Maxtor Shared Storage II

Reviewed by: rgoconnell2003

08-02-07

Duration of ownership: 8 Months

Strengths: The box is the right size and it is very quiet. Good repair program

Weaknesses: Poor Reliability Poor Software Maxtor is now part of Segate and the site navigation is a little complicated.

Overall Evaluation: The unit has failed twice so far and I cannot trust it for my storage needs. After the second failure, I did some additional research and found many complaints about this drive on Amazon. Do not buy this unit. If you do purchase it, plan on purchasing better backup software, the software that comes with the unit is not very smart and will not alert you if the backup did not occur unless you go to the log. I purchased a package from Acronis which seems to be working very well so far. I also purchased a Buffalo TeraStation to replace this drive since I do not trust it any more.

Reviewed by: DavidTheItGuy

02-14-07

Duration of ownership: 5 Days

Strengths: Good looking box . . .

Weaknesses: Very unreliable, backup software does not work, RAID 1 advetized but useless,backup on USB useless

Overall Evaluation: First unit failed after 3 days. Was replaced but all data were lost as even if you configure RAID1 you cannot replace a failed drive as you cannot open the box. Worst, Maxtor does not change the bad drive and keep the good one: they send you a new unit. I find the negative from PCWorld an euphemism as the problems are much worst than what they recognize. (Don't know how much advertizing money they get from Maxtor?). In addition, the backup software included does not work on Windows. (Tried on 2 independent systems: W2K Pro and XP Pro). The software even succeeds in sending XP Pro in such a state that you need to reboot. Last, I tried to backup the data on a USB drive and the end result was all data lost on the NAS box and a USB drive unreadable on any PC I could try. No way to get the backup (if it exists which I don't know) from the USB drive to the NAS box itself!!! I strongly recommend to avoid this unit.

Reviewed by: sfootecda

Updated: 18-Apr-07

Strengths: Compact, Quiet, Fast

Weaknesses: Cost is a bit high

Overall Evaluation: This back-up drive is everything we thought it would be for overall office back-up use. The software is well designed for both the Mac OSX and XP. It is easily shared over our network for both platforms and seems to run smoothly while transferring the files at a high speed. The scheduling software alone makes this product a worthwhile consideration for your back-up purposes.