Maxtor Corporation is shipping its new Maxtor SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits, with a 16MB buffer and 7200 RPM performance.

The Kits come with a Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive and offer capacities up to 300GB, allowing consumers to store 5,000 hours of their favorite MP3s, 230,000 digital photos (JPEG) or 144 high-definition video games, the company describes.

Maxtor's Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit includes an installation guide with step-by-step instructions, an SATA cable and mounting screws. The kit also provides Maxtor's popular MaxBlast installation software, which partitions and formats the drive for use, and helps copy files from the old hard drive to the new Maxtor drive. In addition, the new Ultra16 drive offers a 150MB/sec interface speed and SATA II features including Native Command Queuing (NCQ) for more intelligent hard drive operation, and runs quietly with a fluid dynamic bearing motor.

Maxtor is also shipping its new Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hard drives to OEMs and channel partners around the world. Based on an integrated, single-chip native SATA solution, the DiamondMax 10 drives feature native command queuing (NCQ), the company's proprietary dual-processor technology, and a new 16MB buffer to deliver faster speeds than the traditional 7200 RPM drives in their class.

PC or Mac users who play intense games, edit digital videos, juggle multiple applications at once, or who have an older parallel ATA system are perfect candidates to upgrade their systems to SATA. To upgrade, customers simply install a Maxtor Ultra16 hard drive and a SATA controller card, or install the drive directly with any new motherboard that supports SATA. Compared to parallel ATA, new SATA-enabled PC systems, particularly with NCQ, will show improved performance while multithreading or running two streams of multimedia content at the same time.

Maxtor 250GB and 300GB SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits are available through major distribution and retail channels. Manufacturer's suggested retail prices are $239.95 and $279.95 respectively. Parallel ATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits will be available in Q4 2004.

From eMEDIALive