Sweet Mother of Maxtor...

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm">http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm</a><br /><br />Just when you thought your hard drive was the biggest on the block, Maxtor lays the smack down with a massive 320 GB hard drive coming out in early 2003. And we're finally seeing some competition in the 8 MB cache arena - they'll have a drive with 8 MB of cache, 7200 RPM, and a meagre 250 GB. The more I <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735618739/jasondunn-20">work with digital video</a>, the more I realize that there truly is no such thing as too much storage. Bring it on Maxtor, bring it on...<br /><br />"MaXLine™ drives are ultra-reliable 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM ATA hard drives with capacities up to 320GB. They're designed, engineered and tested to stand up to demanding commercial and enterprise applications. With a mean time to failure of more than 1 million hours, it's easy to see why Maxtor supports them with a 3-year limited warranty. The 3.5-inch MaXLine II and MaXLine Plus II drives are ideal for network attached storage and other near-line storage applications that were previously handled by slower, lower-capacity tape and optical storage media."

[Brad Adrian]

I am suddenly suffering from extreme storage envy!

[Ed Hansberry]

So, doesn XP now recognize these big honkers with XP1? I know that SP0 had problems above 120MB or so on a single drive, regardless of partitioning.

[T-Will]

WOW! That's awesome! I just picked up a WD 80 GB with 8 MB cache because I think my current WD 80 GB drive is failing (it will make random clicking noises and will randomly go into standby for a few seconds then power back up causing a hiccup in Windows). I've got one question though, is there a way to check within XP if the ATA/100 is enabled on my drive?

[Bob Anderson]

Wow... last Christmas, I bought a 75GB IBM DeskStar and thought I'd never fill it up. Well, I haven't used all the space, but I think I need a 320 GB drive anyway!!

[Rirath]

I'm running an 80 gig 7200 Maxtor in this comp, and a 80 gig 5400 Maxtor in a networked comp. (along with a 15 gig Quantum) When I first started running Maxtors over drives like Western Digital, I was laughed at. But I think by now Maxtor has proven their worth, and I'm glad to see them keeping the standard high. Can't say I have any immediate plans to pick up the new drive, but glad to see it none the less.

[Jason Dunn]

So, doesn XP now recognize these big honkers with XP1? I know that SP0 had problems above 120MB or so on a single drive, regardless of partitioning.

SP1 adds support for Serial ATA (SATA), but you also need a controller card. Bummer, because I just got that Shuttle SS51G and I won't be able to use these massive hard drives in it unless I take up my only PCI slot for a controller card. Oh well - my 120 GB hard drive is quite big for now at the moment. :-)

[Jason Dunn]

...is there a way to check within XP if the ATA/100 is enabled on my drive?

Nope, ATA is all BIOS-level stuff. You'll have to check the BIOS and see if the drive is in that mode. Assuming that your motherboard supports it, it's automatic though - no need to turn it on.

[st63z]

Not bad, 80GB platters, 8MB, FDB, what's not to like. What's the dealio w/ 1-yr warranty on Maxtor and WD standard lines though (see SR).

Seriously, I expect the MaXLine (especially Plus) will cost a lot more than today's prices, Maxtor can't afford to price them too low (which is too bad for us).

P.S. Heck, even my new IBM Travelstar 40GNX laptop drives have 8MB now (the Toshiba 16MB too expensive) :)

[bblock]

What's the deal with the big focus on 'near-line storage'? Are these drives substantially slower than the current 7200RPM crop of large (80-120GB) drives? Would you use one for video editing? I recognize they're not SCSI, but still - it seems Maxtor is downplaying the performance of the drives.

[Rob Alexander]

...is there a way to check within XP if the ATA/100 is enabled on my drive?

Nope, ATA is all BIOS-level stuff. You'll have to check the BIOS and see if the drive is in that mode. Assuming that your motherboard supports it, it's automatic though - no need to turn it on.

In the "you learn something new every day" department, yes, you can check that from inside of XP, though you have to know what drive is on which channel. Go to Device Manager and open IDE/ATAPI Controllers list. Double-click on either Primary or Secondary IDE Channel (whichever one has the drive you're interested in). You can determine the mode your drive is currently running in by looking in the box labelled 'Current Transfer Mode'. Again, you have to know whether the drive is master (Device 0) or slave (Device 1). Here's what the mode numbers mean.

Ultra DMA Mode 5 - 100 MB/s (ATA100)
Ultra DMA Mode 4 - 66.7 MB/s (ATA66)
Ultra DMA Mode 3 - 44.4 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 2 - 33.3 MB/s (ATA33)
Ultra DMA Mode 1 - 25 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 0 - 16.7 MB/s (original ATA)

Also, there are times when you need to turn it on. Many CD-ROMs, CD-Rs and DVD players get installed with DMA turned off by default. If you're having performance problems, check here and change the setting to 'DMA if available'. If the device supports DMA, this will turn it on. If it doesn't it won't have any effect.

I've never personally had a DMA hard drive fail to be set to its highest potential before, but checking this is a common suggestion for people having hard drive performance problems, so it must happen sometimes.

[st63z]

I thought XP defaults to enabling DMA mode on optical drives (whereas previous Win2K doesn't)? I check this on the 2K machines, but my home XP had it on by default.

BTW, anyone knows of any current "gotchas" with SATA's hot-plug support in Windows? I know this is still early, so I was wondering if I should watch out for anything (like using parallel HDDs with SATA controller via those parallel/serial adapters just now coming to market). Hot plug is one of the major reasons I'm liking SATA...

P.S. Incidentally, I'm thinking Maxtor might do well changing their corporate name to "Mother Maxtor"...

[don dre]

With half my WD 60gb drive full of mp3's (all at 224k or higher...the need for small size escapes me since I also have a 1gb microdrive) and my newfound love for downloading simpsons episodes so i don;t have to subsribe to cable it hink i am going to fill it up fast. especially if more people used higher quality digital files. I haven't seen one good asf file yet. At any rate, I was on panasonic's site yesterday and saw they have a 4gb SD card listed as "not available". Anyone know what the time frame is on that?

[Jonathon Watkins]

Hmmmm, dangerous having that amount of space on 1 HD. Can we all say "too many eggs in one basket"?. I would prefer Raid 5 to become cheaper & inbuilt to Motherbaords. I would rather have 3 x 120Gb drives at RAID 5 (240Gb) than one massive 320Gb drive. I've had a few drives go down on me at various times, and the thought of a 320 drive dying fills me with dread - especially as many HD makers are slashing their warranties from 3 years to 1! :roll:

[klinux]

Don Dre:

I now find it a lot more satisfying to rent the Simpson DVD and then rip/encode your own (divx, MPEG, etc)! You will have much better control over the size and quality of the result files rather than downloading.

[Jason Dunn]

Don Dre:

I now find it a lot more satisfying to rent the Simpson DVD and then rip/encode your own (divx, MPEG, etc)! You will have much better control over the size and quality of the result files rather than downloading.

Oh, you know, you could just buy them. :lol:

[Jonathan1]

HOLY SWEET JESUS! 8O Mommy I'm scared!

So tell me how the heck do you back this dang thing up?!?!
CD?!? No chance in heck.
DLT?!?! At $80 a pop that would cost a fortune.
DVD-R HEH. It would only take about 50 or so....


Hmmm I think I'll stick in the 150 200GB range. At least its conceivable to back up my info on those....

Hmmm wonder what the price point is gonna be on this bad boy?

[st63z]

HOLY SWEET JESUS! 8O Mommy I'm scared!

So tell me how the heck do you back this dang thing up?!?!
CD?!? No chance in heck.
DLT?!?! At $80 a pop that would cost a fortune.
DVD-R HEH. It would only take about 50 or so....


Hmmm I think I'll stick in the 150 200GB range. At least its conceivable to back up my info on those....

Hmmm wonder what the price point is gonna be on this bad boy?

There there, no need to be scared. Just get twin drives and use the second to back up the first :) Ghost/DI imaging or FastTrak real-time mirror.

(Or you can go high-end $$$ and get a real RAID board w/ hardware RAID 5 -- check SR, and get triplet drives)

P.S. Or, ya know, wait for blue laser...

[Jonathon Watkins]

OK, so 3 of these and a HW RAID card and I'm set! LOL :lol: Now, how am I going to fill 640Gb of storage? You know, I currently have 120Gb of HD space and that's more than enough for now. I really don't have a use for this kind of space!

It's only really of use for digital video isn't it. I have all my CD collection ripped, that's 40Gb, the phots from my digital camera take up 10Gb and growing, but not that fast. So - I really don't need one of these.