Customer Reviews

300GB 7200RPM 16MB USB FW400/FW800 Rohs One Touch III

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've owned this for over three years. It's been flawless on all my Windows Machines (2000 Pro, both XP Home {Laptop} & XP Pro (2 Towers) & Vista Ultimate 64 Bit on primary tower)! I've moved several times but treat External Maxtor very carefully! Lastly, I only turn it on when I need it! Between four of my computers and my Wife's computer backing them up, it's handled it all good so far; USB 2.0 isn't that fast though, not painfully slow but large data transfers can take awhile (1GB Write Time = 1 minute and 15 Seconds @ 15MB/second avg.& Read Spead was 1GB = 55.82 Seconds @ 19.7 MB/second (Machine used listed at bottom))! I have been building computers for years and have realized that most hard drives seem to last 3-5 years so I hope Ext. Maxtor keeps running! I have two 320Gb hard drives in my computer and this external one. I keep my back ups on both the external Maxtor and internal Seagate Or/And WD; I'm paranoid of hard drive failure so back up my back ups...lol! My Test was performed on my custom built ECS Black Board, AMD Black 64bit Dual Core 2.7Ghz ea. core (O.C.'d .2Ghz above stated, 4GB DDR @ 670Mhz, Vista Ultimate 64Bit Using USB 2.0 Memory Subscore 5.9 & Processor 5.5 - Base 4.0 because of Graphics (I'm not a gamer)! I hope this all helps...Peace

Obviously the guy who rated this product didn't know what he was talking about. I've used maxtor drives for over 3 years and all the them have run flawless. These babies are $150 new. I picked mine up cheap considering the new cost. These are durable and have never overheated. The case is great as I travel a lot and this drive gets its fair share of bumps and dings still preforms as fast as when i first purchased it. The fire wire port is great as it transfers even faster than usb. If you need to upgrade this is one of the fastest external drives out there. HIGHLY RECOMMEND

When I first bought this drive and was working great. Had high expectations for this drive as it is the only external drive that had firewire option. The rest I had were USB. I made the unfortunate decision to put all my important data on this drive. About six months after my purchase I was disappointed to see my HD not reporting on windows. I tried to reboot and no luck. I switched from firewire to the USB port and still no luck. With the power on I picked it up and noticed it very quiet and the drive wasn't spinning. I can take losing money on a bad product but losing valuable data is irreplaceable!

Horrific. After about 1.5 years the drive suddenly stopped working with both the USB and Firewire external interfaces. I tested it on three separate computers (1 PC running Win XP using Firewire/USB, 1 laptop running Vista using USB, and 1 laptop running Win XP using USB). None of hte machines would find the drive. Since it was out of warranty, I removed it from the case and disconnected the internal electronics and connected it to a test IDE/USB connector. With that connector the bare drive will work, but the interface electronics used in the case are shot. I would not trust this product for hassle free backups. Worst drive I've ever purchased.

This is the second Maxtor I owned. The first started disappearing from my hard drive choices and I had to do the old "power everything down" thing to get it to be recognized. I got a new one, thinking that this one must be better but it does the same thing.

I checked the internet and found a ton of complaints similar to mine that the hard drive can't be seen in Windows or "goes away" after a while. I bought a Western Digital external and it's still visible as a drive I can access.

I'm a computer programmer working towards my masters and have put together PC systems before, so I'm not some schmoe who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Since the drive is not tecnically supported (they've been bought out by Seagate and no patches are found for anything but Vista), the websites I found have two solutions:

Solution #1: power everything down, unplug external, plug everything in, power up and cross your fingers (again, it will be temporarily available if at all).

Solution #2: Crack open the case and install it into your PC.

Considering my tech savvy, I'm seriously considering option #2.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy Maxtor external hard drives!

The price for the Maxtor has dropped by more than one-half since I bought it in December 2006. Do not be tempted to buy it. Mine failed after 11 months. As you can see by reading other reviews, I am not alone. When you read positive reviews, take into account how long the purchaser has had the product. I would have given a positive review as well before the failure occurred. What is the use of having an external hard drive for backup or additional storage if you cannot count on it? Note that the warranty is one year from the date of manufacture, not the date of purchase. Maxtor is now owned by Seagate. Seagate's technical support was unable to provide any useful suggestions (unplug and replug everything and reboot). Because the failure in my case occurred within one year of the date of manufacture, Seagate honored the warranty. I had to send the defective unit back at my expense. I cannot tell if they provided a refurbished replacement, but the warranty entitles them to. Moreover, although they will wipe out your data when you send the unit back, refurbish your defective unit, and send it to another warranty claimant, they will not try to fix it for you. If you try to open the unit to fix it yourself, you void the warranty. Seagate also quoted me a flat fee for trying to retrieve my data (no recovery, no charge), which is supposedly their lowest price --- $1400. If you want a replacement quickly, count on paying $20. I wrote to Seagate about my experience and questioned whether they had modified their Maxtor hard drives to fix the problem I and others had experienced. No response. Enough said.

Do yourself a favor, select a different brand. I recommend LaCie, good value and reliability.

Every Maxtor external I've dealt with failed within 18 months of purchase. Check out the costs for data recovery from Maxtor / Seagate... and I think you'll agree there's more money in that for them than the hardware itself.