Maxtor messes up on S-ATA, ATA drives

SYSTEM INTEGRATORS in North America are up in arms - yes, up in arms - after a series of blunders by Maxtor have caused them to lose business.

In summer 2002, Maxtor placed information on its web site about two new lines, the Maxline II and the Maxline Plus II.

The promise was that the Maxline IIs would be 5400 revs per minute drives in 250GB and 320GB capacities, would come with a plum three year warranty and would be available for both the ATA and Serial ATA (S-ATA) interfaces.

The Maxline Plus II, moreover, were going to be 7200 rev per minute drives in 200 and 250GB flavours, and again with both interfaces.

One system integrator who prefers his identity to be revealed, scored a big win with a government agency for storage NAS servers amounting to a massive 50 terabytes (TB), and pitched the deal quoting the 250GB 5400RPM drives using the S-ATA interface. The fact Maxtor was promising a three year warranty was important.

And, the SI told the INQUIRER today, it was awarded the contract in August, with Maxtor telling the firm the large S-ATA drives would be available at the end of October last year.

But both the SI and its customer thought it would be prudent to say the end of January 2003, rather than then.

The firm claimed that when it talked to its Maxtor sales guy, it was given dates in November, then December, then January.

Finally, said the SI: "It reached the point where we had to call the customer and tell them that it looked like it would not be possible to deliver on time. We asked for an extension, and they asked us to tell them how long. We talked to Maxtor again, and were told "February". We got an extension on the contract."

But the deal may be about to crash and burn, because now Maxtor appears to have changed its mind. The Maxline II (5400 RPM) series now will not be released using the Serial ATA interface, and no Maxline drives are shipping yet.

Meanwhile the desktop version of the 200GB and 250GB drives are shipping, but only in parallel ATA mode and with one year warranty.

And as the INQ reported here recently, the 320GB drive is now reduced in size to a 300GB specification but there's still no date for when these might ship.

Meanwhile, the Maxline Plus II (7200RPM) drives will not ship at the earliest until the end of March.

It appears that the S-ATA versions of any drive are not yet shipping although 80GB and 120GB versions are sampling. And a three year warranty on any Maxline drives now seems to be a pipe dream.

And so the SI's big contract seems to be going west.

We'd be happy to hear Maxtor's side of the story - if it's interested. µ