Seagate Momentus 7200 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal NB Hard Drive ST9500420AS-Bare Drive

by Seagate

• 7,200 RPM Spin Speed,16 MB Cache Buffer
• SATA 3.0Gb/s Interface, 500 GB Capacity
• Average latency 4.17 msec, Random read seek time 11.0 msec, Random write seek time 13.0 msec
• Best-Fit Applications; High-performance and mainstream laptop PCs, Small form factor PCs, Workstations, Industrial applications
• Two Year Warranty

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 6 x 6 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B001R4BBLU
• Item model number: ST9500420AS
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (123 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Seagate® Momentus® 2.5-inch drive is the world's most feature-rich 2.5-inch drive for laptops and external enclosures. Momentus drives deliver solutions and customer confidence with options in speed and capacity, and innovative features such as Self-Encrypting Drives and drop sensor technology. Choose from six capacities: 750, 640, 500, 320, 250 and 160GB; two performance speeds: 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM; and three innovative features: Self-Encrypting Drives, FIPS 140-2 certification (in process) and free-fall drop sensor. Momentus drives give you the power to transform from ordinary to extraordinary.

Seagate® Momentus®

	Momentus Laptop Hard Drives	What the experts are saying...
	The world's most feature-rich 2.5-inch drive for laptop upgrades and external enclosures. The Momentus drive family offers innovative options, capacities to 750GB, two performance speeds and significant feature options. The Seagate Momentus drives are perfect for any standard laptop and meet your specific upgrade needs whether they are: More Capacity Higher Performance Lower Power Consumption More Security Greater Reliability Why choose the Seagate Momentus? 7200-RPM and 5400-RPM speeds and 8MB and 16MB cache size to increase application performance 750, 640, 500, 320, 250 and 160GB models for 5400-RPM drives 750, 500, 320, 250 and 160GB models for 7200-RPM drives Seagate SmartAlign™ technology provides a transition to 4K sectors without the need for software utilities *Optional FIPS 140-2 Validated™ Seagate Self-Encrypting Drive technology delivers government-grade encryption without performance degradation - protecting your data where it lives. Optional Seagate G-Force Protection™ technology can detect when your laptop is in a free-fall, swing the drive heads to a safe zone and keep the data safe. *Not available in all models or countries. Requires TCG-compliant host or controller support. TM: The FIPS logo is a certification mark of NIST, which does not imply product endorsement by NIST, the U.S., or Canadian governments.	"The overall read and write speeds were the best of the comparison drives for all of the testing, reaching over 100MB a second at one point. The fact that this is a 2.5" hard drive this makes it a great contender..." - Overclockers Club, August 2009 "Forget the charts, forget the benches we had a real life winner here. The 7200 RPM platter speed consuming only .05v more voltage than a 5200 RPM drive had won us over quickly." - Bjorn3D, April 2009 "The Seagate Momentus ST9500420AS is one hell of a performer and the 500 GB capacity makes it an excellent choice for notebooks to be used as desktop replacements." - TechTree, May 2009 "Seagate Momentus 7200.4 Mobile Hard Drive (ST9500420AS) Buzzilions Reviewers Choice Finalist 2010. Ranked #14" - Buzzilions, 2010 "Seagate dominates the performance segment with the Momentus 7200.4." - Tom's Hardware, June 2009

 

	The world's most feature-rich 2.5-inch drive for laptop upgrades and external enclosures now available up to 750GB!

 

Seagate® Momentus® Family Hard Drives

Seagate® Momentus® 5400 & 7200 RPM drives with capacities up to 750GB

Seagate® Momentus® XT Solid State Hybrid drives with Adaptive Memory Technology click here

 

Momentus Specifications

	Momentus 5400 Drives					Momentus 7200 Drives
Feature Options	640GB1	500GB1	320GB1	250GB1	160GB1	750GB1	500GB1	320GB1	250GB1	160GB1
Standard Models	ST9640320AS	ST9500325AS	ST9320325AS	ST9250315AS	ST9160314AS	ST9750420AS	ST9500420AS	ST9320423AS	ST9250410AS	ST9160412AS
Free-Fall Sensor Models		ST9500325ASG2					ST9500420ASG2		ST9250410ASG2
FDE Models		ST9500327AS		ST9250317AS			ST9500421AS		ST9250411AS
FDE FIPS 140-2 Models							ST9500422AS		ST9250412AS
Interface	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ
Cache (MB)	8	8	8	8	8	16	16	16	16	16
Configuration
Bytes per Sector	512	512	512	512	512	40963	512	512	512	512
Reliability/Data Integrity
Head-Rest Method	Quiet Step™ Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load	Quiet Step Ramp Load
Load/Unload Cycles	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000	>600,000
Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14
Annualized Failure Rate (AFR)	0.48%	0.48%	0.48%	0.48%	0.48%	0.50%	0.50%	0.50%	0.50%	0.50%
Power Management
Power (W)   Seek, Typical   Idle, Typical	1.3 0.68	1.54 0.81	1.54 0.81	1.54 0.81	1.54 0.81	1.5 0.7	1.554 0.67	1.554 0.67	1.554 0.67	1.554 0.67
Environmental
Temperature (°C)   Operating   Nonoperating	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70	0 to 60 -40 to 70
Shock (Gs)   Operating: 2ms   Nonoperating: 1ms	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000	350 1000
Acoustics (bels— sound power)   Idle, Typical   Seek, Typical	2.3 2.6	2.4 2.6	2.4 2.6	2.4 2.6	2.4 2.6	2.3 2.5	2.3 2.5	2.3 2.5	2.3 2.5	2.3 2.5
Physical
Height (in/mm)	0.374/9.5	0.374/9.5	0.374/9.5	0.374/9.5	0.374/9.5	0.370/9.5	0.370/9.5	0.370/9.5	0.370/9.5	0.370/9.5
Width (in/mm)	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85	2.75/69.85
Depth (in/mm)	3.957/100.5	3.957/100.5	3.957/100.5	3.957/100.5	3.957/100.5	3.951/100.35	3.951/100.35	3.951/100.35	3.951/100.35	3.951/100.35
Weight (lb/g)	0.218/98.8	0.218/98.8	0.218/98.8	0.218/98.8	0.218/98.8	0.254/115	0.238/110	0.238/110	0.227/105	0.227/105

1 One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes when referring to drive capacity.
2 Drive with G-Force Protection™ feature
3 Advanced Sector Format (4K) drive with SmartAlign™ technology resolves misalignment conditions.

Product Description

Momentus 7200.4 2.5Inch 500Gb 7200Rpm 8Cch Sata

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

224 of 259 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Do your research.... November 10, 2009

By stuffgeeekswant-dot-com

Read the 5 pages of support issues on this drive in Seagate's forums or the 30+ pages in Apple's forums (and note: this isn't an issue exclusive to Apple systems)... or read the reviews at Newegg... this drive has MAJOR reliability issues.

Don't believe all these 5 star reviews from people who reviewed the drive the day they installed it. It will run great when you first put it in.

But 15-60 days in you will start hearing clunking noises. Your system will start freezing for a second or two here or there. The drive's load cycle count will start to skyrocket (to the point that even under "normal" use the drive will fail within a year by Seagate's own numbers). If you're really unlucky, the drive will suddenly die.

Don't play russian roulette with your data. Don't fall for this drive's relatively low price or nice specs.

The most important spec in a hard drive is reliability. This one sucks.

96 of 111 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Two in a row have failed December 1, 2009

By Jonathan Birge TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

I am not going to say there is something wrong with these drives, because at the end of the day I'm only one guy with a bad experience. I'll just offer my review here so that people get a full perspective. I have had two of these fail on me in a row, failing offline SMART tests. When it was working, the drive was very fast and quiet, though, so I can certainly understand the high marks people give these drives when they work.

I think it is fair to say that Seagate is really running these at the ragged edge of what is possible. While the transfer rates can approach 90 Mb/s at the edge of the platter, according to a few quick tests I ran, the transfer rate fluctuates greatly, and the drive shows a pretty constant stream of software-corrected (ECC) errors. In other words, you're not losing data, but the data coming off the drive is on the border of what is readable, such that the drive needs to rely on error correction and/or rereads (hence the fluctuating speeds) to get the data off. I base these conclusions on the fact that tests of data on the inside of the platter (which has much less speed) are much more reliable (albeit slower).

If you do decide to get one of these, do yourself a favor and backup (which you should do anyways, because all hard drives are subject to fail at any time).

57 of 68 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Seagate Momentus 7200.4 September 8, 2009

By Adel Sabry Elkhouly

I was really worried to buy this drive cause of the reviews I read, but I bought it because of the reputation of seagate, as my old drive was seagate momentus too but 160 GB, I did replace it with this 500 GB model, and found no Vibration as many people claimed, the same as Hitachi, western Digital.

I ordered two hard drives
Installed the first in a Macbook Pro 17" 2.4 GHz SR, everything is perfect. I am not sure about the battery life after replacing the drive as I did upgrade the OS to snow leopard afterwords so I can't judge the battery level fairly.

The second drive did install it in a White Macbook 2.4 Ghz, to replace a 5400rpm 160 GB Hitachi, there is a real significant difference between the old Hitachi, and this drive for sure, the Macbook is really flying now, boot times are faster, and applications load fast too. The over All performance did boast I guess 40% more.

White Macbook:
Vibration: No
Speed: Yes
Battery consumption: Yes, the battery don't last as the 5400 Hitachi
Worth Upgrade: yes 100 %

Macbook Pro:
Vibration: No
Speed: Yes
Battery consumption: Yes, the battery don't last as the 7200 160 GB Momentus
Worth Upgrade: yes 100 %

I do recommend this product

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Seagate charges $19.95 to make a warranty claim. September 15, 2009

By Dmitry

My drive started to make a loud "clunk" sound about a week after I installed it. I just spoke with Seagate warranty department and they said that it would cost me $19.95 to have them ship me a new drive under warranty. The warranty rep said that neither he nor his managers have the authority to waive this fee. It'll cost me nothing to return it to the retailer as defective, so I'll do that today instead.

Edited to add:

The replacement drive is now making the "clunk" sound as well and needs to be replaced. This time, I'll go with a brand other than Seagate.

Warranty experience: The second failed drive was shipped to Seagate eleven days ago and they still show my claim as "not recieved". According to my delivery confirmation query, USPS delivered it to their location right on the border of Mexico and Texas, so I assume that Seagate then ships it to some warehouse in Mexico where the recieving process is SLOWLY completed. Speaking with Seagate's stern warranty reps was interesting: If you use bubble wrap or packing peanuts when you ship the drive, they will void the warranty! Seagate offers a .pdf file with very strict shipping instructions, including a specific 2-inch thick foam that you must use for packaging. I wonder how many warranty claims Seagate invalidates for failure to meet their unusually weird shipping instructions.

In the meantime, I installed a 500GB Hitachi drive that runs perfectly. No more clunking and my notebook no longer vibrates like a blender. The Hitachi drive is completely silent, fast, and runs much colder than the Seagate clunker.