 |
  |
|
Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo (1TB)
April 23, 2006  
Maxtor's latest model in their ever-popular external backup devices is the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition. It's got a massive storage capability of 1 terabyte (TB)! It's RAID 0 and RAID 1 compatible and we know that graphic designers, video editors, and heavy-downloaders out there are just jumping for joy for this device. Unlike many other large-capacity storage devices that have come out onto the market within the past year or so, the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo isn't meant to be used as network-attached storage (NAS), but rather for a single computer hookup via USB 2 or Firewire 400/800. It's meant to be used for a quick way to transfer large files from one PC to the OneTouch III. It's also a little cheaper than other 1TB competitors by about a hundred dollars or so. The OneTouch III is also compatible for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. However, Mac OS X users can use the OneTouch III right out of the box, while Windows users will have to format the drives to NTFS format using the included formatting program. Once formatted, the features are identical for both OS X and Windows users. The OneTouch III pretty much looks like a stylish toaster. It measures about 6 x 4 x 8.5-inches big and looks very slick and clean, although large. One the back of the unit, there are 3 ports, a The single-button backup can be configured using the default Retrospect Express HD backup, Maxtor's Sync software, or any other supported backup program. The Maxtor Sync program runs in the background of your computer and monitors files on your computer to change and in turn updates them on the OneTouch III device. The OneTouch III is able to be either RAID 0 (data is split across the two internal drives ) or RAID 1 (data is equally copied to both internal drives for redundancy support for crash-protection). Keep in mind that if you do choose RAID 1, the capacity of the Maxtor OneTouch III will be reduced to 500GB. Perhaps one downside to the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo is that the internal drives are not removable and/or replaceable unless you open the unit and void your warranty. The included Retrospect Express HD software is useful, but somewhat lacking and basic. You can schedule backups of an entire volume or certain files or folders. The Restore system is also quite basic, though it does support multiple versions of files (you can save copies hourly, weekly, or monthly). The OneTouch III Turbo is more oriented to on-demand backup and the restoration of individual files, which it does pretty well due to the silver one-touch button. Recovery of your computer's main hard drive after a catastrophic failure, however, involves the reinstalling of the computer's operating system and all of the Maxtor utilities. Once that's done, you then have to install the Retrospect Express program to restore the data from the backup. It would be better to have a bootable recovery CD setup, such as with the Iomega XL Desktop. In several tests of the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition, it took about two and a half minutes to backup a 1GB test file via USB 2.0 and configured to RAID 0. The most time consuming part of the backup process is the data verification after the backup that Retrospect Express performs, but it does ensure a good and accurate copy. In review, the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo (1TB) Edition performs quite nicely enough for a strong recommendation. It's an excellent choice for a home or small-office that doesn't need to spend Pros: Very fast, huge 1TB capacity, RAID compatible, USB/Firewire hookups, easy to setup
Cons: USB/Firewire cables not included, included software can be a bit basic at times, software limits restoration from a drive failure Editors' Rating:  Check prices on the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition View Images of the Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition  
People who looked at this product also looked at...
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
