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- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 34 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Any external drive should be handled with care"
Pros: Good paper manual, smart and simple use
Cons: Needs proper care as all external disk drives do !
Summary: My Maxtor OneTouch 160G works as advertised. Easy OneTouch incremental duplication, and automatic incremental backup are very nice, and work well.
Here are my own tips as a token of appreciation for Cnet public service to users (I'm quite a newbie, don't take this as a too serious piece of advice). 1) First the Maxtor unit configuration has to be done following step by step the useful paper manual. I read it all and found a lot of useful information there. 2) Quit Skype, Google desktop and some "resident protection" software can be a good idea before big back ups. 3) Don't move the drive during use. 4) Always quit your Maxtor with the safe remove utility from XP. 5) Do not overuse the unit, so that it does not get exceedingly warm. 5) always use a stabilized power supply (stabilizer) so that the electric power has not micro cuts. 6) When not in use it is a good idea to keep the Maxtor unit switched off to save its inernal parts. 7) Generally keep the unit in possibly a rather fresh and well ventilated area. On the rear side of the unit there are some cooling holes which should have enough space for air flow. 8) Use defrag from time to time for your computer as well as for your Maxtor external drive (although it is quite long). 9) Do not relie exclusively on your Maxtor external drive to save your data. It can be used best as back up for your computer data, but your data should be stored or preserved in two different places at least : your computer hard disk and your Maxtor external drive for instance. So in case of a computer crash or external disk drive crash, one set of your data remains intact. 10) If you can have Norton Ghost it is also a good idea to also back up your data on your Maxtor external drive using Ghost. The advantage of Ghost is that recovery can be a bit more simple to implement. Partition, Windows and service packs don't have to be reinstalled first with Ghost after the crash, although it is the case with the Retrospect Express software provided with the One Touch line of products. 11) After several years please accept that your external disk drive might be a bit worn out, and prepare to buy a new one...Updated
I forgot to mention this tip in an earlier post : the upward position of Maxtor one Touch 160GB may facilitate the cooling process of the drive. As the Maxtor One Touch products can be put horizontally or vertically (i.e. on a small plastic stand provided with the unit), the vertical way may provide twice as much as cooling surface and contact with air to the unit.
