Those Maxtor DiamondMax 10 HDDs

[Zucarita9000]

I'm thinking about getting one for my new system. They seem very good, with native SATA, fluid bearings, dual cpu's and NCQ. Are they as good as they sound? I always choose WD for hard drives, but they don't seem to have plans to release a hdd with all the features from the DM10.

I'll be getting a 160 or maybe a 200GB unit. It's a shame that the 16MB buffer only comes with the 250 and 300GB model. Oh well, I suppose 8MB should be plenty.

 

[eelw]

Yeah, great HD. I have the 300GB SATA drive. Unfortunately, I only have the Intel 865 chipset, so I can't utilize the NCQ. But other than that, it's a fast and quiet drive

 

[Subhuman25]

Will never touch a Maxtor,Quantum,Fujitsu or IBM HD for the rest of my life due to several HD failures under normal usage in short periods of time(1-2 years)

Seagate & WD compare favorably in performance,silence & reliability against the HD's mentioned above.
I have not ever had a problem with a Seagate HD and WD comes in a close 2nd place.

My recommendations due to experience is stay away from those brands I listed above.Get yourself a Seagate and never look back!

I can't comment much on Hitachi or Samsung HD's because I've never had them,but from the information I've gathered they appear to be good performing quality drives as well.
One thing is for sure,I'd choose either Samsung or Hitachi(and yes I know Hitachi is the new offspring of IBM HD's) before I'd even think about a Maxtor,Quantum or Fujitsu!

I think you'll find general consensus favors the Seagates by a fair margin.
Of course you'll get the incidental postings of those that own Maxtor or have owned them and favor them.
Take those ratings with a good grain of salt.I've owned many of all those brands,except Hitachi & Samsung, and therefor am a non-biased reviewer cimply offering advice based on 15+ years of experience using them.Seagate wins out by a huge margin by my experiences with them.

 

[Scott9027]

I am new to the forums and to the computer world, but the features that you mentioned about the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 can be found on a Seagate Barracuda such as the one here http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-148-034&depa=0. I don't know if it has the capacity you are looking for but it is reasonably large, and has features such as NCQ. The lower price also adds appeal. It seems like it is at least worth a look.

 

[ManBearPig]

I have it. its pretty damn fast, and pretty quiet. i installed windows in like 10-15 minutes, i kid you not lol. And once you get it going, and use it a bit, it loads apps like, instantaneously. I enjoy it. Every program installs so fast. plus its big.

 

[ts3433]

Originally posted by: Scott9027
I am new to the forums and to the computer world, but the features that you mentioned about the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 can be found on a Seagate Barracuda such as the one here http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-148-034&depa=0. I don't know if it has the capacity you are looking for but it is reasonably large, and has features such as NCQ. The lower price also adds appeal. It seems like it is at least worth a look.

Nope; it has NCQ, but the new Maxtor has a 16MB cache versus the 8MB of that one.

 

[gobucks]

yeah, the 16MB cache makes much more of a difference than the NCQ. Personally, I've heard great things about the drives, and they have 3 year warranties, so I'm definitely gonna be getting one for my nForce 4 system.

 

[eelw]

Also the DM10 have the 100GB platters.

 

[Insane3D]

The DM10's are indentical to the top of the line MaxIII's, in the 250GB and 300GB sizes. The smaller sizes are the same except for 8mb cache instead of 16mb. Also, the 16mb over the 8mb cache makes almost no difference from what I've seen. I've got a 200GB DM10, and it's an awesome drive. The Seagates are nice too, but generally slower than the Maxtors...although it's nothing that you would notice real world.

SR has chosen the MAXIII/DM10 as their top desktop drive right now..

 

[imported_Phil]

I can't speak for the DM10's, but my two DM9's (one 60Gb, one 120Gb, both 7200rpm 2Mb cache) have been excellent these past three and two years respectively. The only thing that annoys me is that the 60Gb is very quiet, whereas the 120Gb needs the Amset program to reach the same noise levels, which increases seek times somewhat.

Other than that, they're great drives

 

[Zucarita9000]

Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering what kind of chipset woudl I need to take advantage of NCQ.

 

[Subhuman25]

Seagate 200GB SATA has 100GB platters as well.

 

[eelw]

Originally posted by: Zucarita9000
Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering what kind of chipset woudl I need to take advantage of NCQ.

Currently only the Intel 925/915 chipset supports NCQ.

 

[Subhuman25]

At this point NCQ offers no noticable performance enhancements.Pus the standards haven't even been clarified yet.So I wouldn't let that option be a deciding factor when considering a HD.

 

[Scott9027]

Sorry to bother you, but could someone tell me what exactly the cache on the hard drive does. I know what the cache on the processor does, but I don't know if its the same type of thing for the hard drive.

 

[Zucarita9000]

Well, if I'm not mistaken, the cache memory -like a buffer- stores the data fetched from the platters.

 

[gobucks]

Yeah, the cache is just temporary storage. More of it is better. Also, the 16MB buffer in the DM10 does make a huge difference. After all, in testing, the DM10 300GB spanks every other 7200RPM drive, the only thing that can beat it is a raptor. Since nothing else other than the NCQ is different, (in fact, the seek time is actually higher than the older drives, up to 9.3ms) those performance benefits could really only come from the large buffer. Oh, and for NCQ support, if you are going AMD, all the new PCIe boards will support it, with the exception of the low end budget chipsets. The K8T890 Pro, nForce4 Ultra and SLI, and SiS 756 (i think), will all have NCQ support. Additionally, nForce4 will also have SATA-II support, which no other mobo supports right now. It's not an absolute must have, but it does make a difference in some situations. Reviewers often describe it like they describe Hyperthreading - it doesn't show much difference in the benchmarks, but the system just seems to "feel" more responsive. I personally plan to get one of these drives with an nForce4, and will likely be using NCQ.

 

[Xatrix]

Ive had a seagate, a maxtor, a quantum, and 2 IBMs.

One IBM failed after 6 month's use.... Quantum never failed after like 6 years use... seagate running strong, as well as my maxtor that is about 4 years old.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: gobucks
Yeah, the cache is just temporary storage. More of it is better. Also, the 16MB buffer in the DM10 does make a huge difference. After all, in testing, the DM10 300GB spanks every other 7200RPM drive, the only thing that can beat it is a raptor. Since nothing else other than the NCQ is different, (in fact, the seek time is actually higher than the older drives, up to 9.3ms) those performance benefits could really only come from the large buffer. Oh, and for NCQ support, if you are going AMD, all the new PCIe boards will support it, with the exception of the low end budget chipsets. The K8T890 Pro, nForce4 Ultra and SLI, and SiS 756 (i think), will all have NCQ support. Additionally, nForce4 will also have SATA-II support, which no other mobo supports right now. It's not an absolute must have, but it does make a difference in some situations. Reviewers often describe it like they describe Hyperthreading - it doesn't show much difference in the benchmarks, but the system just seems to "feel" more responsive. I personally plan to get one of these drives with an nForce4, and will likely be using NCQ.

The DM10's with only 8mb of cache perform almost identical IIRC.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: eelw

Originally posted by: Zucarita9000
Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering what kind of chipset woudl I need to take advantage of NCQ.

Currently only the Intel 925/915 chipset supports NCQ.

The ICH6 does support NCQ, but the Silicon Image 3114 chip does as well from what I understand.

 

[Zucarita9000]

I guess I'll stick to my plans on getting an P4C800 Deluxe, a 3.2 Prescott, 1.5GB of RAM and a WD 1600JD. If I want to take advantage of NCQ, I would have to buy a 915/925 motherboard, wich costs almost $100 more and of top of that, a new PCI-E vid card. Forget it. I can't affor it for the time being.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: gobucks
Yeah, the cache is just temporary storage. More of it is better. Also, the 16MB buffer in the DM10 does make a huge difference. After all, in testing, the DM10 300GB spanks every other 7200RPM drive, the only thing that can beat it is a raptor. Since nothing else other than the NCQ is different, (in fact, the seek time is actually higher than the older drives, up to 9.3ms) those performance benefits could really only come from the large buffer. Oh, and for NCQ support, if you are going AMD, all the new PCIe boards will support it, with the exception of the low end budget chipsets. The K8T890 Pro, nForce4 Ultra and SLI, and SiS 756 (i think), will all have NCQ support. Additionally, nForce4 will also have SATA-II support, which no other mobo supports right now. It's not an absolute must have, but it does make a difference in some situations. Reviewers often describe it like they describe Hyperthreading - it doesn't show much difference in the benchmarks, but the system just seems to "feel" more responsive. I personally plan to get one of these drives with an nForce4, and will likely be using NCQ.

Well, the 100GB platters could also help account for the performance improvement, as well as firmware tweaks done by Maxtor. It's not all the cache .