Seagate STM303204SSAB0G-RK Maxtor Shared Storage II 320 GB Shared Storage Drive

by Maxtor

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 2.6 inches ; 3.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000L4F4HY
• Item model number: S01R320
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,297 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 28, 2006

Product Description

320GB 7200RPM 16MB GIG-E BARRACUDA 7200.2

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally got one, July 25, 2007

By 

Gary H (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate STM303204SSAB0G-RK Maxtor Shared Storage II 320 GB Shared Storage Drive (Personal Computers)

I've always wanted a Network drive. I haven't been seriously looking for one, but I picked up the Maxtor 320GB Shared Storage II since it was on sale at Fry's. I saw it when I was there to pick up one of those bullet blenders to make smoothies. It was a spur of the moment purchase. I was looking at network drive enclosures, but they start out at $55 and go past $100. I saw the Maxtor in the aisle and thought it was a decent deal since it included a 7200 rpm drive that can hold 320GB unformatted AND it included the network-capable enclosure (which was all I was looking for initially). I already picked up a 500 GB Hitachi HD half a year ago and really didn't need this, but I really wanted a networkable storage device at home for convenience. When I got it home, I was debating whether or not to keep it. I decided to keep it since it was one of the few network drives that support a gigabit interface, looked nice, and it was on sale.

Install:
The unit was easy to install. I knew how to hook it up and to verify, I checked with the quick start manual. It only takes two connections: AC and ethernet connection. Hook the network cable between the wireless router and new drive and plug it into the AC. That was it. Turned it on.

Oh, it also has a connection for two USB devices. You can hook up a printer to it or another HD to back up this network drive. Pretty cool.

Software:
I installed the software. It first detected my network drive, then it disappeared on me. I found out I don't even need the software. Just use the SW for maintenance. You can acccess the drive with explorer and typing \\nameofdrive or \\nameofdrive\public. You can also search for computer and search the name of the drive. No need to install software unless you want to manage it.

I copied two movies to the drive. It was faster than my usb 1.1 drive which I was surprised since I have a slow network. Imagine how fast it would be if I upgrade to a gigabit network. But don't expect speeds of USB2.0 drives because network is the bottle neck, not the drive. And at least this drive will work on a gigabit network.

I would give this a 5, but I only have owned it for less than 24 hrs and the software could not lock onto the shared drive. You can always find it using explorer or searching for it, but the maxtor software can't even find it's own drive even after it already seen it earlier. And yes, I did turn off my firewall.. Made no difference.

This is a keeper for me.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to get my network capable fax/scanner to scan directly to this Maxtor shared storage II drive. I can send pics to my computer, but my computer has software for that. I just want my fax machine to place the images on the HD.

One more thing, the pic on amazon is a picture of the wrong enclosure. Mine is half the size. The one in the photo looks like it could be from the terabyte server which holds two 500GB drive.

Gary

Ps. I've had the drive for almost two weeks now. The reason why I can't connect to the maxtor drive ya EasyManage is because my Cisco VPN client somehow keeps it from working. If I disconnect VPN it works great and I can use the backup feature and the drag and sort feature of drive.

UPDATE 1/22/08:
I have left this drive on 24/7. Once I turn it off and the drive has cooled down, it makes a loud racket, like the bearings are going. After it warms up, it goes away. Not sure what to do about it at the moment since the drive is now over 50% full. I'll call Maxtor and see what they can do about it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing in its simplicity, August 15, 2007

By 

Cees Jan Mol (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seagate STM303204SSAB0G-RK Maxtor Shared Storage II 320 GB Shared Storage Drive (Personal Computers)

Playing around with my music collection, some time ago I decided a network storage solution would perhaps be a good idea. I tried the Freecom FSG3, which was app. 300 Euros (450 US). That was such a user-unfriendly, complicated device that I sold it again after half a year out of sheer desparation.

With the low cost of this device, I decided to give it another shot. Super simple, out-of-the-box, plug-and-play solution. Amazing. No complicated incomprehensible server lingo. A clean in-browser interface without ambiguity. Even the Maxtor back-up disk (One Touch) that I have from my work integrated into the Maxtor management software.

It doesn't allow me to publish on the web or access my files through the internet. But 320 gigs at this price for this immaculate networking function. I'm really, really pleased with my purchase.

PS. I've recently detected a minor flaw: the media server doesn't stream the content list of individual songs to the PlayStation3 (which is rather annoying). The helpdesk of Maxtor took 2 weeks and 6 different attempts at an answer to confirm that indeed that does not work (apparently making it work isn't a logical next step on the middleware roadmap...).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The drive seems fine, but the software is horrible, February 15, 2008

By 

Nicholas Rabinowitz - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seagate STM303204SSAB0G-RK Maxtor Shared Storage II 320 GB Shared Storage Drive (Personal Computers)

The drive seems to work perfectly fine. But the software that comes with it is awful, and won't seem to run properly on either XP machine I've tried to install it on. The software is the type that puts a gratuitous, useless skin on top of what ought to be dead simple functionality. Half of the buttons are missing or unclickable, the backup function doesn't seem to run, etc. To make things worse, the server also has a web interface, which has some of the same functions as the desktop software, but not all of them - and changing a setting in one place seems to have no effect on the other, leaving me totally in the dark as to what the actual settings now are. I'm now looking for an alternate backup solution - all I wanted was a simple drive that would do its simple job of backing up my files without fuss or complaint, and while the hardware seems to fit the bill, it's a shame they package it with a more or less worthless software interface.