Seagate started off Tuesday by shipping its second-generation Momentus XT hybrid drive for notebooks. The upgrade is estimated to be about 70 percent faster than the earlier Momentus even as it goes to 750GB of internal storage. As before, the key is the inclusion of a 8GB solid-state drive, which here is twice as fast as before and should both cache and load much faster.
Seagate estimates that the combination of the new SSD and the new drive should be about three times faster. An SATA III interface lets the drive reach its maximum capacity.
The drive should work in most any notebook that takes a standard 2.5-inch disk, although Seagate recommends a Mac or a Windows version newer than XP to get proper support for the more efficient 4K sector frmat. Stores are offering the Momentus XT as an upgrade kit for $245.
