Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40 Ultra ATA 66 HDD

In this installment we will take a look at a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40 series, 7200 RPM, Ultra ATA/66 hard drive. Although the reviewed model (52049U4) is only a 20 GB hard drive, it is representative of the entire DiamondMax Plus 40 family of drives and the results obtained through our testing should be identical to those from any of the drives in this product family.

Maxtor Corporation has quickly grown over the past two years, doubling its desktop market share for hard drives. They have made a determined effort to go from producing average performing hard drives a few years ago, to becoming one of the current performance leaders in the industry. In addition to the DiamondMax and DiamondMax Plus line of hard drives in the ATA segment, they also produce the DiamondMax VL (value line) for cost conscious consumers and the sub-$700 PC market.

In the DiamondMax Plus line of hard drives, Maxtor currently produces the DiamondMax Plus 40 and the older DiamondMax Plus 6800 series. Both of these model lines feature 7200-RPM drives and utilize the Ultra ATA/66 interface. The older DiamondMax Plus 6800 series, has disk platter densities of 6.8 GB’s per platter and storage capacities of up to 27 GB’s, while the newer DiamondMax Plus 40 series offers data densities of 10.2 GB per platter and storage capacities of up to 40.9 GB’s.

Specifications

The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40 line of hard drives, are available in capacities of 10.2, 15.3, 20.4, 30.7, and 40.9 GB’s. All the drives feature the Ultra ATA/66 interface, 10.2 GB per platter data densities and have 7200-RPM rotational speeds. In addition, all of the drives in the DiamondMax Plus 40 family share the flowing performance and physical specifications.