Seagate ST2000DX001 2TB Desktop 3.5 inch SSHD Internal Solid State Hybrid Drive

I was looking to update my HDD as I had developed problems and wanted something quicker...I was originally going to go SSD and keep my old Hard drive as storage...a Samsung Spinpoint 5200 ...but needed more storage and Speed...and having read about Hybrid HDD's I decided to go with this...I decided to do a complete install of Windows..I removed all Hdd's and installed this one...It was recognised right away and after a fresh install it worked really quickly...Before I used to start up in about 2/3 minutes and even then it would be another minute before the damn computer would allow me to do anything with speed....NOW...I start up in 50 seconds (Windows 7) and I can go straight into any work I need to do..Everything is so much quicker to respond...I noticed in particular my Paint shop Pro...It used to take 45 seconds to open....Now..10 seconds...that's seriously quick for a program like this.....I'll admit..I did change my Processor also to a Quad core...Now my computer is fun to use again and so quick in opening and the performance is super quick.I'm well pleased with this Hybrid HDD with the extra storage and speed it delivers ..all at a fantastic price....and it's quiet too...I would recomend this HDD to anyone looking to increase the speed AND storage of their computer without the ridiculous cost....Cheers..

I decided to replace my boot drive a while back, but after a system corruption I decided the time was now. On my old drive which was a 6gbs transfer rate drive the system seemed to be getting slow and programs took a while to load. Now I have quite a powerful PC i7 processor, 8gb of ram so it should run fast but I found after a while and loading a number of programs over several days it did not.So enter the Seagate ST2000DX001. First off I “cloned” my old Boot drive after I had restored a good image before the corruption. So I know I was comparing like for like, the only difference was allowing an extra 100gb of space on the C Boot to the previous 2gb old disk, not that the old drive C lacked space it had 250gb free or more at all times.After the clone had been done I swapped the disk in and booted. All went well and immediately I noticed booting was faster, not only that but repetitive use of programs was loading almost instantly. A couple of times I rebooted after program and Microsoft updates (why do we have so many Microsoft updates) the booting process was even faster unfortunately I had not timed the old drive so could not compare on a stop watch but I know it was 50% faster and on some programs much more than that – I thought this was the best investment on a drive I had made in years.Any downsides, well only one I have found so far and it may not be connected, my google spellcheck used to correct spellings without a hitch, now sometimes it shows the word is wrong, shows the correction but does not always correct so I have to do it manually – a minor thing really. So far nothing else has shown up as odd.Thank you Seagate a great drive.

First off, it took 9 hours to clone my old Seagate 1TB Barracuda SATA HDD across to this new 2TB SSHD, largely due to the 2 successive failed attempts using Seagate DiscWizard software - the first failure was after 4.5 hours and was almost done, the second failed after just 1 hour and 20 mins. Then I re-initialized the new SSHD as GPT and not MBR (Master Boot Record) even though the Seagate DiscWizard Manual said it was okay to use either format for drives up to 2.2TB in size and to use MBR for older OS like XP or Vista. However what the manual DOES NOT tell you is that you should always format all new drives as if they were just a standard data drive (thus initialize as GPT) irrespective of size, before you copy the clone across to them even though you intend the new drive to be an OS BOOT or SYSTEM DRIVE!*** Please note: when your PC sees this new SSHD for the 1st time, initialize as GPT and not MBR ***Okay teething problems aside. this new hybrid drive is working fine now - although I did need a "PC Restart to Repair C:\ Drive Errors" just 24 hours after I began using it as my local drive. The main advantage is the higher WRITE speed thanks to the bigger memory cache buffer i.e. the in-built 8 GB of flash memory that distinguishes this SSHD from a regular SATA III HDD. I am now getting a minimum of 180 MB/s sustained write speeds (sometimes more), but slighter slower READ speeds than my external 3TB HDDs via a USB 3.0 cable (about 15 MB/s slower). However, when compare to my older (as in 4 years old) 1TB SATA HDD that was my C:\ system drive before this week, the READ speeds are higher -> about 20% faster whilst the WRITE speeds are +100% higher (so in effect double what I was getting before).Shutdown times have fallen to just 16 secs, but Cold Boot from start times are no better than before, and that's with few startup programs enabled - still takes about 55-60 seconds from power on to see the desktop icons settle on my monitor and for the PC to become responsive to user input. Hence the 4-Stars and not 5. That plus slower read times than my external Seagate drives and the problems I had with cloning my old C:\ drive to this one.Pros(1) Writes about twice as fast as older SATA I/II HDDs and about +15% faster than new SATA III Barracudas(2) Offers reasonable value when compared to the normal 2TB SATA III HDD (costs about £25 more) but offers 8 GB flash memory too and is WAY CHEAPER than even a 240 GB SSD(3) Gives off less heat than the older HDDs (I tried both in an external USB 3.0 caddy and I could touch this one without getting my palms burnt) and uses less power too -> about 4.5 to 5 watts (older HDDs I have use 7 watts minimum)(4) CrystalDiskMark 3 performance benchmark tests show that it is only slower at reading SEQ (Sequential) files than new SATA III HDDs, but in all other tests e.g. Random 512K and 4K as well as 4K QD32 it blows away conventional Seagate HDDs in both READ + WRITE tests (so only marginally slower in the large file sequential test, but in the other 7 out of 8 tests - 4 READ + 4 WRITE it scores higher)Cons(1) Larger drives may be difficult to clone/take an inordinate amount of time -> failed to work initialized as 'MBR'(2) Around 1/3 as fast as SSD when it comes to READ speeds and roughly 1/2 as fast in WRITING to disc, so a marginal improvement over conventional hard drives, but not in the same league as SSD flash drives(3) Task Manager -> Performance -> Disc 0 (C:) shows that these drives often stay at 100% even after all Programs are closed and internet disconnected (probably the learning function, but it does slow down the PC a bit for a short while; min or two)Conclusion:Would I buy another one? Yes. I'm actually considering a 4TB SSHD to replace my other internal older 1TB Seagate Barracuda drive for 3 reasons: (1) No need to clone, just insert, bootup, enter Disk Management and initialize as GPT then format as NTFS -> so very easy to incorporate and good on power consumption & heat thrown off, (2) Price at £133 is only marginally more expensive than 4TB NAS approved Seagate and the same as an external regular 5900 RPM USB 3.0 Expansion drive -> so there is reasonable value, and (3) I have a use video library (> 10 Terabytes) and I'm constantly copying & moving files around e.g. every .MKV I download is immediately converted to .MP4 using Movavi SuperSpeed so fast WRITE speed is important to my particular needs (converting a 2 GB movie to .mp4 in 8-9 seconds is great!!). Everyone who uses a PC and copies big files knows that thanks to memory cache the initial speed is very good then often it falls a little and settles at a constant rate, with that extra internal flash RAM on-board these SSHD write fast continuously without any drop-off and I've really noticed this even when copying files back from USB 3.0 external drives, that I'm getting +30 to +35 MB/s gains in sustained rates. Seagate are a good brand and these SSHD do work well, although I may need to use for a few weeks more to see if the adaptive process yields any benefits once it learns which apps I use a lot (so far no discernible difference with Excel/Access/Photoshop/Premiere Pro etc.