Features & Specifications
Notebook hard drives small physical stature hides some large internal capacities. The Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD we are looking at today is as fast as notebook hard drives get with a 7200-rpm rotational speed. The drive also has an 8MB buffer and uses the SATA 3.0GB/s interface. Seagate optimized the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD or quiet operation and low power consumption to save on battery life.

Seagate says the average latency for the drive is 4.17ms, the random seeks time is 11.0ms, and the random write speed is 13.0ms. The drive measures in at 9.5mm H x 69.85mm W x 100.5mm L and weighs 115 grams.

Benchmarks, Testing & Installation
For this review, I am testing the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD in a new 13” Apple MacBook with a Boot Camp partition running Windows Vista Ultimate. I booted directly into Vista for benchmarks using HD Tach and Sandra XII.

Before we get into the performance benchmarks of the hard drive, let’s talk a bit about installation. Depending on your notebook, the installation routine will vary. For my MacBook you simply removed the battery, and removed the L-shaped bracket. Once that was done you simply unfold the pull-tab from the existing hard drive, pull the hard drive out of the notebook by the tab, and remove the metal tray the pull-tab attaches to with a Torx screwdriver.

Once the tray is off the existing hard drive, you install the tray onto the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD and slide it back into the hard drive bay of the notebook. The installing the operating system is the final step. Again different notebooks will have different installation steps. In totally installation took about 20 minutes and was very easy.

Once Vista was installed I was ready to run some benchmarks starting with HD Tach. Since this was my system drive, I was unable to run write tests with HD Tach. However, read test performance was benchmarked. HD Tach showed that the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD had a random access time of 18.7ms with an average read speed of 46.2MB/s. The other benchmark that I ran on the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD was the Sandra XII physical disks benchmark. This test showed that the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD had a read performance of 39MB/s and a random access time of 17ms.

In daily use the 7200-rpm drive had no noticeable effect on the battery life my MacBook had with the original 5400-rpm 80GB hard drive it shipped with. The Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD did make the notebook a bit louder, especially at boot up when the drive was at full speed. However, for average uses the Seagate Momentus ST9160823ASG 160GB 7200.2 SATA HDD is quiet and non-intrusive.