Seagate Maxtor OneTouch 4 Lite 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive STM305004OTA3E1-RK

Other products by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 10.2 x 4.9 inches ; 3.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000V4PZFU
• Item model number: STM305004OTA3E1-RK
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,697 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 14, 2007

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Maxtor® OneTouch® 4 Lite solution is a full-featured backup and storage solution with Maxtor SafetyDrill™ for complete recovery of a hard drive’s contents in case of a system crash or virus/spyware attack*. With two levels of data security and capacities up to 1 TB, users can confidently back up or sync work and home computers.

Protect your data from unauthorized use.

Back up your files with one touch of a button

Portable Performance and Security
Provide a safe haven for your entire working environment. Don’t back up and protect just your files anymore. System crashes and virus attacks can happen, and it’s difficult to get your computer back to just the way you like it. To prepare, should the unfortunate happen, Maxtor SafetyDrill automatically creates a snapshot of the entire contents of your PC’s hard drive which can be readily booted for an easy and complete recovery.

Backup all your precious memories to one safe, convenient place with one touch of the button or automatically with easy scheduling software. Maxtor’s simple user interface makes it easy to protect your contents without even thinking about it and, just as importantly, restore it if needed.

With this elegantly simple full-featured backup solution, Maxtor’s software makes automated backup scheduling, specific file restoration, sync, security, drive and power management a snap. To safeguard against unauthorized use, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Lite comes with both data encryption and Maxtor DrivePass. It’s simple to install – just plug the external drive into an available USB 2.0/1.1 port on your PC or Mac. With up to 1 TB, there’s ample room for your important documents, videos, photos, graphics, and music in one safe, convenient location – over 16,660 hours of digital music or 320,000 digital photos or 1000 hours of digital video or 250 two-hour DVD quality movies or 500 games.

The sleek and slim design of this hard drive--only measures 6.73 x 2.49 x 5.88-inches (H x D x W). The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Lite lets you transfer files seamlessly from your computer via its USB 2.0 connection at a brisk transfer rate of up to 480Mb/sec. The drive delivers a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, giving you the high-speed performance you need to back your data up quickly and safely.

At this compact size, and with this high performance, you now have the ability to take your data with you anywhere you go, so your digital content finally has room to breathe. A five-year warranty is also included, giving you complete peace of mind.

Product Highlights

· Maxtor® SafetyDrill™ prepares, boots and recovers a PC’s entire internal drive contents in case of system failure or virus/spyware infection.*	· Back up all your files with one touch of the button or automated scheduling.
· Maxtor DrivePass™ and Encryption protects contents of drive in case unauthorized use.	· Quick and easy installation with pre-loaded software
· Simple Maxtor user-interface drive management, security and backup scheduling	· 5-year limited warranty
· Sync data between two or more computers on the same operating system.	· Customizable Maxtor OneTouch® button
· Plug and play storage	· Auto Updater helps keep your Maxtor OneTouch solution current.
· Drive and power management utilities	· USB 2.0/1.1 compatible up to 480 Mb/sec data transfer rates
· PC and Mac compatible	· 7200 RPM, up to 16-MB cache buffer

*Windows Only

Maxtor® is the expert and the leader in designing simple external storage and backup solutions for consumers and professionals. Maxtor offers a broad line of trusted, intuitive storage solutions for safeguarding critical business data, digital files and personal memories. Maxtor developed the industry’s first external storage device that features easy-to-use OneTouch® button backup and restore capabilities. The Maxtor® OneTouch 4 Lite solution is the easy way to back up and store photos, videos, games, music, business data, personal information and more. The OneTouch 4 Lite solution continues the OneTouch legacy as the leading external hard drive for small office users, consumers, creative professionals and mobile warriors.

What's in the Box
External hard drive with preloaded installation software, USB 2.0 cable, Maxtor SafetyDrill Recovery CD, quick start guide, AC power adapter

Product Description

For consumers who need a simple solution with a classic design for Mac or PC, the Maxtor OneTouch 4 makes it easier to set up and manage data backup, file archiving and system settings with a new easy-to-use user interface.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stay away from this "backup" device, December 2, 2007

By	Sagi Shechter (Boston,MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This drive has a serious problem, but it seems maxtor/seagate do not care at all.
I have been using it for about 4 days, when it has suddenly lost its partition table, meaning all of my data was gone - ALL of it.
Searching through the tech support forum, i realized many others are experiencing the same behavior, and there are no replies by seagate.
I tried to contact tech support, and had the pleasure of talking to the rudest, most non caring customer support agent. He basically blamed me for the problem, and just told me "reformat your drive".
Stay away from this product.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Positive reviews are premature, February 12, 2008

By	Shane Lin (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I imagine that most people who've given this drive top marks haven't owned it long enough to realize its failings. That's the really insidious thing about it: the drive doesn't fail dramatically. It gives the illusion of working perfectly, and it's only when it's far too late that you realize that you've lost data.

Let's not mince words: this is an absolutely unusable external drive.

I didn't take much heed in the negative reviews that were there when I bought this unit - I'd had experience with Western Digital and Seagate external drives, a slew of brands of enclosures, and dozens of internal drives. I've not had many problems with Maxtor before, and I'd only had the best experiences with Seagate. I figured that an external hard drive controller would be a fairly easy thing to accomplish, if the off-brand imports were getting it down pat.

This does not seem to be the case. The drive seems incapable of ensuring data integrity in the most basic ways:

1. Large files seemingly randomly become wiped and appear as 0 bytes in size.

2. Files become randomly overriden by other files (video file A is on the hard drive. I copy video B to the drive. I notice afterwards that both A and B are copies of video B)

3. Directories and files become corrupt and inaccessible.

4. The drive fails to mount its partitions and requires cycling its power or rebooting to correct.

These problems are not isolated occurrences - they are common enough so that virtually any task that requires an external hard drive is impossible to accomplish over any period of time.

The other negative reviews here suggest that these are severe flaws inherent to the drive controller and that my drive is not just a lemon. Given this, I've no confidence that this drive can be "repaired." I have an external drive enclosure on order from Amazon. When it arrives, I will have to pry the casing open and extract the 500GB hard drive inside (these seems to be no easy way to do this without destroying the casing).

This product is simply unusable.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Problematic and prone to failure, buyer beware, November 25, 2007

By	T. Cain (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased one of these from a retailer a month or two ago. First, it started having connectivity problems, where Windows would either not recognize it upon startup or it would "disappear" from view after a certain period of time.

More recently, it stopped working completely. Maxtor's own software claims it has a capacity of ~52 GB and ~532 GB of free space, while Windows will not allow me to access the contents of the drive while asking me if I would like to format. I did a bit of research, and found that unplugging the drive would make it show up correctly (and it did), however it would not restore my data.

Be aware that this exact problem has been reported by more than a few people who own this particular drive, and it is NOT a reliable backup if you must store data of any importance.