New DiamondMax 10!!

saiyajin · Post by **saiyajin** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 10:33 am

NEWS from Maxtor's site:

Based on an integrated, single-chip native SATA solution, DiamondMax 10 drives feature native command queuing along with the companyâ€™s exclusive dual-processor technology and large buffers to deliver unparalleled speeds compared to traditional drives in their class. This unique set of features combined with Maxtorâ€™s latest firmware technology, allows the drive to self-balance its workloads for a more efficient hard drive operation. With DiamondMax 10 hard drive-enabled systems, consumers can easily run multiple applications, such as games and music, at the same time without overwhelming the PC. Designed for multimedia PC users, graphic artists, system integrators and white box builders, the 7200 RPM DiamondMax 10 drives are offered in capacities of up to 300GB and are ideal for performance desktop computing storing high-resolution images, multimedia content, and personal and business information.

* Serial ATA/150 and Ultra ATA/133 interfaces
* Native command queuing for enhanced efficiency
* Quiet Drive Technology for acoustics-sensitive applications
* Whisper-quiet fluid dynamic bearing motors
* Maxtor Shock Protection and Data Protection Systems for greater reliability

Anybody has one?

Any feedback?

RaNDoMMAI · Post by **RaNDoMMAI** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:43 pm

the new maxtor was praised on the new issue of maximum PC with there new dream machine on the cover.

I just wish maxtor were quieter, i still have a 40gig that is like 5 years old that has been on 24/7 since forever.

~RaNDoM

saiyajin · Post by **saiyajin** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 2:16 pm

What I read is that this new version is quieter than the rest. But of course, this is only what Maxtor is saying... who knows??

What did it say in that article?
Anyone has one?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:39 am

Game PC "review":

http://shorl.com/fafebrabojufre

Some people are wondering if the Maxline III drives are in fact the same as DiamondMax 10 (just different firmware).

I guess we'll find out soon enough, as both drives start to hit shelves everywhere.

saiyajin · Post by **saiyajin** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:25 am

THanks Halcyon. Great link!!

Summary taken from last page:

"Our benchmarks have shown that raw performance levels of the DiamondMax 10 are not up to par with Western Digitalâ€™s Raptor, but thatâ€™s not incredibly surprising considering the 33% difference in spindle speed. Still, the DiamondMax is without a doubt the fastest 7,200 RPM drive weâ€™ve ever tested. While performance levels are slightly below the Raptor, DiamondMax 10 series drives still have some very important factors going for them, like current capacity levels up to 300GB (in comparison to the Raptorâ€™s 74GB), and a price per gigabyte level well below Western Digitalâ€™s Raptor ($0.98 / GB to $3.30 /GB).

In addition, the slower 7,200 RPM spindle speed allows for very low noise levels for such a high performance disk. Surprisingly though, the DiamondMax 10 drives run very hot to the touch, even hotter than our 10,000 RPM Raptor drives. According to our S.M.A.R.T monitoring software, the DiamondMax drive was running at over 10C higher (54C to 43C) temperatures during our testing compared to the Raptor. While this surprised us at first, when you consider Western Digital is dealing with only two small platters compared to three large platters, itâ€™s easy to see how thermals can be higher with the DiamondMax. In addition, the Raptor has integrated heatsink fins right on the drive, so that no doubt helps. We would recommend some sort of active cooling on these drives â€“ even if itâ€™s a low speed fan blowing at ~1000 RPM or so â€“ just to keep airflow moving.
"

I can not wait to hear what people's experiences are with this drive when is out...

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:16 am

my old maxtor was pretty quiet when it was set to silent. Not extremly quiet but not bad.

I now have a WD and it's the loudest thing in my system (i got it for free so i shouldn't complain).

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:54 am

Funny how the datasheet (PDF) does not cite acoustics. The only one of MAxtor's HDD spec sheets that doesn't.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 3:25 pm

Maxtors are noisy. Period. They *may* be the fastest, but I'd go with sound than speed anyday.

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:55 pm

I've got a 200GB version of one of these (8mb cache) and they do run hot, the smart monitoring is about 6C higher than my 200gb seagate 7200.7's but it feels much hotter to the touch.
they aren't that loud really, seek noises are very quiet when AAM is set to the quietest mode, but it does hum a bit while spinning

vbmech · Post by **vbmech** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:18 pm

I've got two 250 DM10's with the 16MB cache. They do not run hot at all (32c and 30c right now). The DM9's that they replaced ran much, much hotter and were a bit louder. I have them suspended but with AAM turned off; you can hear the seek noise, but I value the performance.

I wouldn't judge the DM10's with 16mb cache by any of the lower or older models..

as530 · Post by **as530** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:51 pm

does anybody know if nForce4 mobos support NCQ? does a mobo need to?

vbmech · Post by **vbmech** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:57 pm

as530 wrote:does anybody know if nForce4 mobos support NCQ? does a mobo need to?

The integrated controllers do need to, and I'm 99% certain the Nforce4 does. However after reading a bit about the feature, using NCQ in a desktop environment is a waste as the reads done are usually quite sequential and do not need to be re-ordered. You'll benefit more from the 16mb cache than the NCQ.

SATA 2 isn't worth worrying about for the desktop user I think at this point. My DM10 gets about 135 mb/s burst according to HDTach so it's below the limit of SATA 1.. no need for 300 mb/s channels with the current crop of drives.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:16 am

I just picked up the 300 gb PATA version of this. Let me say this drive has no idle whine whatsoever. However, the seeks are a big loud but i can't really hear em with my case closed. These things are pretty fast. i installed windows in about 15 min.

Suprisingly, this drive runs cooler than the Seagate 7200.7 in my comp. right now its idling around 33 celcius

sweatypickle · Post by **sweatypickle** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:19 am

vhx1 wrote:
Suprisingly, this drive runs cooler than the Seagate 7200.7 in my comp. right now its idling around 33 celcius

vhx1 how does the idle noise of this drive compare with the Seagate 7200.7. Also just to be clear, it's the 250 gig version you have correct?

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:57 am

on my system the spinning noise of the maxtor is louder than a 7200.7 but the seek noise when AAM is on it's lowest setting is quieter

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 12:16 pm

sweatypickle wrote:
vhx1 wrote:
Suprisingly, this drive runs cooler than the Seagate 7200.7 in my comp. right now its idling around 33 celcius
vhx1 how does the idle noise of this drive compare with the Seagate 7200.7. Also just to be clear, it's the 250 gig version you have correct?

As said in my previous post, i have the 300 gig PATA DM Plus 10.
Both of my drives have no idle whine. however, the seeks on my maxtor are quite a bit louder.

sweatypickle · Post by **sweatypickle** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 1:29 pm

vhx1 wrote:
sweatypickle wrote:
vhx1 wrote:
Suprisingly, this drive runs cooler than the Seagate 7200.7 in my comp. right now its idling around 33 celcius
vhx1 how does the idle noise of this drive compare with the Seagate 7200.7. Also just to be clear, it's the 250 gig version you have correct?
As said in my previous post, i have the 300 gig PATA DM Plus 10.
Both of my drives have no idle whine. however, the seeks on my maxtor are quite a bit louder.

No idle whine.. just wondering what are yer other components like fanss, HSF, powersupply etc

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:06 am

if you are lucky and have a maxtor with very litttle whine then using the feature tool to turn down the AAM setting would make that a vbery quiet drive, but I do think other noises may be concealing the drives spin noise.

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:34 am

vhx1 wrote:
sweatypickle wrote:
vhx1 wrote:
Suprisingly, this drive runs cooler than the Seagate 7200.7 in my comp. right now its idling around 33 celcius
vhx1 how does the idle noise of this drive compare with the Seagate 7200.7. Also just to be clear, it's the 250 gig version you have correct?
As said in my previous post, i have the 300 gig PATA DM Plus 10.
Both of my drives have no idle whine. however, the seeks on my maxtor are quite a bit louder.

Well, if your Seagate 7200.7 does not have a whine... I bet then those Maxtors will sound extremely loud to me.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:11 am

sweatypickle wrote:
No idle whine.. just wondering what are yer other components like fanss, HSF, powersupply etc

I am running a 3700 BQE with the stock PS with an FBK12G12LH OEM Panaflo fan at the rear at 5 volts. For the HSF, i have the Zalman CNPS7000A AlCu running at the lowest voltage setting the fanmate allows. I have the stock antec fan which is pretty quiet blowing in the front. Both fans are mounted with the blue EAR grommets. I also cut out the front fan grill to increase airflow to the HD's. When i wanted to hear just how loud the drive was. I turned off all my case fans and basically took the drive out the cage and put my ear next to it

THe only thing about this setup that i would change is the stock PSU fan on the 350 W PSU. When it spins up it gets pretty audible. For the GPU i have the Zalman ZMHP80C.

Tigr wrote:Well, if your Seagate 7200.7 does not have a whine... I bet then those Maxtors will sound extremely loud to me.

I have one of the 7200.7's from the batch made in Seagates new China factory. As seen in various posts on this forum, they are extremely quiet (comparable to Samsung spinpoint series) and no the maxtors will not sound loud to you. My hearing is pretty sensitive also. However, i mite be one of the lucky few who received a quiet DM Plus 10.

BOOGS · Post by **BOOGS** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:23 am

Yes, I also was " one of the lucky ones " who got a very quiet Max 10 also.........

it seems that the people who bought these drives have been very lucky , getting the quiet ones, and the people who have not got this drive, have been unlucky, because 'their' Max 10s are not so quiet...........

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:27 am

the head noise on the maxtor is very low but it does whine a lot, it's louder than my 2 7200.7's put together

BOOGS · Post by **BOOGS** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:24 am

vhx1 wrote:I just picked up the 300 gb PATA version of this. Let me say this drive has no idle whine whatsoever. However, the seeks are a big loud but i can't really hear em with my case closed. These things are pretty fast. i installed windows in about 15 min.

Is this a serious comment ?

Windows in 15 mins ?

surely not Win XP ?

XP always takes at least 35 mins to install, the HD is never the bottleneck, it takes ages, most of the time reading the files of the cdrom.....

I installed XP onto a max 10, which is the fastest 7200rpm drive u can get, and it took 35mins

my pc is an Athlon 64, with 1gb dual channel memory

do u have any more info on your 15 min installation ?

I sure would love to be able to get it to install that quick

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:21 am

Well i am using an nLite modified installation of Windows XP Professional. Basically i have the option to delete any useless windows system components and services and drivers that are unnecessary thereby slimming down the isntall to about 4-500 megs. While this install is most definitely faster than a regular user prompted installation, i have it fully automated and it the new hard drive made a noticable difference. So yes this amounts to Windows Xp being installed in about 15-20 min. Kinda cheating of course

BOOGS · Post by **BOOGS** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 6:01 pm

Tell me more !!!!

i would love an automated, crap free, install of XP............

any idea where i can get one from ?

thanks

BOOGS

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 6:25 pm

google for nLite and it will take you to a site where yo ucan download it. you will need a windows xp disc that you copy onto ur hd. THe drawback about this program is that you need Microshit's .Net framework installed in order for it to work

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:59 am

Comparable (relative) acoustics measurements against the main competition:

http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/553/8/

Do NOT take those as absolute measurement results, as those vary a lot according to the measurement setup used.

Still, the relative ranking is revealing as it is, imho.

EDIT: typos

Derekasaurus Rex · Post by **Derekasaurus Rex** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 3:40 pm

BOOGS wrote:XP always takes at least 35 mins to install, the HD is never the bottleneck, it takes ages, most of the time reading the files of the cdrom.....

You got that right. It seems when everyone gets a new piece of hardware they claim XP installs in 3 minutes.

For example, if you read the feedback for the 74GB Raptor at newegg.com there are many claims of XP installing in < 10 minutes (some say that includes formatting the drive). I've installed XP to Raptors from a 52X CD-ROM and found ~35 minutes is much closer than 10. Either there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to read a clock, or there's something I don't know about installing XP in seconds flat.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 3:51 pm

halcyon wrote:Comparable (relative) acoustics measurements against the main competition:

http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/553/8/

Do NOT take those as absolute measurement results, as those vary a lot according to the measurement setup used.

Still, the relative ranking is revealing as it is, imho.

Any idea of the mewasuring distance? Those numbers are all very high, so I am guessing it's really close -- a few inches, which is not a good technique.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:50 pm

If you click on the title of a graph in the tweakers.net reviews, then you go to a page which describes the used testing method. Run that through babelfish so you can understand.

In a previous thread about their review of the Seagate 7200.8 I posted the next comments.

Tibors wrote:The seek noise mounted in a drive bay is measured at a distance of only 3mm from the side of the drive bay.
Just run the next quote through your favorite translator.
tweakers.net wrote:De schijf wordt vastgezet met vier schroeven en de geluidsdruk wordt altijd gemeten op dezelfde positie aan de zijkant van de schijf in de bay. De geluidsdrukmeter bevindt zich hierbij op drie millimeter van het metalen oppervlak van de bay.
The seek noise with the drive placed on foam is measured at a distance of 22mm above the disk, while the noise probe and the disk are enclosed in a plastic box. Echo anyone?
Just run the next quote through your favorite translator.
tweakers.net wrote:De schijf wordt in een plastic doos op een laagje foam geplaatst. In de zijkant van de doos bevindt zich een opening waardoor de sensor van de geluidsdrukmeter op een vaste hoogte van 2,2 centimeter boven de schijf gepositioneerd kan worden.