Maxtor Max Line III 250GB w/16MB Buffer

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

MrPaulAR

Member
May 1, 2003
153
0
0
Who cares if the drives are good/bad as long as they honor their warranty. I've *never* had a problem with getting a failed drive replaced with Maxtor or Western Digital during warranty periods. You are backing up your important data...right?!?
 

Slaimus

Senior member
Sep 24, 2000
985
0
76
Maxtor's low end drives have taken a very big dive after the Quantum merger. However the MaxLine drives are among the most well built and tested drives, and are in a completely different class than the DiamondMax drives.
 

Trikat

Diamond Member
May 22, 2003
3,384
0
86
:)
The issue about Maxline drives having much better quality is reassuring!
I got one of these 250gb 16mb cache a couple of months ago and now I won't regret buying it, because of the maxtor name.
I did buy the white label OEM and that only had 90 days of warranty or so.

To the guy above that said something about NCQ, well you first need the controller cards/motherboards that support NCQ. I know my mobo won't support it so the performance increase is not as large; however, it is still faster. Too bad the seek times sucks, but the drive is for storage, not as a main drive.
 

lilsprout82

Member
Oct 14, 2004
54
0
0
Originally posted by: MrPaulAR
Who cares if the drives are good/bad as long as they honor their warranty. I've *never* had a problem with getting a failed drive replaced with Maxtor or Western Digital during warranty periods. You are backing up your important data...right?!?

I would wager a guess that most people don't like downtime. Sure most of "us" are able to work without the drive and we have data backups, but just because the product has a good, honorable warranty doesn't mean I don't care if it is good or bad.

I've also have had very few problems with Maxtor. I like their product line. I think I'll pick up a couple of these when they come back in stock.
 

Jeraden

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,518
1
76
I always think the hard drive problems are blown out of proportion. I've only once had a hard drive fail, and that was like a 40MB hard drive like 10 years ago. In 4 computers at home, I have 10 total hard drives. I have mostly Maxtors currently since they generally are the best price, but also have some seagates and WDs. All work fine, none are exceptionally noisy, none have any problems.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
I like seagate cause hardrives always quit for me at 3.2 years. But this is pretty hot. Fastest desktop drive per storage review (other than raptor)
 

kayaksurfer

Member
Sep 21, 2002
101
0
0
Not sure if this drive sopports it, but don't forget about Maxtor's "AMSET" utility that allows you to change their drive's acoustic mode between regular/quiet/fast. Search for it on Maxtor's website if this link doesn't work. Very useful if you're building a HTPC or upgrading your Tivo.
 

isekii

Lifer
Mar 16, 2001
28,578
3
81
Originally posted by: Zebo
I like seagate cause hardrives always quit for me at 3.2 years. But this is pretty hot. Fastest desktop drive per storage review (other than raptor)

how is the hd quitting at 3.2 years hot ?
i'm running maxtors and they've been running for me over that. Now that's hot :p
 

obeseotron

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,910
0
0
Originally posted by: Zebo
I like seagate cause hardrives always quit for me at 3.2 years. But this is pretty hot. Fastest desktop drive per storage review (other than raptor)

Umm, no. Storage Review shows the latest Seagate drives to be slower than Raptors, Maxline III, Hitachi 7k250, and a 250MB SATA Caviar.

Comaprison from Storage Review

The only test that the Seagate wins a couple of the Winmark 99 tests, which were highly questionable when they were produced 6 years ago and are certainly useless now. The Seagate comes in last in just about every one of storagereview's own desktop tests. It puts up a reasonable showing in their server tests, but that's probably not what you're buying it for, and it's still not faster than the Hitachi.

Seagates might be quiet, reliable and not slow, but they are most certainly not the fastest.
 

Dug

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2000
3,469
6
81
Originally posted by: obeseotron
Originally posted by: Zebo
I like seagate cause hardrives always quit for me at 3.2 years. But this is pretty hot. Fastest desktop drive per storage review (other than raptor)

Umm, no. Storage Review shows the latest Seagate drives to be slower than Raptors, Maxline III, Hitachi 7k250, and a 250MB SATA Caviar.

Comaprison from Storage Review

The only test that the Seagate wins a couple of the Winmark 99 tests, which were highly questionable when they were produced 6 years ago and are certainly useless now. The Seagate comes in last in just about every one of storagereview's own desktop tests. It puts up a reasonable showing in their server tests, but that's probably not what you're buying it for, and it's still not faster than the Hitachi.

Seagates might be quiet, reliable and not slow, but they are most certainly not the fastest.


You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between those drives in performance. You can certainly hear a difference though.
Get a Seagate.
 

jburnham

Member
Oct 9, 2001
85
0
0
Don't get your panties in a bunch - it isn't going to be offered at that price for a loong time. Nobody got it at that price. It's either new and they'll bump the price up to market price when the get some, or it went OOS and they dropped the price temporarily to get us all drooling.
 

Electric Mayhem

Senior member
Oct 18, 2004
241
0
0
Probably true. That's what I was thinking. Hopefully they didn't do that with the Nforce 4 boards they have. ZZF hasn't marked them up (yet) as high as other sites have.
 

k1114

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2002
1,153
0
76
On the quality of maxtor: The only drive ive ever had die on me was a maxtor 120gb, and i've seen one light on fire (still can't figure that one out). On the other hand, i've got a 45gb maxtor that I bought back when 45gb was the 400gb drive of the time, and it's doing great to this day in my xbox. I think their quality control has just went downhill lately. I'd stick with drives like the raptor or seagate ide/sata drives, a good warranty usually means a relaible product in the hard drive market.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Originally posted by: obeseotron
Originally posted by: Zebo
I like seagate cause hardrives always quit for me at 3.2 years. But this is pretty hot. Fastest desktop drive per storage review (other than raptor)

Umm, no. Storage Review shows the latest Seagate drives to be slower than Raptors, Maxline III, Hitachi 7k250, and a 250MB SATA Caviar.

Comaprison from Storage Review

The only test that the Seagate wins a couple of the Winmark 99 tests, which were highly questionable when they were produced 6 years ago and are certainly useless now. The Seagate comes in last in just about every one of storagereview's own desktop tests. It puts up a reasonable showing in their server tests, but that's probably not what you're buying it for, and it's still not faster than the Hitachi.

Seagates might be quiet, reliable and not slow, but they are most certainly not the fastest.


you need to read more carefully.