Maxtor SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits

Maxtor today announced that it is shipping its new Maxtor SATA Ultra16(TM)Hard Drive Kits. As the only retail hard drive featuring a 16MB buffer andoffering best-in-class 7200RPM performance(1), Maxtor's new Ultra16 kits areperfect for consumers who want to upgrade their systems for an improvedmultimedia, computing and gaming experience. The new Ultra16 Hard Drive Kitscome with a high-performance Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive and offer capacitiesup to 300GB, allowing consumers to store 5,000 hours of their favorite MP3s,230,000 digital photos (JPEG) or 144 high-definition video games(2).

Maxtor's easy-to-install SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit includes an installationguide with step-by-step instructions, a SATA cable and mounting screws. The kitalso includes Maxtor's popular MaxBlast(TM) installation software, whichpartitions and formats the drive for use, and helps copy files from the old harddrive to the new Maxtor drive. In addition, the new Ultra16 drive offers a150MB/sec interface speed and SATA II features including Native Command Queuing(NCQ) for more intelligent hard drive operation, and runs quietly with a fluiddynamic bearing motor.

"Customers continue to rely on Maxtor's innovative storage solutions. Our retailproduct line, including our award-winning Maxtor OneTouch(TM) external drive,has become the industry benchmark in desktop performance, reliability andbackup," said Stacey Lund, executive director of Maxtor's Consumer ProductsGroup. "We take pride in offering a desktop hard drive solution for everyonefrom extreme gamers to cost-conscious consumers."

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

Pricing and Availability

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