Conclusion

Featuring just two platters, the VL40 flagship is an unobtrusive unit. The unit remained cool to the touch even after running without active cooling for hours on end. Seeks were quite muted and acceptable and idle noise was virtually undetectable over our testbed's power supply fan.

In the end, the Maxtor DiamondMax VL40 is basically the DiamondMax 80 in smaller capacity configurations. It provides virtually the same performance as its larger brother. The one thing it lacks is the huge capacities. Thing is, huge capacity is the biggest thing going for the DM80. As a result, the VL40 faces stiff competition from manufacturers such as IBM and Samsung. Given comparable pricing, we'd go with the Deskstar 40GV over the VL40 due to its more balanced performance.