Drive outpaces limits and standards

Maxtor has broken capacity and transfer-rate barriers with its 160-Gbyte DiamondMax D540X UltraATA/133 drive. The drive takes advantage of the new addressing scheme defined in the latest version of the ATA/ATAPI addressing specification. ATA/ATAPI-6 extends the previous limit of 137.4 Gbytes to 144 Pbytes (see "PC Expo has lots of 'biggests' and firsts," EDN, Aug 2, 2001, pg 26). The DiamondMax D540X also goes beyond the ATA/ATAPI-6 specification's Ultra-ATA/100 standard by operating at 133 Mbytes/sec. The new drive's UltraATA/133 interface is part of Maxtor's proprietary "Fast Drives" specification, which companies such as VIA Technologies (www.viatech.com), Silicon Integrated Systems (www.sis.com), and Silicon Image (www.siimage.com) have licensed. Although UltraATA/133 is not part of the ATA/ATAPI standard, it is backward-compatible with it.

To ensure that your PC can take advantage of that 33% speed increase, Maxtor bundles a Promise Technology ATA controller card with the D540X for a price of $399.95.

Maxtor Corp, 1-408-894-5000, www.maxtor.com.