Quantum's Atlas V Ultra160 SCSI Hard Drive
SCSI One-Ups EIDE Again!

3/17/00 - By, Dave "Davo" Altavilla

We've said this before and we'll say it again, your hard drive is one of the slowest parts of your computer.  Or is it?  Let's take a look at today's computer technology and the speed ratings for various types of components.  Let's see, your main system memory is rated in Nanoseconds.  Your Processor's clock frequency is rated in MHz  Your Graphics card is also measured in MHz for the processor and Nanoseconds for the memory.  Then there is the Hard Drive its access time ( the time it takes for the drive controller to gain access to data on the drive) is rated in Milliseconds.  We aren't going to do the math for you here but "Nano" is one billionth of a second.  "Milli" is one thousandth of a second.  You get the picture.  One of the best performance enhancements you can make to your computer, whether you are into Video Production or Gaming,  is speeding up your storage system. 

Just as the MHz. War has been raging between the various chip suppliers, the Interface Bandwidth War has been raging between the two major camps, EIDE and SCSI.  SCSI always seems to be one step ahead of EIDE and this time is no different.  This is a look at the all new Quantum Atlas V Ultra160 SCSI Drive.  You guessed it.  The "160" here stands for 160MB/sec maximum bus transfer rate.    That is over 2X the current top end bandwidth of EIDE's DMA66 interface. 

Here are the rest of the details...

Specifications / Features Of The Quantum Atlas V A 7200 RPM and Ultra160 Combo

• Shock Protection System II
• QDT - Quite Drive Technology
• Data Protection System (DPS)

So we decided to see how it looked when we set it up.  Of course we had to put some new silicon behind this new drive.  That's where Adaptec's new 29160 SCSI Card comes in.