Standard 7mm form factor supported by a SATA 6Gb/s interface for easy integration into existing laptops

For 2MB random transfer, the Seagate Gen3 came out at 73.5MB/s and 86.6MB/s, placing second only behind the Seagate Gen2. The Serial ATA interface provides several advantages over the traditional (parallel) ATA interface. The primary advantages include: Seagate ST500LM021 500GB 2.5" 6.0 Gbps 7200 RPM Hot Swappable Momentus Thin Serial Advanced Technology Attachment Hard Disk Drive - Brand New

Disk Test Suite Average Results for Seagate ST500LM021

Seagate’s 500GB SSHD Thin drive at 7mm is a wallet-friendly alternative for users seeking new technology that provides low-power consumption, serious performance gains over conventional HDDs when in cache, and overall solid value per gigabyte.

When it comes to measuring performance of the Seagate SSHD Thin the two categories of benchmarks that we commonly test all consumer HDDs and SSDs on show strengths in different areas. Our synthetic benchmarks are geared at showing the performance of the drive in an uncached “worst case” scenario, while our real-world traces allow the drive to cache data and better show how the drive would perform during repetitive day-to-day activities. Since the SSHD is really geared towards those workloads, we put more weight on than in this review than we would normally do for traditional HDDs or SSDs. The Serial ATA interface connects each disk drive in a point-to-point configuration with the Serial ATA host adapter. There is no master/slave relationship with Serial ATA devices like there is with parallel ATA. If two drives are attached on one Serial ATA host adapter, the host operating system views the two devices as if they were both “masters” on two separate ports. This essentially means both drives behave as if they are Device 0 (master) devices. Our Database profile again showed the Seagate Gen3 as a strong runner-up to the Gen2 plateauing at 64 IOPS, steady to 128.

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In addition, Serial ATA makes the transition from parallel ATA easy by providing legacy software support. Serial ATA was designed to allow you to install a Serial ATA host adapter and Serial ATA disk drive in your current system and expect all of your existing applications to work as normal. Rounding out the figures, in our Workstation profile, the Gen3 placed a solid second, again to the Gen2. The Gen3 plateaued at 64 IOPS and had a minor decrease at 128 IOPS. While not a bombshell, Seagate’s Gen3 model does provide cost-efficient performance and a significantly lower starting price than the Gen2 Momentus XT 750GB. Our benchmarking shows the Gen3 and Gen2 both outperform HDDs where it matters, in our real world traces where the onboard cache can really show its performance benefits. In that case, where data is nicely cached, the new 500GB Thin bests the 750GB Gen2 product by a significant margin.

The first 7mm, 2.5-inch drive from Seagate now supports up to 500GB of data in a single disk design Self-Encrypting Drives with FIPS 140-2 certification are approved for the U.S. and Canadian governments

Our last series of synthetic benchmarks compare the hard drives in a series of server mixed-workloads with a queue depth of ranging from 1 to 128. Each of our server profile tests has a strong preference towards read activity, ranging from 67% read with our database profile to 100% read in our web server profile. In all of our mixed workloads, the Seagate Gen3 performed exceptionally. For each test, it ranked either first or second along with the Seagate Gen2. Overall, the SSHDs performed significantly better than standard HDD’s. The Gen2’s slight performance advantage over the Gen3 comes from its 7,200 RPM spins compared to the Gen3’s 5,400 RPM (with Seagate’s standardization of laptop drives to 5,400 RPM). In the File Server profile, the Seagate Gen3 offered substantially better performance than all of the competition from 8-64 IOPS at 3x-5x. However, at 128 IOPS, the Gen2 was tops. The Seagate SSHD Gen3 power consumption is lower than the Gen2 in every test but idle, where it is nearly the same. Across the board, the Gen3 made strong gains and saved 0.3-1.2 watts depending on the job it was doing. In the 4K Random Transfers MB/s, the Seagate Gen3 again ranked second behind the Gen2, with the Gen3 at 0.496MB/s and 0.896 MB/s. The Seagate Gen3 also ranked high above most of the competition at 127.1 IOPS read and 229.4 IOPS write, but first place was snatched up by the Seagate Gen2. The SSHD serves to satiate the demand of users looking to couple performance gains and storage capacity without breaking the bank – think gamers and media enthusiasts. However, SSHD technology is not a cure-all, which Seagate readily admits; users craving extreme performance will likely desire more than an SSHD provides. Yet, for the market of HDD users Seagate is focused on, the Seagate SSHDs offer users improved performance at a lower price than SSDs.