Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3 GB/s 16 MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal NB Hard Drive ST9500420AS-Bare Drive
Dec 27, 2009 in
Electronics
- Comes with optional G-Force ProtectionTM technology for hardcore road warriors or even aspiring warriors in need of extra robustness
- Provides enhanced data protection against shock that may occur while the drive is operating
Product Description
Seagate ST9500420AS Momentus 7200.4 SATA 3Gb/s 500-GB Hard Drive, the Seagate® Momentus® 7200.4 drive delivers the highest available capacity on a laptop hard drive while satisfying today’s need for performance. System builders can count on extending the life of their 7200-RPM laptops by eliminating the need to replace or upgrade due to performance issues. All this without sacrificing battery life, because these new 7200-RPM drives draw only slightly more power than a 5400-RPM laptop drive…. More >>
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3 GB/s 16 MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal NB Hard Drive ST9500420AS-Bare Drive
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5 comments
Dennis Langley on December 27, 2009 at 9:25 am
Buyer beware. Notice that there is no mention of the manufacturer’s warranty on Amazon’s product page for the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 OEM drive. I e-mailed Amazon, they said they could not determine warranty coverage for this product and suggested I call the manufacturer.
Seagate told me they probably wouldn’t provide any warranty at all for this drive because it is an OEM unit that was originally sold to a manufacturer, who then sold their overstocked product to Amazon. The Seagate person said the only way I could be sure would be to enter the unit’s serial number into their warranty-checker Web form, but of course I’d first have to buy the item, then return it to Amazon if I was not satisfied.
Can you believe it? What a run-around!
S. Fanara on December 27, 2009 at 10:18 am
This review although related is not strictly about this item, so if you feel that may be a waste of time for you please skip it, otherwise continue reading.
I have owned (and still do) Seagate 3.5 drives and so far so good (knock on wood). It is also true that to prevent gambling with my data I always spend some more and buy the enterprise grade products as I rarely turn off my computer. So far I never had to go through Seagate support, but the reports of my fellow shoppers are quite alarming, from having to pay for the manufacturer to honor support, to the high incidence of failure on this drive it make this product not a viable purchase. Sounds like Seagate has not worked out problems before releasing the 7200RPM version of its 2.5″ 500GB drive and now buyers who entrusted their data to it are going through the usual data loss nightmare… and although they may have been forward thinking and made backups, it’s still a major pain having to rescue data, rebuild new installations and so on for the laptop and its new (non Seagate) drive.
Based on these reviews and the other found elsewhere on the web (like Newegg) I decided to stay away from this drive and I thank the users who warned about problems with HD reliability, and customer support. Seagate is not new to outrageous firmware problems as I found out when shopping for drives to place in my 12 TB QNAP NAS… after a long research I went with Server grade RE4-GP (WD2002FYPS) even if that meant waiting to get them and pay more for each drive.
Hopefully Seagate will get his acts together and prevent bad reviews by replacing failed drives under warranty. When a drive fails it’s already a pain having to deal with data loss, restoring from backups, re-opening a laptop to replace a drive that is only a few days/weeks/months old, having to go through support calls and warranty process… Therefore the most important thing in a drive is reliability. When Seagate is not honoring warranty, not addressing problems with reported hardware failures by fixing them or providing replacement for same or a known-good model, they are only proving to new potential customers that Seagate warranty is worth nothing and they are showing what to expect after a customer has purchased one of their items.
Unless updates about this model will follow and the current situation with customer support will change, I will bring my business elsewhere and I suggest you do too, although you are obviously free to gamble and try this drive.
Once again thanks to all who reported problem especially those who took the time to report failure after a few months of use. Much appreciated help to new customers!
J.L. on December 27, 2009 at 1:08 pm
They shipped it fast, the hard drive was a replacement for a dell. Installed Ubuntu on it and it works great!
Luis Albarracin on December 27, 2009 at 2:49 pm
It rooks!…so far have not problems with this hard drive….use on hp pavillonn dv6000 after original hard drive broke.
Reeb L. Venners on December 27, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I installed this in a MacBook Pro 15″ and it went in fine and everything seems to be working, except I can feel a really noticeable vibration under my hands as I type this. I don’t think I am ok with that, so I will probably remove it and return it and put the old drive back in.
UPDATE:
Fidgeted with the drive – reinstalled and tried to do it “perfect” and the vibration is less although still there. It just might be livable – so I am going with it. Most of the comments seem to say that the vibrations happen with this drive and either live with it or replace it with a 5400 drive, so that’s the plan. We’ll see what comes of it. Other than the vibes, the drive is running great. Because of all the tightening, the screws that hold the hard drive in place are starting to strip.
ANOTHER UPDATE:
Couldn’t take the vibration. Replaced the drive with a Western Digital 5400 500GB drive and absolutely no vibrations. Even with the slightly stripped screws that I couldn’t really tighten down. Had a different problem with the Western Digital, but that is now resolved (so far). Verdict is that installing a hard-drive yourself in a MacBook Pro can be slightly tricky/frustrating. Hopefully I will never have to open it up again. I still consider that the vibration on the 7200 was just ignorant installation, but I am done for now!