My first external hard drive (Maxtor Onetouch 4 Plus 640 GB)

Member Name: linzeelou

Product:	Maxtor Onetouch 4 Plus 640 GB
Date:	06/08/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick and easy

Disadvantages: Slighty noisy at times

I was so excited when I got this as a gift for my last birthday in March. My PC only has 80 GB of memory and i was getting desperately low, not wanting to delete anything from it. I was actually really suprised to get this as my mum is pretty much a technophobe as either buys the wrong thing or doesnt know where to start. Although this was a gift, I do know it cost just over £70 at www.ebuyer.co.uk as it was on offer. Most places charge slightly higher than this but I still think it would be worth it. With 640GB of memory, I don't think anyone could ever need more than this. I've had this for nearly 6 months and I haven't even been able to use up half of the space.

The Maxtor One Touch is really easy to use. All you need to do is connect it to your PC or laptop with the USB or Firewire cable and off you go. I did start to use Maxtor's software that's available when you buy this product but after deciding that I don't want to back up my data right now, I decided to not use it again after reformatting my pc.

With the included software, you can back up all of your data, tell it what files from your pc you want to move over and you can even set timers dates for it to do this. If you don't want to set these timers, you can set the One Touch to back up or copy files from a specific location and with the press of the button on the front of the hard drive, it will start to do this for you. You also have the option of syncing folders between 2 different computers.

If you choose not to use Maxtor's software like me, you can just drag and drop any files you want into the One Touch file. There will be 12 other sub files so I created a new file with my name on just so it's easier to find where everything of mine is.

Although this product is quite bulky, it isn't unnatractive and I certainly don't mind it sitting on my desk. I don't have a ruler so I cant tell you the exact measurments, but it's roughly the size of my hand, both high and long (I have quite small girl hands) and is roughly 1 inch thick. My PC is somewhat of a mismatched machine as it's custom built, so I have a mix of black and silver and this product seems to be the only thing that does match everything. Although it's available in black and silver, you can also get it in just black.

The only small niggle I have with this product is that it can be slightly noisy at times. I sleep with my PC and this hard drive on at all times anyway so it doesn't bother me at all anymore.

The only thing I can't really comment on is the reliability. Like I said before, I've had this for 6 months and nothing has gone wrong with it so far (touch wood). If anything does happen, i'll be sure to update you all.

Overall the Maxtor One Touch is a fantastic, easy to use external hard drive that I couldn't live without.

Summary: Fantastic, well worth the money.

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