Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus Hard Drive

(Review) - Maxtor is at it again with a new hard drive in its product portfolio, and it appears to be another winner with a few minor drawbacks that can be easily ignored for the sake of getting a seamlessly easy-to-work-with solution. The OneTouch 4 is an external drive with a black and brushed aluminum appearance with a nice, bright light for an evening glow, which is quite attractive. As attractive as hard drives can get, that is. And as is the case with other Maxtor drives, it, too, has a backup button on the outside that works to automatically backup the data with an onboard utility to make the otherwise painful task painless.

After you connect the drive to your PC (USB or FireWire), the unit auto launches (Windows-only) to install Maxtor Manager, the company's backup solution for basic home users. It prompts you to setup the process in various modes, including set schedules and specific folders, if any at all. You also have the option to backup the entire hard drive on the OneTouch 4 if you prefer. So far so good. As we delved deeper into the available options, we realized how limited the options are. For instance, while you can image the entire hard drive for safekeeping, you can't pick just any folder to backup. It must be your My Documents or Desktop folders. For most users, we don't see why backing up the entire drive would be an issue, and if it's really that much of an issue, we suggest you move all of your critical data to My Documents or manually backup the specific folders you must absolutely protect. Yes, we agree, it's a bit tedious, but you can compromise and make it easy on yourself.

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Once the backup process is done, you can use the SecurityDrill CD to restore the previously backed up data. It's as straightforward as that. Again, it's not a hardcore backup solution for data conscious users, but it will work for mainstream consumers.

In our performance tests, the drive was quick and most importantly didn't emit a lot of noise. We enjoy our peace and harmony, and the Maxtor unit didn't interrupt that. With a mix of 11GB files jumbled in a folder, we recorded 10:23 (minutes:seconds) for write tests, and 10:23 for read tests. There is negligible difference between read and write speeds, which is a little odd, but nothing overly shocking.

Maxtor's OneTouch 4 Plus is available in three flavors: 250GB, 500GB (our evaluation unit) and 750GB and cost $130, $200 and $290, respectively. All in all, OneTouch 4 Plus is a great alternative for mainstream and computing enthusiasts alike who are looking for a reliable, simple backup hard drive to get the job done. All this at an affordable price. We say do yourself a favor and pick up one of these to automatically backup your data painlessly.

Click here to check out the latest prices on Maxtor's OneTouch 4 Plus Hard Drive!