Maxtor 300 GB Firewire/USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000E19N0/jasondunn-20/102-6590989-5730518' target='_blank'>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000E19N0/jasondunn-20/102-6590989-5730518</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Simply smarter storage. Push-button backup. Just press the button and your files are backed up in one simple step. Back up your files anytime with the Maxtor OneTouch button, or run automated backups with the included Dantz Retrospect Express software. Use the spacious 300 GB drive as extra storage for your videos, photos, graphics, music and more. It's built for Macs -- it's pre-formatted, has a FireWire connection and is powered by the Oxford 911 chipset. Enclosed in the anodized aluminum case is a speedy, a whisper-quiet 7200 RPM drive with 8 MB cache buffer."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000E19N0.01-A1921S276TP630.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" /><br /><br />I love external hard drives, and the bigger the better - they're incredibly useful for video editing and data backup, especially as a third-level data mirror. This unit comes in at $293 USD from Amazon, which isn't cheap, but hey, it's 300 GB! :D [Affiliate]

[Mike Temporale]

Oh Baby! Oh Baby! 8) Loving it!

[Ed Hansberry]

I got one of these about 2 months ago. Love it. It houses backups of important data from 3 XP boxes, including my MCE.

On XP, ju t insert the CD with the driver to mount it. I didn't bother with the one touch stuff. Sort of partial to RoboCopy from the ResKit. :-D

[RenesisX]

Got about 15 of these, they're good. Would not recommend hooking up that many by USB2 - Windows don't like it too much - they work a lot better in one mother-of-all-Firewire-chains!

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Why not just buy the casing and drive seperately?

[Bob12]

I have the 250GB version. Like Ed, however, I don't use the one touch function. In fact, I don't even do traditional backups. With that much space, I prefer a straight copy. That way, there are no compatability issues. I just created a shortcut for the external drive in my Send To folder and send the "My Documents" folder (and a few other important files) to it about once a week.

[RaySPNL]

im a little skeptical about these maxtor drives after i had a little problem with 2 of these. I have 2 of the 160 Gig USB2/Firewire ones. One is at work, the other at home. They both had about 130 gigs of data, mostly mp3s. And they both died around the same time! the computer just worldnt read it and would hang when they were pluged in. Different machines, different data, different drives gone bad around the same date.
That is just very weird... :? They were bought at the same time tho.

i was lucky enough I used EasyRecovery Pro, and restored the data to a network drive, formatted the drive after more then 10 attempts, but they now have the data back :D and work.

I just hope that doesnt happen again... Now I need to get another drive just to back those up... I dont really trust them anymore :(

[James Fee]

So this is the other half of the great Linksys/Maxtor network drive solution...

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5713

[Crocuta]

I have the 200 GB one and I really liked it until recently. I used it as a 'temporary' storage location while working on DV projects. Some here may recall some posts of mine a few months ago when it died and I thought I had lost hundreds of hours of DV editing. :puppydogeyes: I was lucky and got it spinning again by giving it several sharp whacks on the case and thus recovered my data, but I'm left not really trusting it anymore.

To be fair to Maxtor, they replaced it without question or hesitation, even though it was purchased in New Zealand. Also, to be fair, any hard drive can go bad and so it was http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/348/hahaha.gif dumb of me to have anything not backed up somewhere.

So now I only use it for backups and I'm better off than ever, because every single byte of work product on my PC is now backed up. I tried out the one-touch button and their software and I think it's pretty nice for most casual users. It didn't have enough control for me, though, so I uninstalled it and continue to use the totally awesome Second Copy 2000 (http://www.centered.com/).

This program is the best and most flexible syncronization program I've ever used and has been flawless in execution in the 4 years since I've bought it. Files are copied, not backed up into a proprietary format, so they're always accessible without the program. You have several options for the types of copies, including a cumulative copy that never deletes a file at the destination, and an exact copy that deletes files at the destination as you delete them on the source.

It will also synchronize between sources replacing older files with newer ones in both directions. I use that with a small 40GB USB drive to keep my home and work PCs synchronized. That system has the added advantage that there are either two or three copies of my work files in two or three different locations at all times. SC2000 also provides for an optional backup location where it will put the last &lt;x> copies of any file it replaces just as a final level of protection against accidental erasure. For those with more complex backup needs than provided by the included software in a drive like this, I highly recommend SC2000. :way to go: