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As the latest salvo in the spring storage wars, Maxtor is announcing two extra-large hard drives for the storage deprived: the 80GB DiamondMax D540X and the 100GB DiamondMax 536DX.

The 80GB DiamondMax D540X uses Maxtor's latest technology tweaks to double the data storage of a two-sided drive platter from 20GB to 40GB. The new DiamondMax 536DX drive has more traditional platter capacities, but it uses three platters for a whopping 100GB of storage capacity--making it the largest desktop drive on the market.

Maxtor's announcements today come one week after rival Seagate launched its newest U series drives, the first-ever 40GB-per-platter drives.

Both Seagate's drives and Maxtor's DiamondMax D540X can stack two double-sided platters to achieve 80GB capacities. Each drive also spins at 5400 rpm, but both companies have hinted that higher-performance 7200-rpm drives with the same 40GB platters may debut shortly.

The DiamondMax D540X will be available by mid-July at an estimated retail price of $239.95 for the 80GB version. Pricing on the other capacities is not yet set. The DiamondMax 536DX drive, which uses up to three platters averaging 33.3GB each, goes on sale in early July and will carry a suggested retail price of $299.95 for the 100GB capacity.

Pushing the Envelope, Again

Both Maxtor and Seagate have achieved greater capacities by refining their existing technologies, rather than moving to new processes. Slight tweaks in the disks' read/write heads and in the method for laying the magnetic material on the disk platter allow them to roughly double the number of data bits per square inch--a measure known as areal density.

For now, Seagate is the areal density champ, at 32.6 gigabits per square inch, but Maxtor is close behind at 29.4 gigabits. Both companies can squeeze enough magnetic material onto a 3.5-inch-diameter platter to reach 40GB.

Maxtor announced its first disk packed with 29.4 gigabits per inch earlier in June. However, that drive--the 541D--only uses one side of the platter, making it a low-cost 20GB drive. Maxtor representatives say they needed a bit more time to engineer a two-sided platter, with two read/write heads, at the higher areal density.

In contrast to the incremental approach of its rivals, IBM recently announced that it is migrating to a new magnetic material called antiferromagnetically coupled media. The company says AFC, also known as pixie dust, will help it reach a 100-gigabit areal density by 2003.

While most major hard drive manufacturers have been experimenting with AFC, IBM has been the most aggressive in promoting the material. IBM is also the first vendor to bring AFC to the market, in several of its Travelstar notebook drives.

Seagate and Maxtor, however, see no reason to move to AFC, contending that they can first stretch more gigabits out of the existing technology. However, neither has ruled out an eventual switch to AFC.

Satisfying an Appetite for Video

In going to 100GB, Maxtor is challenging the current wisdom that 80GB is the upper limit of demand for PC buyers. Maxtor was the first vendor to achieve 80GB on a desktop drive with its four-platter, 20GB-per-platter DiamondMax 80, announced in July 2000. Rivals Western Digital and Seagate both max out their desktop drives at 80GB; IBM currently stops at 75GB. (Seagate's server-class Ultra 160 SCSI drive is the capacity leader at 181GB.)

By most measures, 80GB is still a staggering amount of storage. A drive of this size provides enough room for 20,000 four-minute MP3 songs, 8000 3.3-megapixel digital photos, or about a 4000-foot-high stack of printed text.

That sounds like plenty of storage, until you start editing video files. Then this seemingly infinite space gets much cozier--uncompressed digital video sucks up about 13GB per hour.

Seeing video as the killer application to stoke customer demand for gargantuan drives, the once low-profile storage industry now has the glitter of Hollywood in its eyes.

"A lot of people who bought their DV recorders for Christmas are going to want to start editing that content," speculates Bob Silva, senior marketing manager for Maxtor's hard drive group.

Hard drive vendors are also looking beyond the stagnant PC market and peddling their wares to the consumer electronics industry. Drive vendors are providing products for set-top digital video recorders from companies such as WebTV and Dish Network. Vendors are also hoping to play ball in the video gaming craze. Seagate and Western Digital, for instance, supply the hard drives for Microsoft's upcoming XBox game console.

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