Maxtor, VIA increase serial ATA integration options for worldwide PC market validation of Maxtor's SATA hard drives with VIA's new VT8237 South Bridge brings highest capacity, performance and added data protection to mainstream and high-end PC market.

MILPITAS, Calif., Aug. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/--Maxtor Corporation (NYSE:MXO), a worldwide leader in hard disk drives, today announced that the company's DiamondMax(R) and MaXLine(TM) Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives have been validated by VIA to work with its new VT8237 South Bridge chip. Featuring the world's first integrated multi-configuration Serial ATA/RAID, VIA's VT8237 chip gives PC OEMs, white box manufacturers and system builders a choice to integrate one or two high-capacity, high-performance Maxtor SATA drives in a RAID for added performance, capacity and data protection.

"The validation of Maxtor's SATA hard drives with our new VT8237 South Bridge is key to driving Serial ATA technology mainstream. Our new South Bridge will be incorporated into a broad array of VIA and other manufacturers' motherboards worldwide. Having Maxtor, a leading hard drive manufacturer, on our compatibility list aids in driving SATA technology into the PC marketplace," said Richard Brown, associate vice president of International Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc.

Maxtor's SATA drives are available in industry-leading capacity points--60GB to 250GB--to support a wide range of applications. The combination of a VIA VT8237-enabled motherboard and two DiamondMax Plus 9, 250GB SATA drives in a RAID 0, gives gamers, graphic artists and video enthusiasts one half of a terabyte (TB) of storage in a single PC system. Maxtor's SATA drives are designed to offer higher data transfer rates, a more reliable connection, simpler RAID integration and faster HDD installation than parallel ATA drives. They also offer hot-plug compatibility and allow for smaller system designs.

"Serial ATA will continue to penetrate mainstream PCs as leading companies such as VIA ship their Serial ATA technologies in volume," said Mike Williams, vice president of product marketing at Maxtor. "As for RAID, it is becoming more and more popular due to its performance and data integrity benefits. Users can easily plug a Maxtor SATA drive directly into a VT8237-enabled motherboard for single, SATA hard drive performance, or install two drives for a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration for a significant performance improvement or added data protection."

Maxtor's DiamondMax hard drives provide high performance and exceptional reliability for the desktop market. The drives are offered in a variety of capacity points for VARs, system integrators, PC builders and do-it-yourself applications. The company's MaXLine drives are the only drives in the market that offer extra-large capacities and the durability designed for multi-user, low-duty cycle applications in the enterprise. MaXLine drives are backed by a three-year limited warranty. All Maxtor Serial ATA drives deliver high-performance data transfer rates of up to 1.5Gb per second and provide cyclical redundancy checking (CRC) for increased data integrity.

Maxtor Serial ATA hard drives and VIA's new VT8237 South Bridge are shipping in volume worldwide. For more information about Maxtor's Serial ATA drives and VIA's VT8237 South Bridge please visit www.maxtor.com or www.via.com.tw respectively.

About Maxtor Corporation

Maxtor Corporation (www.maxtor.com) is one of the world's leading suppliers of information storage solutions. The company has an expansive line of storage products for desktop computers, high-performance Intel-based servers and consumer electronics. Maxtor has a reputation as a proven market leader built by consistently providing high-quality products, and service and support for its customers. Maxtor and its products can be found at www.maxtor.com or by calling toll-free (800) 2-MAXTOR. Maxtor is traded on the NYSE under the MXO symbol.

NOTE: Maxtor and DiamondMax are registered trademarks, and MaXLine is a trademark of Maxtor Corporation. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

GB means 1 billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.