning platters for large amounts of cheap storage, and a chunk of solid state memory for speedy access and a performance boost.
Reviews: Internal Hard Drives
We were lucky enough to test what is currently the largest available version, which has 500 GB, but the Momentous XT also comes in 250 GB and 320 GB versions. They all use a 3 Gbps SATA-2 interface, have 32 MB of cache and come in the 2.5'' format allowing them to fit into a laptop or desktop PC. The hard drives spin at 7200 rpm, but the most interesting element is the 4 GB of flash memory that makes these drives hybrid devices. The SLC type memory should have a better lifespan than the MLC found in other SSDs. Management of the hybrid drive is totally invisible to the user, who only sees a single hard drive. The Momentus XT handles the flash memory itself, gradually storing small, frequently-used files there so they can be accessed more quickly. Seagate's Adaptive Memory Technology relies on an algorithm which optimizes the storage of different types of file. That means performance changes over time as you continue to use the Momentus XT. We'll start our review by reporting our initial measurements, before looking at how its performance evolves over time. Pure performance Before we start, we should remind you that unlike our final score, this part of the review is based on a comparison with all of the hard drives we have tested, including the most powerful SSD models.
Seagate Momentus XT Review
As storage goes, the choices for your new drive have generally been pretty straightforward. On the one side there are traditional HDDs, mechanical drives offering plentiful capacity but with performance and ruggedness compromises; on the other, there are SSDs, which address the speed and sturdiness questions, but are far more expensive per gigabyte. Into the middle comes the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid, a platter-based HDD paired with flash memory that, the company promises, can give SSD-style performance with the relative low cost of an HDD. Too good to be true? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut. Seagate start off with their Momentus 7200 HDD - available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB capacities - which as the name suggests spins at 7,200rpm; it has 32MB of cache and a SATA 3Gb/s interface. To that they add 4GB of solid state SLC NAND flash storage, all in a 2.5-inch drive that's 9.7mm thick. Naturally there's more to it than just two types of storage bolted together. Sitting in-between is Seagate's Adaptive Memory technology, which basically tracks which applications and data are most frequently accessed and then moves them to the 4G of flash storage.
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Drive
We got the first hints that Seagate was planning a hybrid hard drive when, in response to an offhand question last year, company reps replied with “no comment,” instead of saying “hybrid drives are deeeaaaad!” as we expected. Our suspicions were confirmed when we got our hands on the Momentus XT, a 500GB 7,200rpm notebook drive with 4GB of SLC NAND flash memory and an “Adaptive Memory” algorithm designed to speed up your system by copying the most frequently accessed files to the NAND flash. By adding a small amount of high-speed flash memory to a standard mechanical drive, Seagate hopes to hit the middle-ground between solid-state speed and mechanical price and capacity. Under the hood, the Momentus XT is virtually identical to the non-hybrid 500GB Momentus 7200.4, with three key additions: a 32MB DRAM cache instead of 16MB, 4GB of SLC NAND, and the Seagate Adaptive Memory algorithm to make sense of it all. Rather than trying to speed up the whole disk, Adaptive Memory moves the most frequently used files to the NAND for faster access time. So we won’t see massive raw-speed improvements in the first sectors of the disk like we did with Silverstone’s DIY hybrid HDDBoost, but instead should see considerable improvements in day-to-day tasks.
Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
Initial attempts at boosting magnetic hard-drive performance with a dose of flash memory fell flat; these so-called hybrid hard drives, released by Seagate and, in smaller quantity, by Samsung, didn't deliver on their promised speed gains. Now, nearly three years later, the concept of the hybrid drive gets new life, with the Seagate Momentus XT, the second generation of hybrid drive that mixes flash and hard disk. But does this drive deliver a measurable performance boost over its standard hard-disk cousins? To answer that question, we ran the drive through a comprehensive round of tests in the PC World Labs. And we found that, unlike its predecessor, this drive actually does show significant performance improvements, improvements that put it ahead of standard hard drives, but still short of flash-based solid-state drives (SSD). However, the hybrid drive gains an advantage by coming in at a lower cost and higher capacity than an SSD. Seagate's hybrid drive costs $120 for 500GB, and $90 for 320GB (as of June 10, 2010)--far less than a straight-up solid-state drive (currently about $750 for 256GB). Second Time's the Charm The Momentus XT is a 2.5-inch, 7200 rpm drive that fits into a standard 9.5mm z-height drive slot.
Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Hard Drive
The most common upgrades users can do to their PCs over the years have included adding additional RAM, or maybe a new video card, and for some the option to upgrade your hard drive from a 5400RPM drive to a 7200RPM drive. The lucky few who can afford the option to upgrade to a Solid State drive are limited to SSDs with little storage space due to present prices per gigabyte. The only SSD drives that are affordable to most end users are merely 80GB SSDs which is pretty small and doesn (TM)t leave much room for applications and/or games. There is a new option on the market provided by Seagate® called Momentus© XT which is a hybrid drive which has the storage of a SATA and SSD-like performance. If your looking for a small form factor hard drive with better performance than a 7200RPM drive, the storage capacity of SATA drive, than think Hybrid. The Momentus© XT, a 7200 RPM hard drive with 32MB Cache and a 4GB SSD in one drive is a new product to the market and is quiet impressive. The price point is focused to be less in cost than a large capacity SSD and perform faster than a standard 7200RPM spindled SATA drive.
Seagate Momentus XT Hard Drive
Whether you're buying storage for a laptop or for a desktop, your choice for a while has been limited to hard drives (inexpensive, lots of capacity, relatively slow) or solid-state drives (expensive, limited capacity, super-fast). Desktop users could split the difference with a 10,000rpm hard drive like Western Digital's Velociraptor, but laptop users who needed small drives had to sacrifice either speed or a significant portion of their bank accounts. Seagate hopes to offer a comfortable compromise with its latest release. Billed as the "world's first independent solid-state hybrid drive," the 2.5-inch Momentus XT promises to combine the strongest (and most affordable) aspects of both technologies to offer a drive that's fast and affordable, and doesn't skimp on the storage space. The drive will work with any operating system, and is now available in three different capacities: 250GB (for $113 list), 320GB ($122 list), and 500GB ($153 list). The prices are slightly higher than you'd see for traditional spinning hard drives at those capacities, but still appear very reasonable compared to how much you'd expect to pay for a similar SSD.
Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Preview
Solid State Drives are all the rage with PC Enthusiasts these days. Although relatively expensive in comparison to standard hard drives, Solid State Drives have gotten very popular and have earned a reputation as one of the most significant performance upgrades available to enhance general system responsiveness. Capacities are relatively low in comparison to standard hard drives, but access times and transfer rates are in a different league altogether. And it's a good SSD's quick access times and speedy transfers that dramatically impact the end user experience, for the better. Solid State Drives are simply different beasts versus traditional hard drives and the performance difference is easily perceptible to the end user. Although there has been some noise over the years about hybrid drives that somewhat bridge the gap between hard drives and solid state drives, but they haven't had a significant impact on the overall market. Hit your favorite on-line retailer and you'll find a slew of SSDs and hard drives available, but nothing in between. If you need large amounts of storage space, a hard drive is a necessity (unless you've got an unlimited budget).
Seagate Momentus XT
The Seagate Momentus XT is the ideal choice for those who have been searching for a hard drive that offers the performance of a solid state drive without the premium price. With a street price of around at $135 for the 500GB version, the Momentus XT is just a fraction of the cost of an SSD, and delivers more capacity for your dollar. Compared with conventional hard drives, the Momentus offers a significant boost in performance by incorporating 4GB of flash memory. The new hybrid hard drive has a built-in algorithm that automatically relocates frequently accessed data on the flash memory area, therefore boosting the device's overall performance over time. Though about 50 percent more expensive than traditional high-speed 2.5-inch hard drives of the same standard and capacity, we found that the Seagate Momentus XT is worth the investment for its added performance. Design and features The Momentus XT hard drive looks exactly like a traditional SATA 2.5-incher that you can find inside most laptop computers. The drive is 9.5mm thick, making it suitable for the widest selection of mobile applications.
Prices
| Retailer | Information | Prices | |
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Momentus XT ST95005620AS - hybrid hard drive - 500 GB - SATA-300 | $69.99 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST750LX003 | $108.49 | See it |
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Momentus XT 750GB 7200RPM 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive - SATA-600 | $112.49 | See it |
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Selected 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 2.5 Drive By Seagate Bulk | $114.49 | See it |
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Selected 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 2.5 Drive By Seagate Bulk | $114.49 | See it |
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Seagate 750GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6GB/S NCQ / MOMENTUS XT | $119.99 | See it |
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NEW 500GB Momentus XT SS Hybrid HD (Hard Drives & SSD) | $124.95 | See it |
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NEW 500GB Momentus XT SS Hybrid HD (Hard Drives & SSD) | $124.95 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST95005620AS | $125 | See it |
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ST93205620AS Seagate Momentus XT Hard Drive ST93205620AS | $125.08 | See it |
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Momentus XT hybrid hard drive - 750 GB - SATA-600 | $125.99 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 750 GB 2.5 Internal Hybrid Hard Drive (ST750LX003) - | $126.65 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5-inch Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive STAN500100-Retail Kit | $129.99 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5-Inch Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive Retail Kit STBD750100 | $133.58 | See it |
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750GB Internal 2.5 SATA 32MB | $134.99 | See it |
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SEAGATE ST750LX003 750gb Sata-6gbps Ssd | $135 | See it |
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SEAGATE ST95005620AS 500gb-7200rpm Hybrid Ssd | $135 | See it |
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NEW - 750GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6GB/S NCQ / MOMENTUS XT - ST750LX003 | $143.16 | See it |
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NEW - 750GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6GB/S NCQ / MOMENTUS XT - ST750LX003 | $143.67 | See it |
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SEAGATE STBD750100 750gb-7200rpm Hybrid Ssd | $144 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5-inch Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive STAN500100-Retail Kit | $148.99 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500 GB 2.5 Internal Hybrid Hard Drive - SATA - 7200 rpm - 32 MB Buffer | $150.48 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST95005620AS | $151.15 | See it |
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750GB Seagate Momentus XT 2.5 7200RPM / Solid State Hybrid Drive. 3yr Warranty | $151.79 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT 320 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST93205620AS-Bare Drive | $155 | See it |
| MGTAPE | Seagate 500GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3GB/s NCQ | $175 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT Internal Hard Drive - 750GB 2.5-inch 7200 RPM SATA-300 Notebook Hybrid Drive | $189.99 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus ST93205620AS 320 GB 2.5 Internal Hard Drive - SATA - 7200 rpm - 32 MB Buffer | $250 | See it |
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Seagate Momentus XT : (8.4/10)
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