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Seagate Buying Maxtor

Holy crap. I hope they build the maxtor-speed drives with seagate-like capacity I've been dreaming of and not the seagate-speed drives with maxtor-like capacity.

Edit: way to check the forums for a duplicate post, Steve :p

 
I just read this on Reuters, right before you posted it. I think I'll reserve opinions until more details come out about how Seagate is going to integrate Maxtor's line-up into the company.
 
Let's just say this thread is for feedback. The other thread turned into a "they suck", "I hate so-and-so" thread in all of four posts.

I have higher hopes for this thread ;)

I don't. Try to keep the conversation on this to future products, not brand bashing. Those of you who are Disk Storage Regulars know I don't take kindly to brand bashing. Anyone who throws out "Maxtor sucks," "WD sucks," or anything similar will have their post removed as thread crapping. Thanks for the front page coverage Steve! - DougLite
 
This can't be good. In the high-end game there will be one less player a good player at that too. Now the only ones remaining are Fujitsu, HGST and Seagate since Maxtor/Quantum is out.

I am guessing Seagate will combine product lines, like if Atlas 10K SCSI are better then just sell those instead of their own 10K ones. I think it's the same for desktop, take from each lines' strength and capitalize.
 
I'm not sure what to think.

I don't like the idea of reducing competition in the HD market. Hopefully it works out for the best.

Edit: I'll second Ultra_Wide's thoughts
 
pfc_m_drake said:
I'm not sure what to think.

I don't like the idea of reducing competition in the HD market. Hopefully it works out for the best.
Click to expand...
Ditto. I've never really liked Maxtor drives (had bad experiences with them). I'm really curious as to what Seagate will do with Maxtor. This gives them a much larger chunk of the market, but I really hope they stay true to their original philosophy with hard disks.
 
I don't exactly like maxtor, I don't find them to be performance drives until you buy into their expensive line which I have yet to do, I also had a probelm with the wording of their warrenty a few years back.

With that being said I am not too happy but then again its way too early to reall judge anything. Hopefully neither lines will be adversely affected and we end up with cheap and good hardware, and who can argue aginst that?
 
Seagate wants to get into the retail / consumer market in the biggest way. Maxtor currently rules this market. They have nothing to gain by buying Maxtor except the market share, which is huge.
 
Well, that and Maxtor also has a long established and strong name in the NearLine market with the MaxLine.
 
well from my standpoint (yes, as a reseller of all 3 majors and a few minors in this market) i think there's some promising technology.

1.) Seagate, for what it's worth, was the leader in SATA implementation. I was testing and evaluating their SATA drives a good 6-8 months before ANYONE else had them. Their R&D department is top-notch, and their focus on quality and enterprise drives is unparalleled.

2.) Maxtor, from what I can see, has an edge in cache-driven, performance driven consumer level drives. They've developed a solid middle-line product line up that, when combined with Seagate's capacity, promises high-capacity, high-performance drives.

3.) I can't even get into how this will help enterprise space, but, suffice it to say, this is a very, very, very good thing.

dave
 
Ultra Wide said:
This can't be good. In the high-end game there will be one less player a good player at that too. Now the only ones remaining are Fujitsu, HGST and Seagate since Maxtor/Quantum is out.

I am guessing Seagate will combine product lines, like if Atlas 10K SCSI are better then just sell those instead of their own 10K ones. I think it's the same for desktop, take from each lines' strength and capitalize.
Click to expand...


Theres also Samsung ;)
 
I have purchased and used many manufacturers drives here recently.
Seagate -5 Sata-5 (5 of 5 returned)
Maxtors -3 Ide-2 Sata-1 (0 returned)
Western Digital -7 Ide-2 Sata-5 (0 returned)

Of the customer returns with problems Seagates have been the only ones.
For Example all the drives mentioned above have SMART technology in the drives.
A brand spanking new Seagate 80gig Sata Hard drive from Newegg.com.
Drive was receieved well packed, worked perfecly to start.After a full install of windows using Speedfan(clicking on the Smart Tab).A brand new drive was reporting 50% health left (WTF!).
The other side of the arguments is "yeah but they have a 5 year warranty" what good is that if they dont last more than a year.
Then don't get me started about the diffuculty in try to ship back a drive for warranty repair.Getting a RMA number is easy.But do any of you have the specialy padded box to send it to the manufacturer?I don't happen to have one laying around.But you can buy one for $25~30 online.So at this point a little more money and absorbed cost to me i purchased replacement drives for my customers, and i have 3 Seagates laying here holding down papers on my workbench.The only thing they are good for now.Playing reminder to me to never buy another Seagate drive again.!

Just my experiences.
Massraptor
 
I think this will be a GREAT thing, assuming Seagate extends the warranty on all the drives made to 5 years. That right now is the determining factor in my choice of drive purchases. Seagate is a much more forward-looking company than any of the rest. They already have 500GB / 16MB SATA II drives. I expect as soon as SATA III is due, they will be the first out with SATA III drives. I would also not be surprised if there are further consolidations in the drive manufacturers. We get along fine with two CPU, and two GPU manufacturers, don't we?
 
i'd like to see seagate improve the maxtor line to a degree where they can offer the 5 year warranties on those drives as well.

if you can go to a computer shop, and most of the drives that are there have 5 year warranties, and a few don't, which are you going for?

i'm big on the warranty stuff.
 
far as we know, neither company has raptor-like capabilities of 10k rpm sata drives aimed @enthusiasts/soho application.

i think 10k rpm+500GB=winnar. hopefully a company in the storage industry will realize this =).

imagine six 15k rpm, 500GB w/16MB cache in raid0 array. 2.7TB usable space that's wicked fast is nothing to laught@.
 
qdemn7 said:
I think this will be a GREAT thing, assuming Seagate extends the warranty on all the drives made to 5 years. That right now is the determining factor in my choice of drive purchases. Seagate is a much more forward-looking company than any of the rest. They already have 500GB / 16MB SATA II drives. I expect as soon as SATA III is due, they will be the first out with SATA III drives. I would also not be surprised if there are further consolidations in the drive manufacturers. We get along fine with two CPU, and two GPU manufacturers, don't we?
Click to expand...
A) No hard drive is reliable, regardless of the warranty period. If you are not backing up, you will be sorry.

B) Hitachi had a 500GB 16MB SATA-II drive in the channel long before Seagate did.

C) Seagate's drives, both ATA and SCSI, have the worst firmware in the industry, and it shows...look at the placement of their drives in SR's performance database.

D) Seagate's drives, ever since the 7200.8 launch, have documented seek performance deficiencies.

E) Seagate's locking of AAM settings on their drives is yet another example of them deciding what is best for their consumers, and not giving those customers a choice. Believe me, if I could turn AAM on on my 7200.7 SATA, I would, the seeks on it are louder than any of my SCSI drives :eek:

I like Seagate drives for many applications, but they are simply not the best choice for everything.
 
I can't say I am happy with this news.

Maxtor was by far my favorite HD manufacturer, and Seagate, well, isn't.

Hopefully we see Maxtor level performance and reliability in new Seagate drives...

I am also saddened by the loss of one more competitor as far as price and features are going to go. The HD market has been stagnant lately, no huge increases in size and no rapid drops in price... We should be seeing $100 400 gig drives at least by now...
 
Maxtor was killing everybody on price...they had a <$100 200GB 16MB drive, <$100 250GB drives, and by far the cheapest 300GB drives.
 
DougLite said:
Maxtor was killing everybody on price...they had a <$100 200GB 16MB drive, <$100 250GB drives, and by far the cheapest 300GB drives.
Click to expand...

And Seagate drives, well, from what I have seen, have tended to be priced higher than others... this does not bode well.

How the hell did Seagate do it anyway? Where did they get the kind of money to buy out Maxtor? For everyone 1 person I know with a seagate drive, I know four or five with a Maxtor. Does Seagate have big OEM contracts or something?
 
Like pointed out, a warrenty isn't good if the drive doesn't last. I would much rather have something that is likely to last me a long time and have little warrenty instead of something that has a long warrenty but a short life span.

I also don't think this is a good idea. Pretty soon it will be like the pc market. Everyone will merge.
 
NulloModo said:
And Seagate drives, well, from what I have seen, have tended to be priced higher than others... this does not bode well.

How the hell did Seagate do it anyway? Where did they get the kind of money to buy out Maxtor? For everyone 1 person I know with a seagate drive, I know four or five with a Maxtor. Does Seagate have big OEM contracts or something?
Click to expand...

enterprise contracts with a few top level F500 companies....

dave
 
Seagate's market share is enormous, especially in high profit SCSI drives.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122254,00.asp (August 2005)

HDD Market share:

Seagate: 30.5%
WD: 17.6%
Hitachi: 15.5%
Maxtor: 13.5%
Toshiba: 7.7%
Samsung: 6.9%
Fujitsu: 6.7%

That comes to 98.4 percent of the market.

Seagate's share of the SCSI market I would estimate at 50 to 60 percent, and somehow Seagate is able to command a much higher price for otherwise equivalent SCSI drives than Maxtor, Fujitsu, or Hitachi, despite a huge performance deficit for Seagate when compared to Maxtor and Fujitsu SCSI drives. This extra "Seagate tax" is essentially pure profit for Seagate.

A 300GB Cheetah 1K.7 fetches $947 on ZZF, while an Atlas 10K V commands $818 and a Fujitsu MAT earns $737. That extra 15% over the cost of the Maxtor, on basically every SCSI drive they sell, means they have GOBS of cash.
 
DougLite said:
Seagate's share of the SCSI market I would estimate at 50 to 60 percent, and somehow Seagate is able to command a much higher price for otherwise equivalent SCSI drives than Maxtor, Fujitsu, or Hitachi, despite a huge performance deficit for Seagate when compared to Maxtor and Fujitsu SCSI drives. This extra "Seagate tax" is essentially pure profit for Seagate.

A 300GB Cheetah 1K.7 fetches $947 on ZZF, while an Atlas 10K V commands $818 and a Fujitsu MAT earns $737. That extra 15% over the cost of the Maxtor, on basically every SCSI drive they sell, means they have GOBS of cash.
Click to expand...
And it makes re-selling Seagate SCSI drives on the used market oh-so profitable :D
 
DougLite said:
Seagate: 30.5%
WD: 17.6%
Hitachi: 15.5%
Maxtor: 13.5%
Toshiba: 7.7%
Samsung: 6.9%
Fujitsu: 6.7%
Click to expand...

Interesting... very surprised to see Hitachi up so far too, I don't know anyone who uses a Hitachi drive, and Toshiba.. hmm, didn't even know they made HDs.

Who knew the SCSI market was such a big deal... I always figured OEM PCs (Dell, HP, Compaq, Apple, all that) were where the big money was... I mean, look how many of those are sold vs. servers that need SCSI disks...

Then again, with the exhorbitant price of SCSI drives, I guess it makes some sense that they are big monkey makers...
 
NulloModo said:
Interesting... very surprised to see Hitachi up so far too, I don't know anyone who uses a Hitachi drive, and Toshiba.. hmm, didn't even know they made HDs.
Click to expand...

Notebooks are roughly ½ of the consumer market. I think Toshiba only makes notebook drives and Hitachi has the "Travelstar" series, plus they were the first ones at 7200RPM for notebook drives. You'll find these two brands in a lot of notebooks.

As far as retail numbers go, Seagate and Hitachi drives can be had for cheap (after rebate) at Fry's Electronics. Go there and you'll see piles of drives - talking literally hundreds, and people are buying them up. On Black Friday Fry's had 80GB Hitachi $FAR and 300GB Seagate $70AR.
 
I own drives by both companies.
A 160GB Seagate SATA in my Computer
A 200GB Maxtor PATA in my XBOX
I think the Xbox is quiter, but that might be from the case, although when I transfer large files from my computer to my xbox (thier 10 feet away from each other) I will be sitting closer to the XBOX and hear the computers Seagate drive while barely hearing the XBOX Maxtor drive.
So I hope for quiter, larger, faster drives at Maxtor prices.

Another thing... I wish it was Western Digial who bought Maxtor, not for products but for product names. I would love to have a Western-Maxtor Digial drive, also known as a WMD!
 
The only drive I've had fail on me in the last couple of years was a maxtor. But the rma was really easy, so it wasn't too bad. I don't actually own any seagates but the impression i had of them was pretty high, I never realized so many people hated them until reading responses to the merger. I guess we'll have to hope for the best.
 
as far as people talking about failures...unless you buy one of the specialty drives, look at this way...your buying a mass-produced product, that in most cases is spinning at 7200rpm the moment you turn your computer on. It's a product that isn't designed for 24/7/365 use. There are bound to be failures no matter what brand.

I've had both Maxtor drives, and Seagate drives, and thankfully had good luck with both....fujitsu on the other hand...lol :D
 
ninethreeeleven said:
I own drives by both companies.
A 160GB Seagate SATA in my Computer
A 200GB Maxtor PATA in my XBOX
I think the Xbox is quiter, but that might be from the case, although when I transfer large files from my computer to my xbox (thier 10 feet away from each other) I will be sitting closer to the XBOX and hear the computers Seagate drive while barely hearing the XBOX Maxtor drive.
So I hope for quiter, larger, faster drives at Maxtor prices.

Another thing... I wish it was Western Digial who bought Maxtor, not for products but for product names. I would love to have a Western-Maxtor Digial drive, also known as a WMD!
Click to expand...
AAM is disabled on Seagate 7200.7 SATA drives, they sound like a buzzsaw when seeking :(
 
My personal experiences are:

Seagate: Quiet
Maxtor: Noisy, Cheap

Hoping for cheap Maxtor drives with the Seagate bearings or whatever they used to silence it.
 
DougLite said:
AAM is disabled on Seagate 7200.7 SATA drives, they sound like a buzzsaw when seeking :(
Click to expand...

maybe on yours but i've got two very nice 7200.7s that are whisper quiet even when seeking. same with my 7200.8s and the 7200.9 i have.

dave
 
See, I thought Maxtor was really good and Quantum was really bad.. then Maxtor bought Quantum and IMO, started producing shit. I've had 7 maxtor drives shit out on me in the last year and a half which is unacceptable. Three were those slim line drives that only had a 1 year warranty and all died within weeks of each other. Some searching on the web shows that the firmware on them would shit out the control boards, making them worthless unless you could swipe a board from another unit to get your data off, then throw them out. I called maxtor and told them they should recall them, or at least just replace the 3 40 gig drives that died. They basically told me to fuck off and said if I don't like their warranty, to go buy another manufacturer's drive. I've kept to that lately.

Now back in the day, Seagate made really good SCSI drives, but poor IDE drives. They've gotten much better, and i'm happy with the Seagate drive in my workstation. Hopefully Maxtor takes some of the Seagate tech ideas and makes their drives better, but i'm still not buying another Maxtor drive.
 
What will happen to support for Maxtor products???

Or, is/will Maxtor be a subcompany to Seagate???

I have a Maxtor ATA133 card that I really love.
 
I jsut hope that the reduced amount of competition will not lead to higher prices :(
 
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