Maxtor One-Touch vs OWC Mercury Elite external HD

Van Bagnol

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Mar 16, 2005, 2:17:27 PM3/16/05

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I have an iMac G4, a couple of 900MHz iBook G3s, and a Beige G3 that
need backing up and archiving. I'm looking for a roaming hard drive for
them.

Anybody have experience with either the Other World Computing "Mercury
Elite", or the Maxtor "One-Touch" FW+USB2 drives? Reliability? Noise?
I've heard some talk that Maxtors are not that great.

The OWC 250GB seems to be the best value for the money (no sales tax,
free shipping, bundled with Retrospect Express and a Mac-specific disk
utility) but the Maxtor seems to have an edge (16MB buffer, fanless,
smaller aluminum case instead of OWC's current "tin box inside plastic"
style).

Van
--
Van Bagnol / n p c o m p l e t e at bagnol dot com / c r l at bagnol dot com
...enjoys Theatre / Windsurfing / Skydiving / Mountain Biking
...feels "parang lumalakad ako soo loob ng panaginip"
...thinks "An Error is Not a Mistake ... Unless You Refuse to Correct It"

Paul Krause

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Mar 17, 2005, 6:47:56 PM3/17/05

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I have the OWC 250GB and love it. Quiet as can be. can stand on its
side, preformatted and a good software package including most, if not
all apple commercials made.

i've bought a number of things grom them and have never had a problem

Paul

In article <van-A4FF8A.1...@newssvr13-ext.news.prodigy.com>,

Neill Massello

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Mar 22, 2005, 9:09:37 PM3/22/05

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Van Bagnol <v...@crl.com.invalid> wrote:

> The OWC 250GB seems to be the best value for the money (no sales tax,
> free shipping, bundled with Retrospect Express and a Mac-specific disk
> utility) but the Maxtor seems to have an edge (16MB buffer, fanless,
> smaller aluminum case instead of OWC's current "tin box inside plastic"
> style).

OWC's "Elite" (IceCube) enclosure is fanless as well, which turns out to
be a problem, as the plastic outer case blocks heat transfer from the
metal internal case to the air. A thermal test
<http://www.datoptic.com/PDF/ThermalTest.pdf> shows the internal
temperature in an IceCube exceeding 50 Celsius after less than an hour
of use and hitting 55 C after 90 minutes. That's at the upper limit of
most drive manufacturer's ambient temperature recommendations. A drive
run for extended periods at these temperatures is likely to die before
its time.

The IceCube is all right for housing a backup drive that's only used for
short periods, but I wouldn't recommend it for a full-time external
drive.

As for the Maxtor externals, there have been many complaints -- even
adjusting for market share -- about them dying early.

Van Bagnol

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Mar 25, 2005, 9:23:10 AM3/25/05

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In article <1gtu87h.12iqlp3l9ozouN%neillm...@earthlink.net>,
neillm...@earthlink.net (Neill Massello) wrote:

Yes, that was one of my concerns. I'd prefer a conductive aluminum heat
sink to insulated plastic. It also seems that the plastic enclosure has
no vent holes.

Do you know whether the drive will spin down after inactivity, or does
it stay at full rpm?

Neill Massello

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Mar 25, 2005, 10:05:03 AM3/25/05

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Van Bagnol <v...@crl.com.invalid> wrote:

> Do you know whether the drive will spin down after inactivity, or does
> it stay at full rpm?

Most drives in external enclosures spin down when commanded to do so by
their host computer, but few are configured (in firmware) do so on their
own any more.

rollout

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Mar 26, 2005, 8:20:06 AM3/26/05

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I recommend steering clear of the Maxtor OneTouch for a while. We have
noticed an increased volume of recovery requests, due to a flaw with
the DiamondMax Plus 9 series drive contained within the external drive
cage.

Luke Coughey
Vice President
Recovery Force Inc.
866-750-3169
http://www.recoveryforce.com/