The TeraByte Drives Redefine External Storage

Flexible OneTouch Button

The button on the front is Maxtor's popular OneTouch button, which can be programmed to execute an application of your choice, synchronize folders using the Sync feature, or run a pre-defined backup process.

Inside: DiamondMax 11 Debuts

Again, we decided to open the product in order to check what drives Maxtor is using, but this turned out to be a bit more difficult than opening the Big Disk Extreme. Still, after removing some screws and the top and bottom covers, the case can be opened easily. But again you should be aware that the manufacturer will void the warranty if you run into trouble.

As we expected, there were two Maxtor hard drives, but we found a model that has not found its way into our test labs yet: The DiamondMax 11. Available in 400 GB and 500 GB capacities - using three and four platters, respectively - it matches Hitachi's and Seagate's current offerings. That also includes Native Command Queuing support, 300 MB/s interface bandwidth and 16 MB cache memory.