If you are a long-time reader of this site, you have probably noticed that most of our product reviews tend to be fairly positive in nature. There are two reasons for that. The first is, with rare exception, we usually end up purchasing our hardware off the shelf, the same way you do (including this hard drive). Most hardware manufacturers still consider our site too small to send us any review samples, even though we keep bugging them. What this means for site reviews is we do not review hardware that we think might be junk because we spend our hard-earned Jack to buy it, and when the review is over, the hardware usually stays in my machine.
The second reason we don't review products that we know beforehand are a lemon is because resources and manpower here are limited. If I can write only one review every two weeks, because of the myriad of other functions I perform at the site, it will not be on a crappy product if I can help it. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed by this "Maxtor" hard drive we are reviewing today.
Before I get to the meat of this review, let me state right here that I don't have a beef with Maxtor. (Well, I didn't before I started this review, anyway.) As a matter of fact, the reason I chose a Maxtor hard drive for this review is because it's what I have in my personal machine. Here's how it started:
I returned home with my 40 gig 7200 RPM factory sealed Maxtor hard drive, which I had paid $119.00 dollars for at CompUSA. How do I know it's factory sealed? The plastic surrounding the box is imprinted with the Maxtor logo, while the back of the box proclaims "Look for the Maxtor logo on the shrink-wrap to ensure product authenticity."
Here is where things became interesting. Inside my factory sealed Maxtor box is not a Maxtor hard drive; rather, there is a Quantum Fireball Plus AS. I looked again at the side of the box. It clearly says "Maxtor ST0154000U". I have never been found of Quantum hard drives for the high failure rate I have experienced with them in my personal experiences, my internship, and when I worked as a retail repair technician.
Wait a minute! I think to myself. Didn't Maxtor buy Quantum recently? Okay, so maybe it is a simple packaging error. Since Maxtor owns Quantum, they must have mixed up this batch of drives in the "Maxtor ST0154000U" boxes. They may even produce them on the same line. An honest mistake; we all make them. A simple visit to Comp USA will solve this. I will return this Quantum drive for the one that should have come in this box. No harm, no foul. Except that's not what happened. When I was repacking the box, to return to the store for exchange, a slip of paper fell out. After reading it, I began to get angry.
It seems Maxtor is aware that they have put the wrong hard drive in the box. They did so deliberately. They consider this drive "meets Maxtor's rigorous quality and reliability standards". I guess while they were at it, they figured they would also tell me, Sorry, all the great Maxtor software included in the box is incompatible with your Quantum hard drive. All the charts, graphs, and the quick-start guide--nope, they're incompatible, also. If you like, however, you can log onto their site and download some software that will work with your drive.
What Maxtor has done here is so far off base that it ought to be illegal. There is a name for labeling your hard drive box ,"Maxtor ST0154000U" and inside including a Quantum Fireball. Than name is "Bait and Switch" Now I paid for a Maxtor hard drive not a Quantum hard drive and that's what I wanted damnit. Furthermore, failure to provide the software in the box to access the drive is utterly ridiculous. I was buying a hard drive because my other drive failed. That means I don't have a working computer to download the other software. Hello, Maxtor? Is there anyone home?
Some of you here may not fully appreciate this problem. There is on some older BIOS a 32 GIG hard drive limitation so severe is this limitation that most hard drives manufactured larger than 32GIG include a jumper on the drive labeled "AC" to allow you to use this drive with an older system what it does as I understand it is to tell your BIOS that you have a 32 GIG hard drive.
How the hell am I supposed to know what to do about this when the jumper information included is for a "Maxtor" drive, and my box contains a Quantum hard drive? Fortunately my motherboard is new enough that it doesn't have this BIOS limitation, but you can rest assured that many of the customers who buy this drive won't be so lucky.
At this point in time, if I didn't run my own hardware site, I would have taken the drive back to the store to get my money back. I didn't do this because I'd already decided to write a review on this hard drive. I felt obligated to install the drive I had--even though it wasn't the drive I thought I was buying--and see what meets our standards really meant. I won't bore you with the details of the physical installation and setup. This part, at least, went much as I expected. If you have ever installed a hard drive, you know how it's done. If you haven't, e-mail me and maybe I will write a how-to guide on the subject and add it to the site because I certainly can't explain to you how to do it in a paragraph or two.
Since this was originally supposed to be a "Maxtor" hard drive review, I thought I would go ahead and compare the Quantum drive with a Maxtor 30 GIG 7200 RPM I had in another of my personal machines. Time to take a break from the talking and see how these drives perform. As you can see both drives were tested on the same platform. Both drives were also running a fresh install of Windows 2000, VIA 4in1's version 4.35, and of course SP2.
Test System:
AMD T-Bird 1.4GHZ o/c 1.52GHZ (145X10.5) 1.80V
Abit KT7E KT133A Chipset (3R BIOS)
256MB PNY (INFINEON Chips) PC133 SDRAM CAS2 (2X128)
Maxtor 7200 RPM ATA100 30GB HDD
Quantum 7200 RPM ATA 100 40GB HDD
I/O Magic 52X CD-ROM
Visiontek Geforce 2 GTS
Sound Blaster Live
Netgear FA311 NIC
GlobalWIN CAK-II 38
A1 Power 350 W ATX PS
WIN 2000 SP2
DirectX 8
Det 21.81 Reference driver
Maxtor 30 GIG 7200 HD
Quantum 40 GIG 7200 HD
As you can see, the REAL Maxtor hard drive edges the pretender in performance. The margin however is small enough, though, that for the sake of fairness, I am willing to call the performance a tie. I can't help but find that fact somewhat troublesome. If this really was a comparable drive, then the 40 GIG should have beaten the 30 GIG by a fair margin.
WHY? Well both drives spin at 7200 RPM. Theoretically, the higher aerial density of the larger drive should make for a substantially faster transfer rate, since as aerial density increases, more data passes under the head in the same period of time. This action should result in a faster transfer rate.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. About the only positive thing I can think to write about the Maxtor/ Quantum drive is that it is very quiet. In my subjective testing, I found it even quieter than my 30 GIG Maxtor, which itself was quiet enough you hardly ever noticed its operation. If you have a Delta fan somewhere in your system you definitely wont notice its operation over THAT! I live across the street from a Railroad crossing and I can barely hear a freight train pass over my Delta fan, but that's another story.
Having in the past been a big fan of Maxtor hard drives, I was very disappointed to see the path they have chosen to take here--clearly misleading the customer about what drive he is purchasing. If this had been there only SNAFU then it wouldn't be as bad but they also chose not to include any software or documentation for the Quantum drive, this is simply unacceptable in a retail drive kit.
That being said, I always try to be fair in my reviews, so if Maxtor wants to send me a ST 7400 40 GIG drive for testing--or if they care to e-mail me and explain their actions--I would be happy to revisit this issue in the future. I'm betting they don't. Of course this time I would be happy to be wrong.
Pros:
Cons:
- Drive specified was not the drive received
- Printed instructions incompatible with Quantum drive
- Utility software incompatible with Quantum drive
- Mediocre performance
- Questionable reliability
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