Specifications

    The drive comes available in either parallel (ATA/133) or Serial ATA (SATA/150). The Parallel ATA versions come with either two megabytes or eight megabytes of on-drive cache while the Serial ATA version is only available with an eight megabyte buffer (isn't that just horrible news). The 2 megabyte cache models are only available with a Parallel ATA interface and in capacities of 60 Gig, 80 Gig, 120 Gig and 160 Gigabytes. The 8 megabyte buffer models (either parallel/serial ATA) are available in 60 Gig, 80 Gig, 120 Gig, 160 Gig, and an overwhelming 200 Gigabyte capacity. Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motors are utilized to reduce the audible signature of the drive, with decibel ratings of 2.7dB at an idle spin, and only 3.5dB during seek strokes.

     Hard drives are inherently fragile by the nature of their construction -- meticulously coated platters with drive heads that glide on pads of air only microns above a surface spinning at 7,200 RPM. Drives from the good ol' days, like the Intel 8088 and 80286 era, would crash if you slammed a desk drawer shut at the wrong time. Evolution and incredibly higher engineering standards have made those days all but ancient history. Maxtor engineers have raised the bar yet again with their own G-shock protection scheme called the Shock Protection System™. They have increased the ruggedness of their drives to insure reliability against poor handling, especially during the critical shipping and installation phases. Protection levels are rated at 60Gs of shock during operational periods (power on) and 300Gs during non-operating periods (power-off).

     Data Integrity should be the last thing you worry about when you click the Save button on any project, unless you're using a good ol' 3½ Floppy Disk. The folks at Maxtor think so too, and have incorporated the Data Protection System™ (DPS).  Think of the DPS as a built-in-test (bit) routine that constantly monitors the status of the drive and all data written to the platters during operation. This goes beyond the Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) found in nearly all modern hard drives. Since the mechanical parts of the drive are given an expected life-cycle of five years, there stands to reason that some form of physical change can be expected in the inner-workings of the drive. Be it in the response time of the read/write head servos, expansion/change in the platter surface or some other change in tolerance. The DPS  keeps tabs on all factors regarding the condition of written data and will make changes according to inputs to the controller, making the drive ready to accept the challenge of longevity.

     Performance Specs: