Maxtor has stacked four 20GB platters in one drive to produce what it claims is an industry first - an 80GB hard drive for the desktop.

The new drive is part of the DiamondMax range, and runs at 5400rpm, allowing data transfer rates of 100MBps. Maxtor says that the drive will be ideal for applications that need high capacity and fast transfer rates in PC systems and network attached storage systems and consumer electronics.

"The DiamondMax 80 drive is also seeing interest from traditional enterprise class storage customers due to the advantages of Maxtor's drive capacity and IDE's cost and simplicity," said Mike Cannon, president and CEO of Maxtor. "Maxtor has driven IDE drive capacity, in a 1-inch height, beyond 1.6-inch SCSI capacity for the first time."

At the time of writing, no pricing had been announced. ®

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