Maxtor lives on following acquisition by Seagate

In december we reported that Seagate was acquiring Maxtor. Quite what would happen to Maxtor has been speculated since. The Tech Report now fills in the gaps, reporting that the Maxtor brand will now be Seagate's cheapo line of kit.

Quote:

---

On the desktop, this value brand will manifest itself as the Maxtor DiamondMax 20, which will be available in capacities between 40GB and 320GB with either 2MB or 8MB of cache. Seagate is also introducing the MobileMax—Maxtor's first notebook drive—that will be available in 40GB to 80GB capacities with a 5,400-RPM spindle speed and 2MB of cache. These new drives will overlap the low end of Seagate's existing Barracuda and Momentus lines, but lack premium features like full-disk encryption and 16MB caches.

---

[The Tech Report]

normally I displike companies aquiring the opposition, but I think this will be bloody great for HDD's.

Maxtor have made some of my oldest, most reliable drives and Seagate recently provided me with 2 that would not work on nForce4 but which they sorted me firmwares for really quickly. Both companies seem to be switched on.

The two companies will be a force to be reckoned with. We love Seagate Barracuda 160's here too......very fast, very quiet and nice dense platters.

They just need to sort a Raptor competitor now....

I actually disagree; Maxtor produced some fine drives, and I absolutely swore by them. By contrast, Seagate provided me with 4 120GB SATA drives, two of which turned out to be wonky. The Maxtor brand appears to be kept on for drives that Seagate wish to produce or rebadge that will be of lower quality and reliability than their own-branded drives. That doesn't (from my perspective) sound like a good thing...

I must admit, having had both Maxtor (used about 8 of their drives personally, couple of hundred at work) I have never had any problems with my own drives, but they do get hot and fail if not used in a case with good ventilation.

Seagate on the other hand, I have used 2 of their drives (yes, a highly representative sample). The first was an early barracuda (20gb) and was replaced 3 times. The Second is a 320gb SATA drive, that I have yet to have any problems with.

So the merger may be good for both companies, alternatively, it could be the start of a decline for both :(

Maxtor have always been great for me, if a little bit chattery. Ive only had one fail, and that was the other day. I was very impressed with the warranty service, where they send you a replacement before you send the duffer back...thats if it ever arrives of course.

A bit disappointed myself as it means less competition.

I'll withhold judgement though and hope the drives under the maxtor branding remain as realible as they have been for me.

i would hope that it will encourage better market grouwth, i have used maxtor, seagate and western digital and my maxtor drives are the only ones that havnt failed yet, although they probably aren't pushed as hard ;)

Hopefully this will be beneficial to us the consumers

guys, I don't thin it will create less competition. It will create less costs, making drives cheapor.
Nicho's findings are interesting, as I have found both companies to be great for reliability, but Seagate have always been faster for me, and a lot cooler.
Either way, I see this as a good thang! ;)

Ironically I've moved all my drives now to WD since they simply haven't failed on me - everything is RAID now too

/\ I got a Raptor (cos youtold me too) and it is fast as hell....but the two Seagate Barracuda's make superb fast very quiet storage.

Sair has a Maxtor, and she like it, as it has never ever given her a moments trouble. And that, as they say, is what women want ;)

I've got a mixture of Maxtor, IBM, and Seagate, totalling about 10 drives. The IBM's are a lot older than the others, but I have to say, the Seagates do seem the fastest (although they are the newest), with the Maxtors and IBM on about a par.

I can't really see this as a bad thing tbh, some consolidation in the market was bound to happen eventually, and it's happened in the past too (RIP Quantum) without too much of an impact, long term.

Yes, but Quantum were pants :P.

They were after they were bought out (by Maxtor oddly enough) as they turned into the cheapo range, but back in the day they were easily the fastest IDE drives around :)

In fact, this was the very beasty I had :)

Maxtor have been very reliable however i seem to be moving towards western digitals drives at the moment as i've never had one fail and they are faster than the maxtors i have for less price.

I hope seagate since they have maxtors technology now can pump out drives which are fast and have that 5 year guarentee.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clunk

Maxtor have always been great for me, if a little bit chattery. Ive only had one fail, and that was the other day. I was very impressed with the warranty service, where they send you a replacement before you send the duffer back...thats if it ever arrives of course.

---

never let me down yet, i killed about 5 drives over the years, and when i worked in the PC shop i sent a few dozen back that way.. i hope seagate adopt the same RMA service, i wont be buying any more maxtor if there low performance compared to seagate.

maxtor have been great for me. and quantum before them (had a prodrive and later on a pair of bigfoots). quite a shame theyve been eaten by seagate actually as they seemed to be innovating quite enough on there own (first of the mainstream 16meg 7200rpm'ers i i remember right). i reckin if i still had the 4 gigger of theres it would still be going strong

actually iv got a pair of 100 meg HDD's in the cupboard that i know work. might see what brand they are (1992 vintage if memory serves me right)