Product Description

Designed for creative professionals who need the disk striping speed of RAID 0 for intensive disk-access applications or the security of RAID 1 for automatically mirroring data, the Maxtor OneTouch III, Turbo Edition provides an easy to use wizard interface for configuring your system for optimal performance. Real time access, backup, store and protectWith the most highly integrated storage, backup, security and drive management software on the market today, the Maxtor OneTouch III, Turbo Edition is perfect for creative professionals who need a high performance, large capacity storage solution. Faster throughput means faster workflow, and that means greater productivity for creative professionals who work in digital video, photography and graphic arts. The user-configurable Maxtor RAID solution streamlines performance to enable multiple streaming without dropping frames - critical in quality video editing.Using Maxtor's simple user interface, you have the option to easily back up your entire computer drive or selected files either automatically or at the touch of a button. The Maxtor DriveLock security feature password-protects the contents of your drive, helping to safeguard your files if the drive is lost or stolen or against unauthorized users.Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition - RAID performance doesn't get any easier than this.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15666 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Maxtor
• Model: C01W015
• Dimensions: 7.40" h x 8.60" w x 11.20" l, 11.00 pounds
• Hard Disk: 1500GB

Features

• 1.5 TB external hard drive connects to your computer via USB, FireWire 400 or FireWire 800
• Delivers disk stripping speed of RAID 0 for intensive disk-access applications or the security of RAID 1 for automatically mirroring data
• Supports both Mac and Windows platforms, and it arrives preformatted for the Mac and includes the 924 chipset
• Includes portable drive, software, FireWire 800 cable, FireWire 400 cable, USB 2.0 cable, external AC power supply, and quick start guide
• 1-year limited warranty

Customer Reviews

Being "Touched" my Maxtor
After suffering a catastrophic loss with my first One Touch, and a secondary but less critical failure of another, I finally did my homework and discovered Maxtor's simple solution was not a reliable solution, and that the truly reliable solution was not all that complex.

I am writing this not only as a caution to others, but also as a suggestion on how to start a reliable approach to backup.

THE PROBLEM: Despite my customer research, the Maxtor one Touch II and One Touch III are the worst product decisions I have made in some time - and there is a reason for this.

Of the 2 Maxtor One Touch II's and one Maxtor One Touch III's only one of my II's continue to run. The first failure cost $3,000 to get the data recovered. Unfortunately I was also using it for data overflow at the time.

The second (This model One Touch III) also died about a year after I purchased it. Fortunately I was using only for backup.

They run great out-of-the-box, but after a year they wither and die. Why? I am not sure if it's the incremental file-backup software, or the hardware. Perhaps it is a combination of both, as Maxtor's incremental file-backup software progressively causes slower and slower operation, and more and more drive utilization.

Google the words "Maxtor repair". There are many vendors. And with most, once they have your drive, it's usually the most expensive thing that needs to be repaired, typically requiring rebuilding the physical electronics.

And considering the proprietary nature of Maxtor's drivers I don't find this price surprising.

Final point: You cannot recover your system if you suffer a complete crash. Expect to reinstall Windows, Office, get updates, and enter licenses, etcetera. You can recover your files, yes, if your unit is still running.

THE SOLUTION: Get a reliable high capacity internal or external bare bones hard drive, and use image backup software, not file backup software. There's a fundamental difference between "file" and "image" backups.

I had several misconceptions about image backup software. But I discovered one can also recover individual files. And MORE importantly, you can recover your entire system as well - very simply from the backup drive. It runs faster, it does a form of incremental backup based on image changes, and is much more reliable. It is rare that a solution is both cheaper and better. And I was not looking for cheaper.

For a hard drive I use a WD 1T Sata. And my software is ShadowProtect desktop. I am sure there are others.

By the way, with this solution, you own the software, so it's not tied to some device that will fail. I also (once a month) do a one shot backup to my inexpensive Western Digital Passport. Again as I own the software, I can apply it to any number of different physical backup devices that do not carry the extra overhead cost of proprietary software and hardware.

EXTRA: In addition, you might want to also consider iDrive, or Carbonite. I would use them for your documents only.

SUMMARY: Unfortunately only those that have experienced the loss of work-related or financial data, family pictures, or even that report that your child wrote of which you are most proud, will appreciate the advantage of being prepared.

Then to compound the problem, once we have experienced loss, we start out by looking for a simple solution. And we may be impressed with the concept of "One Touch".

But after suffering a catastrophic loss with my first One Touch, and a secondary but less critical failure of another, I finally did my homework and discovered Maxtor's simple solution was not a reliable solution, and that the truly reliable solution was not all that complex.

Burned twice
I don't usually write reviews about products I don't like, but this time I felt a responsibility to warn others to stay away from this one. Over the past year I've purchased the 1TB and 1.5TB versions of this drive, and both crashed on me within about six months. The first one gave me an audible warning by emitting a grinding noise so I was able to buy a new one (the 1.5 TB version) and transfer my files onto it before it crashed. The second drive lasted about six months before crashing without warning. In my twenty-plus years of using computers both at work and at home, I've never had a hard-drive completely crash on me until I purchased both of these drives. I used to have great trust in Maxtor drives after owning many over the years, but these two OneTouch III drives have completely wiped out that trust (along with the data that were on those drives!). Do yourself a favor and stay far away from these drives.

STAY AWAY!!
I bought this 200GB drive for use with a Mac G4 desktop in about June of 2006 as a backup drive and for extra space since my internal drives were filling up fast. On 25 Aug 2008, a little over a year after the warranty ran out, it crashed mechanically. Seagate, which in the meantime had taken over Maxtor, offered nothing in its place, and wanted $1700 (yes two zeros no decimal) to recover the data from it. It was about 3/4 full and was only partially a back up for other data, contained critical stuff, and so I had no choice but to have someone recover the data. (I ran every test I could using TechToolPro, DiskWarrior, Apple's Disk Utilities, and DataRescu 4.0 -- none of which would mount the drive, and the led light pattern indicated a hard crash. Seagate confirmed this in my call to tech support.

When I first got it, the software that allows the One Touch backup feature would not work even after two days on the phone with their tech support; this may be a Mac incompatibility at that time, but the bottom line was that I never did get full functionality, but it did run well enough for as long as it did... and then it just didn't anymore... no warning, just... oops, Screw You!

I found another data recovery service in Reston that charged a couple of hundred dollars less to do the job; they recovered everything. But, Seagate has not offered full or partial refund for any of the large initial or subsequent outlay that using one of their drives has cost me!

TAKE HEED: DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE THINGS. BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP -- BUT USE SOMEONE ELSE'S DRIVE!