Maxtor OneTouch Personal Storage External 250GB Hard Drive (Maxtor-A01A250)

• Reviewed by: conkreate

  Strengths: Easy to setup.

  Weaknesses: Drive runs too hot, which eventually will cause it to fail!

  Overall: I purchased this drive fro the price and the Maxtor name. Things started out well, but went down hill from there. I used this drive to backup computer systems in my church and also my domain servers at home. Well just as several other users have mentioned, this drive gets extremely hot and before you know it, yours will crash and burn just as mine. So now I have no backups from any of the systems that I am responsible for. I have gone through the RMA process and am now waiting for another 80 GB drive. However I am now searching for a USB tape drive instead of depending on the new drive that arrives, because I am sure that one will fail shortly as well. My suggestion if you are serious about your data, then look into buying a tape drive. Don't buy this drive, you will only be disappointed.

• Reviewed by: main_sail

  Strengths: price, size (physical & GB), easy setup, good hardcopy manual, quiet. USB2 quick but FW recommd for video xfer. Off/On sw. All cables inclded.

  Weaknesses: Pushbutton backup appears to have only 2 choices: backup only .docs or everything. Needs more types &/or specific files. Drive runs hot.

  Overall: Using Dell 1.7 MHz 512MB 2x40 GB internal drives with Studio9 to convert family's VHS. Output to internal drives OK but via USB2 to 250GB Maxtor too slow; some frames are dropped. Sure enough buried in Maxtor manual is recommendation to use Firewire for video capture/xfer. Don't buy/install USB2 like I did. Based on other reviews here, I'm a bit concerned about life expectancy because runs hot. Will quickly burn DVDs as soon as each VHS is edited.

• Reviewed by: RCLeety

  Strengths: Peace of mind!...Set it and forget it. Excellent price point. Great backup software included.

  Weaknesses: Haven't stumbled over any yet.

  Overall: I have used Retrospect (the backup software that comes with this drive) in a corporate environment and have found it very easy to use and reliable. I'm using this drive with a USB 2.0 connection and have found the performance to be very good. Overall, the combo of the drive and the software is a home run...especially for the money!

• Reviewed by: OverKillGoreLord

  Strengths: it can store tons of data before it crashes makeing you lose everything

  Weaknesses: Will not last for more than 3 months before crashing, i have gone thru 3 of them and let me tell you if you care about your data DONT BUY THIS

  Overall: i purchased the 250gig external maxtor and at first thought it was great... then 3 months later the motor died even though i hadnt used it much. I called up and told them i needed the motor replaced becouse i had 210gigs of important video back-ups that i needed for film school, they said they dont repair them what's so ever and that if i had it repared they would void my warrenty. So i failed school for not having my final project finished, and had them send a replacement, the replacement broke the same way 2 months later, and then after that the 2nd replacement died the same way 3 months after that, and they refuse to refund my money now becouse during this whole run around dealing with their faulty product the limited 9 month warenty has expired. I strongly recomend you NOT buy this, so you wont have to go thru what i did, espeshialy if your useing it for important studio data storage.

• Reviewed by: mitsoum

  Strengths: Installed easily. Easy instructions

  Weaknesses: None that I can see.

  Overall: Purchased through Newegg. As usual received expeditious delivery. Installed product and quickly stored 19 gigabytes of data from a laptop and a desktop , both running Windows XP Home edition. Absolutely no problems. One touch feature easy to install and use. Attractive and takes up little room.