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Maxtor OneTouch
III 1 Terabyte Turbo Edition Triple Interface (Professional
Use Raid)
Review by Tech Lab staff
May 1, 2006
Maxtor also stepped
up to the bar by providing the most highly considered automated
back-up software available for Mac OS and Windows – Dantz Retrospect
Express. Both Mac and Windows versions are included on the accompanying
CD for installation on your computer. While some aspects of Retrospect
can be unbelievably confusing to setup for the average computer
user, it does include a Setup Wizard for basic automated backups
that anyone
can do.
Press the front button and you're ready
to start a backup. Click
here to see all the Mac OS X setup screens-
You can also run
Dantz Retrospect Express right from the OneTouch™ III .
Just press the silver button on the front of
the OneTouch™ III and the embedded version of Retrospect Express backup software launches
[onetouch_button_bu.jpg] on the desktop. It’s as simple as
selecting one of the three options.
The software gives you the choice of backing up your entire hard drive,
or select specific files for backup, either automatically or with a
touch of a button. But there is a lot more.
We did experience
on two occasions a small number of copy errors during full backups
with the OS X version of Dantz Retrospect Express. We’re not
certain what caused the errors, but it does NOT appear to be the
OneTouch™ III because we also did
a full cloning of the same OS X volume to the OneTouch™ III with
Carbon Copy Clone (a free Cloning
application) and no error occurred using Apple’s built-in “Backup” software.
Oh yeah, you don’t need to use the supplied Dantz software, as
any backup software worked great in out tests, include Apple’s “Backup”
Apple's OS X native
"Backup" software works with OTIII
The built-in Maxtor DriveLock® feature allows you to password-protect
the drive against unauthorized users or in case of loss and it
provides and extra measure of data security.
Also the Maxtor
System RollbackTM feature can restore your Windows operating system,
settings and applications to a point in time when it ran correctly,
such as before problems from a virus, Trojan or Spyware
attacked your system. Updates to critical data files, photos, music and
video data are kept current
for restoration.
You can even synchronize data between two or more computers, such as your home
or office computer and laptop.
Mac OS X installation of Dantz Retrospect Express is just to simple to even elaborate
on except to say that you mother could do it.
The Windows installation
will first
want to install MS Dot Net Framework (we’re not crazy about that) and then
it installs Retrospect Express HD 1.1. From there on it is again as simple as
the Mac install.
As we mentioned earlier,
the OneTouch™ III comes Mac preformatted, so after you’ve finished
the software install, plugin and turn on the OneTouch™ III , and Windows
will prompt you to format for Windows
in RAID O as one large drive (931MB actual size for the 1TB model). Maxtor’s
built-in utilities will allow you to convert the OneTouch™ III from
RAID 0 to RAID 1 (mirroring). It will take you all of 60 seconds.
Best
things –
One the best things about this model of the OneTouch™ III line-up is
the Turbo Edition triple interface – USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and
especially FireWire 800. It’s been a long time coming and the acceptance
has been slow in the industry, but innovative companies like Maxtor were
smart to add this port interface.
If you are doing any streaming data acquisition, nothing will beat the FireWire 800 interface found on the OneTouch™ III “triple interface” models and the 1TB Turbo Edition. And if you don’t have a FW 800 interface on your older Mac (G4 OR G3) or Windows PC’s, it’s really no problem as there are plenty of PCI card solutions around for either platform.
Maxtor as we recommend FireWire 800 PCI Cards from Adaptec, Other World Computing, FireWire Direct, Belkin and SIIG. There are of course others, but we have not any experience testing them on either Mac or Windows OS platforms. Generally, the same FireWire 800 PCI cards will work in either Windows or Mac (10.3.4 and higher).
How
fast is the 1 Terabyte OneTouch™ III Turbo Edition?-
We
plugged the drive into a Mac G4 1.4Ghz Power Mac running OS X Panther
with
a SIIG FireWire 800/400 PCI Card, using the FW800 interface and ran
a full back up of the 27.5 GB (195,646 Files) volume. Total back up
time was 1 hour and 5 minutes including verification.
On a
AMD Athlon XP3000+ 2.25Ghz Windows XP workstation,, using the USB 2.0
interface,
we backed up the 18.2GB OS volume which took 1hour and 22 minutes,
including verification. FW800 was roughly 42% faster than USB 2.0,
with the consideration that the Windows PC is about 28% faster on
benchmarks.
The manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for the Maxtor OneTouch
III family ranges from $159.95 for the 100GB USB 2.0 only version
to $479.95 for the 500GB triple interface solution. MSRP for the
1TB Maxtor
OneTouch III, Turbo Edition is $899.95.
The
Bottom Line –
Maxtor has done it again with the best-designed, quietest, smallest
package size and most “PC” universally attractive unit around. The “Triple
Interface” including FireWire 800 is the sweet icing on the cake.
Maxtor has also built a well-deserved reputation of quality and long
term reliability; we’ve yet to have one fail prematurely or in “middle
age” either.
Tech Edge E-zine gives the OneTouch™ III 1Terabyte Turbo Edition
with Triple Interface an Editors’ Choice Award for 2006 and
5 Thumbs Up from the Tech Lab reviewers.
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