Maxtor 120GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA HDD

Bjorn3D compares SATA and PATA performance in their Maxtor 120GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA review:

Many people have made the switch from PATA to SATA and are never looking back, especially for RAID systems. Smaller cables, no more master/slave worries, greater data transfer rates… what’s not to love? In this review, I’ll do a quick comparison of my new 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA HDD to one of my 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 PATA HDDs. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the SATA drive will outperform the PATA drive. The real question is by how much, so keep reading to find out.

..With better performance, smaller cable, no more jumper setting and other benefits, what’s not to love about SATA? In my opinion, nothing. Maybe the performance isn’t blowing us away yet, but it will in coming generations. SATA 2 will provide 300MB/s transfer rates! For the current SATA generation, Maxtor has produced a strong series of drives in the DiamondMax Plus 9 line. After using the 120GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive for over two weeks now, I’m very pleased with the drive and its performance. You can see from the benchmarks that the 80GB PATA drive scores pretty high in benchmarks, but the 120GB SATA drive scores 15-19% better in some of the tests. That’s enough for me to be convinced to spend a little extra for SATA versus PATA. SATA drives really shine in a RAID configuration, so if you really want to use your new motherboard to its full potential, grab a couple SATA drives if you can afford it. Maxtor drives are quite affordable, and as this review shows, they perform pretty well too.

Bjorn3D
Maxtor 120GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA HDD