Quick Storage
Written: Jul 18 '02 (Updated Jul 18 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Portable, hot swappable, 2 Firewire ports
Cons: Unstable, poor quality power connector
The Bottom Line: Good for movie editing, but Maxtor needs to improve the reliability of their drives and the quality of their power connectors.
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| buckmd's Full Review: Seagate 1394 External Storage 40 GB FireWire 400 (... |
The main reason I bought this drive was for movie editing. I wanted a high capacity drive that could hold a full-length movie and be able to use it on different machines. This did both. I created a 2 hour movie with a separate 20 minute short, and had room to spare. I also used it on two desktops and a laptop while creating the movies.
The Good
The unit comes in a handsome, solid case. It has two Firewire (IEEE 1394) ports on the back to easily allow daisy chaining. This is a necessity if your computer has only one Firewire port and your using this to edit movies since you will need a port for the drive and one for the camera.
Being a Firewire device, it can be hot mounted, meaning that you do not have to turn off your computer to attach the drive as with some other types of external drives. Also since it is Firewire, transfer rates are fast. This drive has no problem handling video. I used it for several iMovie projects and it never dropped a frame.
The Bad
While the case seems well made, the power cable is of low quality. The one on my drive easily falls off, and does not fit in the socket straight. This needs a redesign.
The Ugly
The drive I used was unstable; it had a tendency to freeze, which would lock up the computer. To regain control of the computer, I would have to unplug the Firewire cable. Once the drive was disconnected from the computer, the computer would function again, but would issue a warning not to remove the drive without dismounting it first. To use the drive again, I would have to power off and on again and then plug it back into the computer. I never lost data, but since this happened quite often, you can imagine what it did to productivity. I tried the drive on several computers, but the results was the same. Checking bulletin boards, others were having the same problem. I hope that Maxtor fixes this problem in future drives.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
buckmd
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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