Maxtor's New Speedy 300-GB Drives

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1636339,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532' target='_blank'>http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1636339,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Maxtor Corp. announced a pair of Serial ATA hard drives on Monday, increasing capacities to 300 Mbytes while offering native command queuing and a significantly larger 16-Mbyte buffer. The new 7,200-RPM drives point to a new axis for improvement in hard drives: throughput. Both the additional buffer size and the NCQ technologies are designed to move data efficiently through the hard drive, from the disk platter to the host PC."</i><br /><br />I don't think we have posted on this yet. The 16MB buffer sounds awesome, but it is disappointing that they haven't come out with a 10K RPM SATA drive yet in that kind of capacity. In any case, I would love to put together a video editing station, gaming machine and/or a DVR with a couple of these drives. :)

[Filip Norrgard]

Wow! 8O That would be a superb drive for an video editing station/PVR indeed. Combine the 16MB buffer with the (usually) silent drives from Maxtor and we've got a winning combination. 10k RPM would definately be nicer to have, but on the other hand it might just make the drive much more noisier and hotter. :roll:

Makes me wonder, how much performance gain one drive with 16MB buffer has over the 8MBs... :?

[that_kid]

Oh i can't wait for these to hit the streets. I have 2 250 gig drives in my video editing machine and I could always use more space.

[Suhit Gupta]

but on the other hand it might just make the drive much more noisier and hotter. :roll:
But in my experience, 10K drives don't usually run that much louder or hotter than 7200rpm, I find that more so with 15K rpm drives.

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

Check out the latest Maximum PC - for their Dream Machine 2004, they actually had a big struggle with which drive to use. The new Maxtor drives were just a HAIR slower in performance than the Raptors, so that shows you how fast these Maxtor drives really are, 7200 RPM or not. Maximum PC picked the Raptors after all, because performance was their #1 goal, but the Maxtors would indeed make awesome drives, especially in a RAID array.

I've got two Raptors lined up from Western Digital for a review, but I'm woindering if I should try to get two of these Maxtor drives instead? Hmm.

[Suhit Gupta]

BTW, what drive configuration do you guys go with? For my new machine (whenever that will happen in the future) I will probably doing RAID 1+0 (striping and mirroring) probably with an Escalade card. Granted that I will need at least 4 drives, but I figured I would get the best that way, i.e. safety as well as speed. And hopefully in a year, we will have 10K rpm SATA drives.

Suhit

[that_kid]

I've been debating that myself. I was looking at raid 5 but i'm not sure if I need it. I do need a great deal of space for audio and video projects and I need to make sure I have good failover, anyone have any idea's?

[Suhit Gupta]

Well, you could just add a hot spare. RAID 5 will allow you at most one drive failure. So you will sort of get the same thing if you go with RAID 1+0 and then put one extra drive as a hot spare.

Suhit

[Suhit Gupta]

BTW, here is another article (http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=1134) on the topic, from BIOS. It contains the full press release. (plus a tiny article (http://news.com.com/Maxtor+ships+multimedia-friendly+drive/2110-1004_3-5313851.html?part=rss&tag=5313851&subj=news.1004.20) from C|Net talking about the crazy losses that Maxtor and Seagate are posting).

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

I've never done RAID before, so I'm a little intimidated by it, if only because when I try new things that I have no experience with, I usually end up breaking them until I learn how to do things the right way. :lol:

My plan was to go with twin 73 GB WD Raptor drives in a RAID 0 config, then have an external 400 GB Simpletech hard drive for mass video storage. However, I just learned that the SB81P can house up to FOUR drives...so I'm wondering if I should do the twin 73 GB Raptors then add in two of these Maxtors? Going external with my video storage is more appealing though because then my laptop can have access to it. Decisions, decisions!

[that_kid]

Going external with my video storage is more appealing though because then my laptop can have access to it. Decisions, decisions!


I was thinking the same thing. I already have a file server in place, if I can add more drives that I can dedicate for just video then I could edit from either my laptop or desktop without much fuss. It would also help with my render servers.

[Suhit Gupta]

Have you considered a Network Storage unit? That way you could have a RAID configuration in the storage device while you still essentially are connecting to external storage.

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

Have you considered a Network Storage unit? That way you could have a RAID configuration in the storage device while you still essentially are connecting to external storage.

Do they make affordable NAS devices with Gigabit interfaces? 100 megabits is only 12.5 MB/s, not counting overhead, and that's not fast enough for hardcore video work.

[Suhit Gupta]

Hmm, I know I posted about one here on DMT about a month or so ago, but I cannot find it now. There is one with wireless and gigabit interfaces and, I think, 2x250GB drives (upgradable to 4x250).

I will keep you updated.

Suhit