With the recent advent of faster processors, bus speeds, video cards, and
memory, it seems like the Hard Drive is being left behind.  For over a
year, the ATA/33 IDE Protocol as well as a 5400RPM spindle speed has been the
standard for Hard Drives.  This combination has preformed very well over
the past year or so, but as with all other parts of the computer, it needs to
get faster.  Quantum, the company that brought us the ATA/66, and now
ATA/100 standard, is leading the way with Hard Drive reliability and performance
with it’s new Fireball LM Plus.  It features the Ultra ATA/66 interface,
along with 7200RPM spindle speeds.  A speed that, until a few months ago,
was unheard of in IDE drives and only found in the high performance SCSI drive
market.

Company History
Quantum Corporation was founded in 1980.  Ever since then, they have
been a major player in the Hard Drive market.  Employing 6,300 workers
world wide, In the 2000 Fiscal year ending on March 31st, sales totaled US$3.3
Billion.  As of that date, it was also the #1 supplier of Hard Drives, with
24% of the market.  Quantum has held that position for the past six
years.  In 1999, Quantum became the first Silicon Valley Company to issue
tracking stock, replacing it’s existing common stock with the ticker symbols DSS
and HDD, which trade the separate performance of the company’s DLT Storage
Systems, and hard Disk Drive businesses. Both stocks are traded on the New York
Stock Exchange.  Below, is a list of their OEM Partners.  Among them
are the most popular Retail computer manufacters in the world, including Compaq
and Hewlett-Packard

The Drive
The Drive we tested was the 10.2GB Version of the Quantum FireBall LM
Plus.  The FireBall Plus LM line is the highest performing Desktop Hard
Disk Drives Quantum has to offer at this moment.  It offers both the Data
Protection System (DPS), and the Shock Protection System (SPS).  DPS lets a
user easily verify drive functionality in less than 90 seconds in case troubles
are detected.  This provides the end user with an early warning system so a
backup of the data on the drive can be made, before the whole drive fails. 
SPS fights damage during shipping and installation, which just so happens to be
the leading cause of Hard Drive death, right behind of old age.  Both of
these systems let the user feel confident that their data is safe from loss
because of mechanical failure.  I can assure you that I felt very comfortable
putting a worthless installation of Windows 98 SE on this hard drive (which I
already had on CD) along with WinBench 99, (a widely available benchmarking
program.)  This drive also features technology to reduce noise, but more on
that later.

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