Having spent some time working with Seagate's new OneTouch 4 series of big-bottomed external hard drives, it's time to report on their usefulness. The verdict is unremarkable and unexciting, but if you've got this far into a hard drive review, exactly what you wanted to hear: the bundled application, Maxtor Manager, works just fine, and makes backing-up, syncing and other tedious necessities painless.†
The OneTouch 4 comes in sizes from 250GB to 750GB, with prices running from $100 to $270; the OneTouch 4 Plus edition, which adds a $360 1TB
model, costs $100, $200 and $290 for the 250GB, 500GM and 750GB models respectively; and a 2.5" Mini edition that maxes out at $150 for 160GB.
Plugged into a Windows PC, the OneTouch 4 asks for a little attention from the get-go, having been packed with an auto-running installer for the bundled software. If you've bought these to be dumb drives, it's easy to dismiss 'n' delete, but the smart user will consent to let it install Maxtor Manager, the application that makes it all click. Mac users will need to run an installer manually.
The app provides several straightforward functions. The first three tabs offer drive information and backup and sync scheduling. A security tab allows for drive-access password protection ("DrivePass") and folder-level encryption. Think "art collections" and "plans to take over the world."
"SafetyDrill" is a unique feature that saves an image of your main drive to the external disk. In the event of your system or C: getting toasted, it can be restored using a linux-based restore disk. This feature isn't available on the Mac version of the software, and wasn't tested.
The drives have a distinctive look that won't appeal to all. While attractively cast in dark, matte plastic and (for the Plus model)
brushed metal, they're an odd wedge-like shape that doesn't stack.
The OneTouch 4 Mini requires more juice than a single USB port is supposed to deliver. In practice, it worked on one test machine (a
Shuttle SD39P2) with a standard USB cable, but required the bundled dual-USB Y-cable to work on the others (including an iMac). If the idea of a portable 2.5" external drive requiring two spare USB ports sounds hard to swallow, you're not alone.
The bundled apps on the full-size drive use about a gigabyte of space.
Not tested here was detailed metadata preservation, an issue for a small set of users. If anyone wants us to check this out, say so in the comments. For the majority of users, it won't matter.
Other backup options for OSX users are well-documented here, but if you're in the market for a big new drive and want to stop worrying about backups, here you go. *Voilà! *OneTouch 4.
† A few notes on pain: Most other OSX GUI apps are monetary pain, Leopard's Time Machine is the pain of waiting, rsync is free pain, and .Mac's "backup" is simply a pain in the ass. Windows PC users have more options, of course, and generally do not know the meaning of pain.
Earlier: OneTouch 4 Is All About The Apps
