Customer Reviews

Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive STM901603OTA3E1-RK

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

If you purchased this drive and software (as I did) to restore after system crashes you may be in for a rude surprise - the included Safetydrill software does not (as claimed) delete older versions of backups as required to make space for newer ones, instead it MOVES them to an (undocumented) history folder on the same drive and new backups fail for lack of space... with the failure producing only an inconspicuous error message that could be easily overlooked by unsophisticated users.

At first I found it unbelievable that automatic backup space management was unavailable in Saftydrill, but this was confirmed by Seagate/Maxtor Tech support, making this the least capable backup "solution" I've encountered in the last decade.

So... it you buy this for image-type backups an intend to use the included software be aware after the first few uses it will be *your* responsibility to manage your backup space by manually deleting older backups as required!

At our office there are LaCie and Seagate external portable hard drives that are used for back-up of files and occasionally to transfer large quantities of files. When shopping for a external back-up solution for my home PC, I wanted a portable because I dreaded the thought of having one more plug and brick coming out of battery backup power supply that sits next to the home desktop PC. What is that mess beneath the desk my wife often asks? What are all those plugs for? With separate plugs and several power bricks for a router, external speakers, cable modem, laser printer, inkjet photo printer, a fax machine and a Western Digital 80gb external drive I did not want another plug or power brick. When the Western Digital 80gb external drive started to fail I replaced it and its power brick with the Maxtor 250gb One Touch 4 Mini. The change was a huge improvement. The Maxtor is less than 1/3 of the size and weight of the WD it replaced and it holds three times the data. Unlike the WD drive the Maxtor receives power from the USB port. The Maxtor has no power plug and no power brick.

What really sets this drive apart from the WD, Lacie, and Seagate drives I have used is the software. Some drives just allow you to back-up your data. While data back-up is essential to preserve ones digital pictures, music collection, and personal documents, if your internal hard drive crashes, data backup will not restore your operating system or applications. The One touch Mini, comes with Maxtor "Safety Drill" software that allows the user to image the entire drive, including the operating system (windows) and all applications. If the hard drive crashes, the user boots their PC with a supplied emergency CD, and then restores their whole PC from the drive image stored on the external drive. The last time a drive failed in the office, a technician charged us for half a days work to install a new drive, re-install windows, and reload various applications. With a drive image hopefully this will not be necessary. The back-up software included with the Maxtor is better than anything I have ever seen bundled with a drive. It is easy to use and it is robust. It can perform scheduled backups in the background. The Software is for the most part PC only. As such Mac users will not be better off with the Maxtor than with the excellent LaCie portables. For Windows users the bundled software makes the One Touch 4 Mini a better choice than competing options from WD, LaCie, Iomega and others.

This product provides only limited backup protection for certain files in certain locations. Most frustrating is that it is impossible for it to backup anything in a root directory. For example, if you have files of any type in the C: directory (or more likely a D: or E: drive) it cannot back them up. Only files in subfolders (e.g., "C:\files") can be backed up; no file in any root directory (e.g., "C:\") can be designated for back up.

Here is the response I received from Maxtor tech support on this issue: "Folders must be selected in the software. The backup utility is designed to backup data and there for it is not really designed to backup drives. So it wants to backup information on the drive, not the entire drive. It is just the way the software is designed and is working as intended." (4/03/2008).

You are also limited to the directories you can backup. You can backup your "My Documents" and even your "InetPub" directory but you cannot point it to the default directory for your Microsoft SQL backups. And even though it will backup the "Inetpub" folder it is not a complete backup. For example, all of the hidden folders (e.g.,\_vti_cnf) will generate the message "Not Supported/File skipped (backup of hidden files and folders is not supported)" and will not be backed up.

In addition, certain files in selected folders will not be backed up. It will not backup thumbs.db resulting in so many exceptions in the log report that it is virtually unreadable. Strangely, it will back up some .jpg files but will throw an exception for others.

This product has great potential but as implemented is seriously flawed. In my opinion these OneTouch Mini's are designed to easily and automatically backup _most_ of your "My Documents" folder. If you need to backup anything more I think you will be disappointed.

I bought this drive to create a clone of my iMac hard drive. I chose this model because it has the same capacity as my internal drive (both have 149GB formatted) and is small enough to go in my safe deposit box at the bank. Want to have a clone off site in case of a robbery or fire.

It has worked like a champ. Since I'm using a Mac, the software that came with the drive was of no use to me so I can't say anything about that. But the drive itself ran quietly, cool, and perfectly. Obviously, since I have only had it for a short time, I can't comment on it's reliability.

This drive uses two USB ports in order to get enough power. A twin ended USB cable is supplied. One of the ends is for both data and power, the other is used only for additional power. This way the USB port can supply all the power to run the drive without an external power supply. Cool! But bad news if you forget your cable, probably can't pick one up at your local store.

This was a good bargain at just around $125 for 320GB at the time of purchase. It's small but looks and feels solid. I didn't install the included software and use it mainly for creating backup images with Acronis. I've backed up a desktop and two laptops and there's still plenty of space for other files. My PCs running XP recognized the drive immediately (it worked fine with just one of the dual-prong USB plugged in - the one marked power/data vs. just data) and an 80GB backup took about 30 minutes; the drive stayed cool and quiet. I use it often to explore the images when away from home and no problems so far. I'll probably buy another if the price hovers around the $125-$140 range.

This drive is compact, light weight, reliable and very portable.

Perhaps the best feature is the included software that allows you to encrypt the drive the data is protected from prying eyes if your misplace or lose the drive.

The included software; that is loaded on the drive, can also sync the drive with your PC, automatically backup the drive and/or create an image of the drive for a full system restore.

So far, so good. In fact I will be purchasing a second drive to keep at home, as I use this drive when I travel.

The drive hardware is excellent.

The included software is confusing at first. You would think clicking the "Backup" tab and seting up your daily backups is what you want, however that only backs up "My Documents", it does not do a full backup of your C drive and thus won't restore your hard drive if it crashes. The real backup program, Safety Drill, is hiding under the "Safety" tab. It does a full backup of your C drive so that if you ever need to you can boot on the included CD to format and restore the C drive. This is all in the manual, but who reads that until disaster strikes and you are horrified to find out the backup you thought you had is only the documents folder. Maxtor should make the installer launch Safety Drill right after the installation so you'll do a full backup right at the start. Once you understand the software, Safety Drill is wonderful. It backed up my 120GB C drive fairly quickly and compressed the 25GB contents into a 19GB file). You can define a frequency in days to have it do automatic drive backups.

The "Backup" tab is not as useful. It will backup "My Documents" but not much else. For example your e-mails will not be backed up. This pretty much forces you to do full backups with Safety Drill more frequently than you would like. The "Sync" tab has the same limitations as "Backup" so neither is of much use.

Overall it's a great drive and the included Safety Drill program works great. The drive is accessible like any other hard drive so you can create personal folders on it and use it as you please without affecting backups stored on the drive. I put this to use by disabling "Backup" and copying "C:\Documents and Settings" over to the OneTouch. I then use the PowerToy utility "SyncToy" running on a schedule to sync the files thereby giving me a backup.


3/4/2009 UPDATE: The drive has been going for almost a year now and has been a good one. It gets lots of use with SyncToy running every night to sync the files with my C drive. I also backup my entire hard drive to it monthly. I'm still very happy with it.

I just picked up one of these drives yesterday, and am happy to report it works and powers up with just one USB port on our 13" MacBook (1.83CD) & 17" MacBook Pro (2.16CD). I also tried it with a USB 2.0 cable from a Canon SD600 and it worked fine. I was also very happy to discover that the one-touch button can be configured to launch a specified app other than the Maxtor software, which is awesome if you want to use something else.

Then once I know it everything worked, against my better judgment I opened the case to look inside (using a plastic card, thinner than a credit card, to gently release the latches on each edge- and yes, VOIDING THE WARRANTY), and was happy to discover a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 SATA drive. These are solid, low-power drives- so I promptly swapped it out with the Apple OEM 60GB SATA internal drive. I snapped everything back together and it all still works like a charm.

At first when i bought this hard drive at staples it was at a great offer. The price was on "special offer" so i decided, why not try it? Well everything seemed to work fine for the first three months..Well afterwards this product stopped working and my computer didn't reconginze it. Tried it on another pc and nothing. Well i decided to take matters into my OWN hands (since i AM a computer technician) and i opened up this lovely product, only to find out that the actuator arm was stuck onto the hard drive's platter. the actuator arm's head (this is what reads the data on the hard drive's platter) is EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND GETS DAMAGED VERY EASILY! (because is cheaply made of course) This product is just so badly made. The only thing that would make it expensive is its capacity. Other than that, this product is very cheaply made and that is the reason why many people who bought this product has their unit failing after a few months or even days... GEEE THANKS A ALOT MAXTOR, FOR WASTING MY TIME AND MONEY AND DON'T WORRY I WILL NOT ASK FOR A REPLACEMENT..THIEVES! BY the way can anyone recommend me a good external hard drive that is realiable and will not fail in few months? Thanks

I bought 7 of these drives for work, to transport a large volume of data to africa. I chose these because they were recommended by other companies i work with, are supposedly 'rugged,' reliable, have a large storage capacity and don't use external power (important when in the bush!). well of the 7 only 6 actually, worked, that's a 12% failure rate and a little high. the last one makes a loud creaking noise out of the box and is not recognized by any computer. it stranded me, 250 GB short of crucial space in the middle of africa! i also found them to be poorly constructed, like one had sides that were a little crooked, and the mini-usb hole didn't really line up. not to mention they whir, and heat up and make a lot of noise. i haven't even tried the software because all i want is storage space. not to mention, i called customer support to complain and they ended up sending me 7 more drives and charging my credit card - just doubling my order. not a good thing with my company's money.
well in contrast, i have a WD 250GB passport and it's amazing. silent, cool to the touch, super fast, i can't even tell i'm working off the drive (when i'm doing a lot of intensive image processing).
sorry maxtor, your drives suck.
i wish i could recommend these, they are so cute!