Rating: 
Summary: Great Drive, Tons of Storage, Quiet & Flexible
Review: I just received my Maxtor A01A250 250gb drive today (only 5 days after ordering it, I might mention).
As another reviewer noted, the drive actually has only 233gb of formatted storage, but it's more a mathmatical deal than a loss of storage. In all you still have 233gb of usable storage at your disposal. That's enough to store about 58+/- 4gb movies!I did my research before ordering & found this drive to be everything I needed. I wanted LOTS of storage for video & audio, I got it. I wanted a simple interface, I got it... two of them Firewire and USB2.0. I'm using Firewire now (I'm out of USB ports right now, but I'll try the USB connection as soon as I get a USB2.0 hub) I wanted a drive with an ON/OFF switch, I got it.
I can't understand why anyone would manufacture an external hard drive and NO way to turn it off. Duh! The manual states that the drive may write slower than it reads for the first 10 times it's turned on & off. Something about it getting used to things... whatever, it's still pretty fast even if the manual says it's slow. The case is aluminum and acts as a heatsink, so it does get a little warm to the touch, NOT HOT, as I've had this drive running all day & it's just warm. The drive came with a plastic/resin cradle for standing the drive on it's side to save space which comes in handy.
It also comes with a Firewire & USB 2.0 cable. Make sure you have the drive (with or without the cradle) setting on a level surface (or something padded) as I first had the drive "setting caddywhompus" and it rattled. I moved the drive a bit & it's now quiet as a mouse. I didn't install the entire backup software that came with the drive, as I plan on using it as a storage drive, so I can't comment on how well the backup works. I've never been a fan of one touch backups anyway. I opted to format the drive to NTFS (highly recommend this) in order to be able to work with LARGE video files. (the drive comes formatted FAT32 which limits you to about 4gb file size)
There's another method to convert the drive to NTFS without formatting, but I formatted anyway. If you're planning on swapping this drive from an Win XP system to a Win 98 system, DON'T FORMAT IT AS NTFS! You probably won't be able to access the drive in Win 98.
The format took about 2 hrs on my PC- a Dell 2.4ghz P4 with 1gb ram- but when it was done it's ready to use. I dropped a 1gb file onto the drive for a test & it took less than a minute to transfer the file. I expect this speed will increase in the following weeks. Add the rebate & this was a nice deal all around.
Rating:
Summary: It's great but....
Review: I just received my Maxtor and found it very easy to set up and install. It is also quite fast. The only disappointment was in discovering that it is NOT 250 gigs. 32 kbts are used on the drive and it has a capacity of 233 gigs. It's a great product exactly as advertised except for that. This post script is being written a few days after the last one. I encountered a problem with the Retrospect Express One Touch. Attempted to call the software people, Dantz, three times and was put on hold each time for so long I developed a personal relationship with the recording. Never did get anyone to answer. Fortunately the drive still functions just as any hard drive will and it does not take that much longer to do it manually.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice
Review: I plugged this thing into my high powered Windows Xp machine. it automatically installed it. I started using it right away. No problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreliable Drive - do not buy.
Review: I purchased a Maxtor 250 gig drive just a short 2 months ago. As a web designer I have many files & projects I regularly need extra storage for. Initially I was very happy with this drive. However, it is already flaking out on me. It was once very fast as I am using Firewire to connect. However, the drive now takes forever to seek and often times out with read errors. There is only 49 gig on this drive. I called Maxtor and they suggested I sent it back in, and they told me I should contact a disaster recovery service. They will not pay for that either. I called a couple disaster places, and they said they have have a stack of those 'one touch drives' to be recovered. "Worst drives ever...they get bad sectors, anything over 180gig is a nightmare..."
Glad I know now. I'll get a different drive. Maybe 2 100 gigs, one to back-up the first. I would not recommend this drive...and if you do get it or have one, back it up on CD/DVD regularly. Any sign of it slowing down, and its gone. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: Basically a disaster waiting to happen w. Mac Panther
Review: I purchased this disk. As other's describe, the version of Retrospect Express shipped, doesn't work. Far worse: the disk wont hot swap w.out causing a kernal panic on the mac.
DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT!
Rating: 
Summary: No problems or complaints after 1 year
Review: I received this drive as a Christmas gift in 2003, and it still performs flawlessly. We use it in our small business to back up tens of thousands of high resolution digital photographs, as well as other critical business data.
PROS:
* Sturdy, well-constructed hard disk enclosure protects the drive well; we have no qualms about packing up the drive and moving it offsite during emergencies or extended travels.
* Offers large capacity in a relatively small package that can be moved from computer to computer or site to site.
* USB 2.0 and Firewire ensure good transfer rates regardless of if you've got a Mac or PC.
* On/Off switch and visual feedback of drive's operation (bright blue light that flashes or shines steadily, depending on activity).
* Maxtor's solid name and dependability -- if you think Maxtor's fail "often", you haven't researched Western Digital drives!
CONS:
* Does get a little hot during extended use. I find it's best to operate it vertically, in the included plastic stand, to encourage heat dissipation. We tend to only run it during backups or restores, then we turn it off. Our computer room is hot enough as it is!
* I had no luck using the drive with my OSX 10.x laptop. I now exclusively use it on our Windows XP systems.
* It's a little heavy, due to the sturdy metal case that surrounds the drive.
* The included backup software is okay, but I've found it easier and preferable to just do a direct copy to the drive (eg. Windows Copy & Paste)
Rating:
Summary: Works like a charm ... till it dies on you
Review: I wish I saw the comments on sudden deaths of A01A250 drives when I bought mine in May '04. I was quite happy with the product until I turned it on yesterday and it simply failed to show up as an external drive in Windows Explorer - despite that it worked perfectly well the day before. Then I listened more closely and heard the clicking/stuttering sounds, and after one or two power cycles a loud screeching sound joined the orchestra. Well, thanks to other reviews I know I'm not alone. I guess I'll just stay away from Maxtor till I get over the data I lost :(((
Rating:
Summary: All 250 gigs are there
Review: In a previous post a customer complained that the whole 250 gigabytes of drive space are not available for use. The whole 250 gigs ARE there. They just do not show up in windows as that. ALL hard drives are like that. For instance I have a 200 gig drive that shows up as 186. I have another 120 gig drive that shows up as 111 , etc. SO, there is nothing wrong with the drive. That is just how it shows up in windows. If you look at the startup screen before windows loads, (the first screen that lists all the drives detected) It will show the full 250 gigs!
If you are still curious why, research it! There are plenty of soiurces out there that will go into more detail.
Rating: 
Summary: bad firewire implementation
Review: maxtor IDE drives have been pretty good for PCs, but their firewire enclosure and power-down logic causes problems with Mac OSX.
The power-down after "idle" causes the drive to disconnect from the operating system and causes data loss. Since you cannot power up the drive again without causing a kernel panic under OSX 10.3, you most certainly get data loss.
DiskWarrior does a pretty good job of recovering data from corrupted HFS filesystems. So, you will likely need to purchase diskwarrior so that you can periodically repair corruption if you do buy this drive.
Rating:
Summary: So far, so good!
Review: Opened the box, plugged it in all around without installing the software. WXPh recognized it and started writing files to it no questions asked. I did install the software provided, but not sure I'm going to use the back-up software. I have enough drive redundancy/raid and the only real back-up is to CDs/DVDs or tape. something outside of the machine. All hard drives don't format up to the posted size. It is just how the formatting algorhythms work (and marketing factors in). The only thing I wish is that Maxtor packaged the 6 pin to 4 pin Firewire adapter. Most laptops only have the 4 pin port, and this is an obvious purchase for laptop users. Aside from that, "So far, so good!"
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