Rating: 
Summary: A portible hardrive with a solid backup package.
Review: As the unit goes, it's solid all around. The drive is encased in an aluminum shell. This seems extremely appropriate after one has had the drive in operation for more than 30 minutes, as it gets pretty warm. I suspect a plastic shell (like those found on previous versions of Maxtor's enclosure) would not help dissipate heat very well. The one touch button is really not that appealing to me personally because it provides two issues. 1. You are going to have to install their software to use it, which means that there is one more utility running in the background using memory just waiting for you to push a button on your drive. 2. The fact that it does require this driver means that when you plug it into someone else's computer who doesn't have it, you will be greeted with a Found New Hardware Wizard and should you not have the driver on hand, this might be cause for alarm. Don't sweat it. Just cancel out of this and the drive works just fine as either an IEEE1394 or USB 1.0/2.0 external drive without any extra drivers on most systems. The drive comes packaged with Dantz Retrospect Express 6.0. This backup solution is solid but isn't very user friendly. I consider myself quite knowledgeable of a large library of software, and while this package works really well, it took me at least 30 minutes to get remotely comfortable with how it works. There is no dragging and dropping of folders that you want to archive or even selecting files from a super easy template such as "Save my email and documents." Retrospect works from the standpoint that everything is a "volume." This means that you need to map each directory you want to backup it's own volume. Forget about selecting single files in a directory full of others that you don't need. It just isn't possible. Also, all volumes are recursive. This means you can't limit the volume to just one directory and skip all subdirectories. These things aside, this package has some very nice features. Each backup produces a snapshot. Contained in the snapshot are all files either updated or added since all previous snapshots. This means that backups after the first one are really quick. Another advantage to this is that by backing up in regular intervals, you are managing versions on your files. You can go back to any date that you have a snapshot for and retrieve the file as it was on that date. This all comes at the expense of storage space but unless you are backing up video footage every day, it shouldn't be a concern with a 200GB drive. You can also "forget" a snapshot and any files missing in the archive will be added to a future archive. This allows you to recover space that was being used by antiquated versions. I would recommend this software/hardware package to anyone who is living in the world of multiple 40GB+ drives such as the one I inhabit. You get a great portable drive with enough capacity to manage your backups and still carry your MP3 collection to the office.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Drive, Till it Dies, and it will
Review: Have had 2 drives fail on me, one inside of a year, one right outside of a year, I used them as backup drives, and thus had to purchase and take days using recovery software to get my backup information to another hard drive, these things are more prone to failure than any drive I have ever seen and this seems to reflect what others have seen as well.
Rating:
Summary: Nice, Fast, Quiet Drive
Review: I don't use the one-touch software, I just use this drive for archiving photos. It is very quiet, fast with USB 2.0 or Firewire and is also usable with a USB 1.0 connection, just in case.... The drive has an on-off switch, which makes this drive a good choice for holding archives securely. It's the same size as my 80 gb and 120 gb external drives so while it's not tiny it is small and has a stand that holds it in a space-saving vertical position. So far, I love this drive and will be looking for a larger version real soon. Fred Voetsch
http://AcclaimImages.com
Rating:
Summary: Look elsewhere
Review: I got this drive to replace another 200GB Maxtor drive of mine that failed (internal). Surprise surprise, the one-touch external 200GB drive failed on me, after only seven months! I guess I didn't learn my lesson the first time. In both cases, with both 200GB maxtor drives, they just suddenly "lost formatting." Maxtor claimed Windows 2000 was at fault, though I'm using Service Pack 4 which should eliminate any Windows related problems dealing with drives of this size. I rarely say "never again" when it comes to a particular brand, but after this recent failure I'm swearing off Maxtor altogether. Some people prefer Seagate or Western Digital, but if you read the reviews some of their HDs are unreliable as well. The best advice I received was from the technician who will be performing the likely $2000 + data recovery attempt on my hard drive: "Make sure to get a drive with a five year warranty. If you could look at the insides, they're like night and day."
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to use backup soluution
Review: I had it setup in under 20 minutes. The software that comes with it is great for backing up your entire system. I highly recomend this product.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Secondary/Backup Hard Drive for Laptops!
Review: I have been using Maxtor external hard drives for just over a year now and have made recommendations to family and colleagues which have resulted in them buying many of them as well. So with experience with close to a dozen hard drives, we have not had any problems and have nothing but praise for the drives. First off, with internal hard drive prices for laptops so expensive and so difficult to install, external hard drives that use firewire (IEEE1394) are a great option. These hard drives use both firewire and USB, so you can take the information and hot swap it among multiple computer (like a thumb drive) or keep it plugged in to a single computer for use a secondary hard drive. I have found virtually no speed difference between accessing files on the external hard drive versus the internal. The automatic backup feature, makes the hard drive all that much more useful. It comes bundled with Dantz Retrospect Express program which is an easy-to-use option for automatically backing up just what you want with a touch of a button. I backup often, usually just punching the button as I go meet to clients. It usually finishes the automated process by the time I return. Because backing up is so easy to do, when I did lose the hard drive on one of my laptops, I barely missed a beat after I got it replaced, simply restoring the drive image to make my new laptop look just like my old one. I highly recommend Maxtor external hard drives.
Rating:
Summary: Very unreliable with very short warranty
Review: I have bought A01A200 on 10/28/03 to backup and archive all my business and personal information. On 04/07/04, the device informed me suddenly that it is not formatted. So, I have lost everything at once. Maxtor gives only 90 days warranty. This means no warranty for a backup device. Thus, A01A200 is not reliable and too expensive product with a very short warranty.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant Hard Drive
Review: I have had this hard drive for about 9 months and it works great. Very silent, except now it makes a whilring sound when I turn it on, but I guess that many hard drive devices do. The transfer speed with mine isnt as great, but I can assume its because its USB 1.1 and not 2.0 This hard drive is the best, and I would definately order from maxtor in the future
Rating:
Summary: BEST BEST BEST External Hard Drive
Review: I highly recommend this external hard drive. File transfers are extremely fast, in the order of 20 gigabytes per minute. Took me 4.5 minutes to totally back-up my 80 gig hard drive. Since it is easy to unhook from your computer I also use it to back up my work laptop, my wifes (I have three) computer, and my boys computer. All computers in my life are totally and completely back-up. I agree with the other reviewer that the unit gets a bit hot but not so hot as to be of any concern to me. Bottom line is that I recommend this external hard drive to anyone that has a computer with a hard drive. It backup up all files..good files, and even files you shouldn't have on your computer. It is wise to back up at least weekly. And when I say backup I mean backup the entire mirror image of your hard drive(s). The backup software also works wonderfully. Buy it. Back-up. When your hard drive fails (and they ALL do at some point) email me to thank me.
Rating:
Summary: good but could be better
Review: I recently bought this hard drive because I wanted some extra storage space for videos, music, etc. I found it to be a fast (I'm using the firewire connection) and extremely quiet drive. The only concern I have is that it gets fairly warm after using it for awhile, especially writing very large files. It doesn't seem to have a fan inside for cooling, to minimize the noise I guess. I wished maxtor had installed even a very small fan to help with this heat issue. I personally don't mind a little bit of noise if it meant a cooler drive. Overall, I would recommend it. I've been using it for several months now and it still performs flawlessly.
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