All Maxtor IDE drives have only one jumper which you have to set for single or master drive mode. If you want the hard disk to operate as slave, just remove JP50.

Conclusion

I don't expect this drive to be at a low price point, as it is definitely one of the latest state-of-the-art hard disks. It is fast and really huge, but I doubt that a lot of home users will really need this drive right now.

Thanks to the low prices for CD-R media, I cannot see much sense in spending a lot of money for a hard drive of that size right now. As usual, prices will drop faster than your income possibly ever rises, so I'd recommend to go for such a drive the moment you really need it. Adding a second hard drive to your system is very easy and can always be done. Still, people that do a lot of video editing will appreciate the size of this Maxtor product.

The 98196H8 is a great solution for people with high capacity demands and low budgets. Using four of those drives in an IDE RAID configuration will either give you 320 GB stripped at zero data safety, or 160 GB stripped, while the data is mirrored on two other drives. A comparable SCSI RAID will at least be twice as expensive. There are certainly some disadvantages of IDE RAID vs. SCIS RAID, but in my opinion, IDE RAID systems are becoming the best solution for semi-professional purposes.

Maxtor has fortified the claim to be one of the driving forces in the hard drive sector once more. The DiamondMax 80 is a very persuasive product, no matter which model you want to buy. I'm already looking forward to a model running at 7.200 rpm.