Gizmo

Maxtor OneTouch External Hard Drive

The idea of a one button data backup system is an incredibly seductive idea. Poise your digit then touch the button and minutes later all your mission-critical data is as safe as your child-seated offspring in a Volvo. If only it were that simple.

Maxtor has gone a long, long way to making it so with its OneTouch external hard drive product and it does a remarkable job given what the other backup options are out there. But you didn’t think it would be as simple as pushing a button and walking away did you?

Here’s what it’s really like when you’re using it with a laptop. Plug the USB or FireWire cable in. Wait for the drive to be recognized. Waiting. Waiting. Ah, Windows finds it. Ok, put the OneTouch blue glowing button on the face of the hard drive, which is now sitting pretty in its silver case on its blue stand on your desk next to your computer. The computer thinks. Thinks some more. Wait. Wait. Wait. Nothing. You swear out loud. Look at the blank screen dully and pray for death. Reboot your computer. Let the system come up. Ok, push the little blue button again. Wait. Wait. Hooray, something’s happening. The Retrospect backup software logo appears and it boots, booting, booted! Ok ready to go. Now it scans the data on the drive and starts to back up files.

I tested the device on an ornery IBM T40 ThinkPad, which has a 1.6 GHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. You’d think that would be just fine to run a backup routine and it is, unless I’ve spent all day doing tons of system intensive work and then a fresh reboot is necessary to clear out the digital cobwebs. At times the OneTouch program, which sleeps in the background, refuses to wake.

Then there is the issue of a system failure. On my T40, the system likes to crash six times a day. When it does this during a backup, the computer restarts and then the OneTouch offers this gem. “The system appears to have suffered a power outage or has crashed.” It’s right, that’s what happened. And then you have to click “OK”, so you do and then it does nothing. Why? I still want to back up my data. Why doesn’t the infernal thing start the backup again? If the system crashed - and the OneTouch knows that - shouldn’t it get to work and finish the job and backup all data ASAP? It’s like a fireman showing up and observing, “Your house is on fire. OK?” Er, yah. Dooooo something, moron!

The physical drive is a big honking thing in a metal case, which reminds me of an old 1200 baud modem. And it’s box-of-chocolates heavy, but quite pretty. It runs hot when backing up so mind your fingers. The drive comes in various sizes from 120 GB to 300 GB. And also offers both USB 2.0 and USB 2.0/FireWire combo drives that work with Apple and Microsoft Windows computers.

A note on those two technologies. Both move data at a rate of up to or more than 400 MB/second, so a large multi-gigabyte drive can be backed up in hours as opposed to days. All newer Windows computers – typically those that came with Windows XP - use the USB 2.0 connection technology, whereas older machines use USB 1.1 which moves data at a fraction of the speed. The difference is like flying in a jet and then getting a piggyback ride from your grandma. (More about USB)

The bottom line to all this. Don’t be seduced by the OneTouch moniker. It should be called the Maxtor OneTouchAndABitOfFiddling.

Price: $200 to $350 US .
More info: www.maxtor.com
Buy it: Amazon.com

-Andy Walker, Cyberwalker Media Syndicate

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Copyright © Cyberwalker Media Inc. 2002