Maxtor Boosts Backup Performance

With the emergence of disk-to-disk backup technology and declining SATA disk prices, companies are recognizing SATA as a cheaper, faster and higher-performance alternative to tape and/or optical solutions.

One SATA vendor at the forefront of midline storage backup solutions is Maxtor, which recently introduced the MaXLine III Serial ATA-150 internal hard drive.

The MaXLine III is the company's first SATA product built from the ground up. The last generation of the product, the MaXLine II, only offered an 8-Mbyte buffer, but this third-generation design offers increased capacity and performance.

The MaXLine III incorporates a 16-Mbyte buffer that is two times as fast as most current desktop drives. The larger buffer means that data will be stored in faster RAM memory resulting in faster streaming of data to and from the disk. The drive runs at 7200rpm and has a capacity of 250 Gbytes.

The CRN Test Center found the MaXLine III performs as well as the fastest desktop hard drives available today.

Test Center engineers incorporated the hard drive into a system based on the Intel 925X chipset running at 3.4GHz. The system was populated with 1 Gbyte of DDR2-RAM. In a battery of online speed, capacity and data-integrity tests, the hard drive performed admirably.

SATA alternatives are perfect for companies with limited budgets, especially SMBs that need to significantly lower hardware and operating costs. With the use of SATA technology, businesses can cut down on administrative burdens by creating an easier way to centrally manage data storage.

The price of the MaXLine III can vary from about $210 to $275 and are already shipping. Maxtor covers its MaXLine III drives with a five-year warranty.

PRODUCT SNAPSHOT
> Name: Maxtor MaXLine III
> Model: 7B250S0
> Price: $210 to $275 (street)
> Distributors/Integrators: Bell Microproducts, Ingram Micro, SED International, Synnex, Tech Data
> Company: Maxtor
Milpitas, Calif.
(800) 2-MAXTOR
(408) 894-5000
www.maxtor.com