Maxtor's Consumer Kit Houses Familiar Drive

In August, we ran an article about Maxtor's DiamondMax 10 drives — high-performance SATA drives available only through OEMs and reseller channels. Now however, Maxtor's taking the same DiamondMax 10 drives and offering them through retail stores as consumer hard drive kits, complete with a pretty box, installation hardware — and a brand new name.

We don't know why the company chose a different name — the Maxtor SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits — instead of using the already-familiar and catchier DimondMax 10, but whatever the reason, we're glad to see the drive appear on retail shelves. Some smaller SMB owners find it easier to drive over to CompUSA when they need a new drive.

Maxtor claims that the Ultra 16 is the only retail hard drive that offers 16MB buffer and 7200RPM performance. The Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits use high-performance Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives with capacities up to 300GB — plenty of room for all your critical data — and then some.

One other feature helps improve this drive's performance — Native Command Queuing. The technology lets the hard drive find data faster and more efficiently.

"Customers continue to rely on Maxtor's innovative storage solutions. Our retail product line has become the industry benchmark in desktop performance, reliability and backup," says Stacey Lund, executive director of Maxtor's consumer products group. "The introduction of the Maxtor Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits offers a perfect solution for SOHO backup and storage. The kit's high-performance SATA hard drive, maximum capacity of 300GB, 16MB buffer and easy installation clearly demonstrate the company's commitment to providing high-quality, robust products."

Installation

Maxtor repackages the DiamondMax 10 drive into a retail box it calls the SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit.

The Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit comes with a step-by-step installation guide, a SATA cable and mounting screws. You also get Maxtor's MaxBlast installation software. MaxBlast partitions and formats the drive and can help you copy files over from your old hard drive to the new Maxtor drive.

What you don't get is an SATA controller card, which you'll need unless your computer's motherboard supports SATA. You can buy a card from Maxtor for an additional $49.95.

Pricing and Availability
You'll find Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits through major distribution and retail channels such as Best Buy, Frye's, CompUSA and Staples.

• SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit, 250GB — $239.95, MSRP
• SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit, 300GB — $279.95, MSRP

Lauren Simonds is the managing editor of SmallBusinessComputing.com

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