The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
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stars
"Absolutely the worst piece of hardwarer-AVOID THIS PRODUCT" on by DrLee2004
Pros: IT is HUGE-Too bad it doesn't work
Cons: Where do I begin? Software provided is unstable and incredibly slow, firewire 800 isn't recognized by windows xp, firewire 400 takes forever, retrospect is absolutely the worst piece of software
Summary: Sure it is a nice idea to have such a huge storage space to back up my system, but the way this thing is set up really sucks. I had to RMA my first one b/c windows XP wouldn't recognize the drive when it was plugged into firewire 800. I had to use USB 2.0 to install the software and it was soooo slow I couldn't bare the thought of going thru that for the duration of me owning this monster. So, I installed the crappy software they provide with this drive and when I try to initiate it, it takes 2 minutes for the main menu to show up. You might be thinking my computer system is slow-NOT at all. I have an AMD 64 FX55 processor, 4 Gigs of RAM, on a DFI nF4 MOBO. It is not slow at all and it should not take that long for any program to load up. I thought photoshop took long, well this program takes the cake. Anyway, after formatting the drive I tried plugging it into a firewire 400 to see if that would be any better-that is when all hell broke loose and it crashed my system. I called the help center at Maxtor and they suggested all of the steps I had already tried: sequentially power off and powering back up, trying different ports, trying to reinstall the software, but all to no avail. That is when they said that perhaps my firewire 800 interface on the drive was faulty. Well, after several trials and having my system crash on me numerous times I requested a replacement from NEWEGG.COM and they were more than willing to help me out-Thank GOD for Newegg.
I received my second drive After going thru this for the second time with a new drive and new install, I was able to get the thing to stabilize and not crash my system using firewire 400. Firewire 800 connection is still non-existent. The one touch manager & the retrospect program is still incredibly slow and the useless, retrospect program is still not functioning correctly (I have access to the one touch manager, but when I try to establish the setting for retrospect it either makes my processor cycle for 30 minutes (all the while me thinks the dumb program is analyzing my drives to prepare it for backup- dumb me the software is just using up 100% of my processor so I can’t run anything else) or it never initiates and is stuck in the please wait mode. I suppose I can drag my files over to the drive and have it save my files manually, but what’s the use of paying $800 for a drive that is supposed to backup at the touch of a button? In summary, the drive is slow, the software is poor and the one touch button doesn’t program easily with windows xp. I have no idea if anyone else is having the same sort of problems, but I tried doing research before buying this product, but I had no luck finding user opinions; I had to rely on the professional reviews and they are never as helpful. Theoretical reviews do me no good! Thus, I hope this review helps someone else out when they are looking for a back up drive.
- 7 replies to this review
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Since I've have a history with this drive, I feel I need to share my experience. The drive worked fine with USB without any of the included software. It was much slower than any of my other USB drives. It did crash and I did loose a terabyte of data which was devastating. Luckily the thing was still under warranty, so I got a replacement after the worst customer experience with Seagate (which acquired Maxtor). Wanna laugh?? OK, here goes: Seagate support asks me to send a receipt as proof of purchase. I get this electronically via email from the retailer and forward it to Seagate. They would not accept it in this format and insisted that I send a scanned copy in PDF format. I didn't have the ability to scan to PDF at the time so I just did an ALT+PrintScreen and sent a JPEG. Still no go. Long story short, I had to get the retailer AND Seagate on a conference call to verify that I wasn't forging anything. Sounds like Seagate has some trust issues. Anyway, I get a replacement drive. And less than a year later, the f*****g thing crashes AGAIN. AGAIN I loose a TB of data! (good thing I didn't store anything critical). So I figure one of the drives might still be good so I rip the thing apart and install the good drive in my PC. SATA2 so it plugged in just fine. In doing so, my data transfer rate on the SATA bus for some reason slowed to a crawl. Trying to copy 15GB from one drive to another (not the 500gb Maxtor drive) would take 2 hours, which normally would take 10-15 minutes. Removing the Maxtor drive from the PC returned the performance to normal.<br><br>Well there you have it. This is my take on the worst USB hard drive I have EVER used.
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Same issue, I RMA'd it. Still getting 5MB's sustained... slow as hell. Had to use Disk utility on OSX to get the drive to work. The software that shipped with it does not see it.
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they constantly give out high marks to everything. Then you see numerous real world owners rate them as junk. I believe the people who shelled out their cash and were on hold with tech support over reviewer's who have no real money on the table and never sit on hold for support.
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the software with this drive will drive you nuts waiting for it to open. Expect to go to third party vendor product.
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Same problems. Drive is recognized sometimes. One touch has worked twice, otherwise drive not recognized. My new Intel Core Duo desktop system would power up fast, bring up desktop in seconds...until Maxtor III was installed. All the same symptoms you describe. Thanks Dr. Lee...I'm cutting my losses and wasted time and returning this hardware tomorrow.
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I purchased this to use with RAID1. I was able to format it using an old laptop G4. The Maxtor software would not work with my new Intel macs. Even after formatting the drive, it will not show up on my new macs desktop so I have to keep it connected to an old mac and use a standard firewire external drive to bring data to it. Maxtor tells me they are going to have a software fix soon but I have yet to hear from them.
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I've been building my own computers since about 1991, and I am very selective about the parts I use. I have had so many real world problems with maxtor now, including this drive, I am convinved I am never buying them again. I sympathize with you and applaud your taking time out to write a review. CNET does a great job at giving professional reviews, but they don't compare to real world reviews from guys like you. Thanks again.
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