MAXTOR BUYS QUANTUM!!!

[Remedy]

<< I doubt you have the ability to tell which is slower, which is faster, which has faster access time, faster transfer rate and so on just by using it, play games with it, loading Q3A maps, levels whatsoever. >>



So your saying a ide hard drive is a ide hard drive no matter what company?
:Q

 

[Soccerman]

access time affects windows load time tremendously. if I compared one of Maxtor's 80 gig drives to IBM's or Quantums latest 7200 RPM drives, I'm pretty sure I could find the difference.

it also depends on the amount of RAM is in the computer (more RAM means less dependance on the slowest device in the computer).

about internet access being the slowest part of the computer, that's true if you have 56k modems for sure, however broadband typically has ping times 1/10th the time of a CDROM's access time anyway! but the real important thing is this, very soon we will be seeing even HIGHER connections, through alternative media.

 

[LXi]

<<if I compared one of Maxtor's 80 gig drives to IBM's or Quantums latest 7200 RPM drives, I'm pretty sure I could find the difference. >>

The DiamondMax 80 is a 5400rpm drive, comparing to IBM/Quantum's 7200rpm??? Now that sounds like a fair game. Try the DiamondMax Plus 45 instead.


<<that's true if you have 56k modems for sure>>

Exactly, that's what a majority of the people are using.

 

[LXi]

<<So your saying a ide hard drive is a ide hard drive no matter what company?>>

You cant make such generalizations, what I said is compare these three company's top drives. Which means they have to have similar platter size(10-15GB), same amount of cache(2MB), same rotation speed(7200rpm), prefferrably same number of platters as well(2-3). That statement will be true then.

 

[zzzz]

quantum hard drives rule...They are a cheaper alternative to ibm drives

 

[Soccerman]

but see the point I'm trying to make is, I'm not going for 5400 RPM drives. I don't CARE about them. of course I'll not see much difference between any companies top of the line 5400RPM drive, becuase their specs are so close.

 

[LXi]

You totally missed my point. You were trying to compare Maxtor's 5400rpm DiamondMax 80 to IBM and Quantum's 7200rpm. Why compare apples to bananas? I was trying to say that you should compare the Maxtor's 7200rpm DiamondMax Plus 45, which is the true counterpart to the IBM 75GXP and Quantum Fireball Plus LM. Then you'll know why they perform so close that it's out of human's ability to distinguish the performance difference.

 

[Soccerman]

ahh I see what your getting at (sorry for the wasted bandwidth!)

yeah, comparing Maxtors top of the line 15gig/platter 7200RPM drive to other models with similar specs will be hard to pick out differences. Quantum's LM drive (though alot older then the 45gig Maxtor drive) series have 1 ms less access time though, and that would be the differing factor for windows.

Storage review even acknowledges that the Quantum drives are much higher performance oriented (becuase of their extremely low access time for an IDE drive). Maxtor typically has been middle of the field in nearly everything. this drive is one of the top ones currently, though I was holding my breath for Quantum's 20 gig/platter 7200RPM drive.. that looked to be a killer..

it's possible Maxtor really wanted to join Quantum because of that. according to IBM, it's hard to get really high density drives to be able to read properly (laws of physics! the head passes the data so fast that it might not see the data).

 

[LXi]

Im really looking forward to the Quantum Fireball Plus AS as well, I hope Maxtor doesnt screw that up. They might as well just release that drive under the name Maxtor, but again the deal wont be done until early next year.

WD already has a 20gig/7200rpm out, sadly its access time is worse than all three IBM/Maxtor/Quantum who has smaller platter size.

Quantum is considered the king of seek times and I have to acknowledge this. You're absolutely right that Maxtor has that middle of the field type of performance, but their transfer rates are usually very decent, better than WD and Quantum in many cases. If they can get their seek times up there they can really have a good fight with IBM. I hope Quantum and its former partner, Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics, can help this newly formed company make faster, more reliable and cheaper hard drives.