| ower savings is the big idea behind Seagate's newest consumer laptop drive, but don't think for a moment that its performance isn't up to scratch. Although it won't make recent SSDs scurty for cover, there's a lot to like in the Morncntus 7200.4's benchmark results. (That is, if you can push Seagate's recent firmware debacle with the Barracuda 7200.11 and other drives out of your mind.) The dollars-per-GB ratio still heavily favors hard drives such as this one, even if an SSD such as Solidata's X2512 can match it in capacity. And although eminent tech journalists have rightfully |
| declared that a good SSD is currently the PC upgrade with the most noticeable across-the-board performance boost, most users would still rather pay $145 for 500GB than $1,999. With fluid dynamic bearings, a head offload ramp, and various power management techniques, the 7200.4 manages to eke out a living on slightly more than a couple of watts. In fact, Seagate claims that it's the most power-sipping 7,200rpm laptop drive around. Like its 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB brethren, this 500GB Momentus 7200.4 (model ST9500420AS) features a 16MB cache . |
