Seagate STM305004OTA3E1-RK Maxtor OneTouch 4 500 GB External Hard Drive

Manufacturer: Seagate Availability: This item is currently not available. List Price:$280.32 Our Price: Features: 500 GB portable hard drive connects to your computer via USB cable 16 MB cache buffer; 7200 RPM for fast read/write times Stores over 160,000 digital photos, 500 hours of digital video, or 8,000 hours of digital music Includes portable drive, backup and OneTouch Manager software applications, USB cable 2.0, external AC power supply, and a quick start guide 5-year limited warranty Description:

Reviews:

Suddenly failed operating
After reading positive reviews on the Maxtor One Touch series disk drives in computer magazines and knowing Maxtor's long success of drive manufacturing I bought the Maxtor 500 GB One Touch 4 at a retailer.

After six weeks of problem free operation the drive suddenly failed. It stopped spinning the disk. Eight hundred hours of my work downloading 1,700 songs and copying 57 movies were lost. I was furious. Maxtor told me the five year warranty (plainly stamped on the retail box) applies only to the hardware. If I want the data recovered Maxtor can attempt to recover it for a minimum fee of $1,000! I said absolutely not.

First, in 26 years of using computers I have never witnessed any a hard disk drive to fail like this so quickly. Maxtor has a major quality control problem.

Second, that Maxtor claims a five year warranty on the outside of the box as a means to solicit purchase of its disk drive when this outer box fails to plainly state that this warranty applies only to hardware and not data violates 15 U.S.C. §52 (Dissemination of false advertisements) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The specific terms of the warranty can only be found AFTER purchasing the disk drive and opening the box.

Third, that Maxtor absolves itself of responsibilty for data lost on a hard disk drive that Maxtor warrants against failure for five years is unethical as the failure of its warrantied hardware caused the loss of the data. Maxtor ought to be obligated to recover data caused by the failure of its hard disk drive at no cost to the consumer. As an aside, I have lost data on Lexar Media flash memory cards that shorted out and they recovered my data and replaced the card at no charge.

I returned the drive to the retailer for a refund and bought a Western Digital drive. I am filing a written complaint to the Federal Trade Commission for Maxtor committing false advertising. Never again will I buy another product made by Maxtor nor by its parent company Seagate!


Positive reviews are premature
I imagine that most people who've given this drive top marks haven't owned it long enough to realize its failings. That's the really insidious thing about it: the drive doesn't fail dramatically. It gives the illusion of working perfectly, and it's only when it's far too late that you realize that you've lost data.

Let's not mince words: this is an absolutely unusable external drive.

I didn't take much heed in the negative reviews that were there when I bought this unit - I'd had experience with Western Digital and Seagate external drives, a slew of brands of enclosures, and dozens of internal drives. I've not had many problems with Maxtor before, and I'd only had the best experiences with Seagate. I figured that an external hard drive controller would be a fairly easy thing to accomplish, if the off-brand imports were getting it down pat.

This does not seem to be the case. The drive seems incapable of ensuring data integrity in the most basic ways:

1. Large files seemingly randomly become wiped and appear as 0 bytes in size.

2. Files become randomly overriden by other files (video file A is on the hard drive. I copy video B to the drive. I notice afterwards that both A and B are copies of video B)

3. Directories and files become corrupt and inaccessible.

4. The drive fails to mount its partitions and requires cycling its power or rebooting to correct.

These problems are not isolated occurrences - they are common enough so that virtually any task that requires an external hard drive is impossible to accomplish over any period of time.

The other negative reviews here suggest that these are severe flaws inherent to the drive controller and that my drive is not just a lemon. Given this, I've no confidence that this drive can be "repaired." I have an external drive enclosure on order from Amazon. When it arrives, I will have to pry the casing open and extract the 500GB hard drive inside (these seems to be no easy way to do this without destroying the casing).

This product is simply unusable.


Most Terrible Drive I've Owned
This drive must be the drive that defective has never possessed. That has lost all my data a bunch of periods. I have bought the black friday. Selling price de Nizza but thats as they obtain them. I would not suggest them I buy this drive less that you wished to lose your data repeatedly!


Underperforms
I have obtained a lot on this drive, but hour on domandantesi if it to the low price were also worthy: 1. One of blots some that I am supporting has only USB 1,0 and less that you can connect with an orifice 2,0, it is really slow to transfer. It has taken all the day to the movement like 20 gigs of the photos. 2. Several times while it supported MP3s, to case hardly error on a lima, as an example was an error that transfers it. To times the lima it would be on the disc of reservoir after the error, to times not. This edition can be connected with # 1. 3. Here a system of lima entire already on the disc. I was previewing that an empty drive (at least from the appearance) like you had if you installed a drive Slavic. I must say to other members of the family to make attention extremely to approach only the subfolders ch' I have installed for they. 4. The key glowy of palpitation on the front part is extremely annoying, particularly in one dark room, but during luminous of the day stick one card of transactions it to even maintain it from the distracting.


Died after one week
It has possessed to mala pain without warning this drive for a week and in on and is died on me. I ignite the drive and my registry of doesnt of the calculating the drive will even be connected more and ago a buzz sound and stops of beep approximately every 5 second ones that this isnt of error has even listed on is some of the FAQ of maxtor/seagate' s, the technical support, ect. The drive moreover much evil is planned it not only ago the look of figure reasonably delayed but before that the drive died I have noticed that it has made to work extremely warm in one guard in poor plastic without the fan.


This drive is terrible. It crashed after using 2 months.
I have lost all my information, I am using them for the months of last 1 1/2. I have used the slid night, works then for while then behaving itself begun PC it handles and from said it of conservation for riformattare the drive. I would lively suggest to obtain via from this device.


Dog of a Drive
I have spold the days that block to the domestic films from one camera of DV via iMovie. When I have tried to approach films, the video contained in the greater part of the lime came from Elmo DVDs of my daughter, than more soon I had torn to the same drive. I have not never seen the video to satisfy before of exchange of the lime, but this has provoked one giant waste of my time. I can only suppose that the drive botched the tables that say to it where given of every lima are memorizza you.


A Failure
I picked this drive up at a retail store for $100 and was so amazed at the great price. 500 GB for this price was the best deal I'd seen. Could it be too good to be true?

Short answer: Yep.

Longer answer: On the box it states it works with Macs. The software is compatible supposedly, but on start-up my new MacBook Core Duo started acting strange. So after trying to delete the contents of the drive I realized I couldn't. Great.

No big deal, so I reformatted it as the software was less than useless to me. And the new drive popped right up. That wasn't so bad...

Until I tried to copy files to it. It would work for ten minutes, then quit eventually crashing my computer. Finally it stopped showing up all together.

I went to the forums (which are well hidden) on the official site to see if I'd done something wrong. There I saw page after page of the exact same issue, and many others far more severe if it would have worked. This drive is plagued alongside its counterparts as unreliable at best, and at worst, a great way to lose every digital file you love.

Stay far away and thank God for the internet! :D


bad bad bad
Ran like a champ for 2 weeks. Then came up unreadable. I googled the problem - remove drive, reboot, reconnect. It found it but wouldn't read. Reboot - chkdsk found all manner of errors. Lost 75% of data. I was smart enough not to put anything irreplaceable on it. Junk design.




Stay away from this "backup" device
This drive has a serious problem, but it seems maxtor/seagate do not care at all.
I have been using it for about 4 days, when it has suddenly lost its partition table, meaning all of my data was gone - ALL of it.
Searching through the tech support forum, i realized many others are experiencing the same behavior, and there are no replies by seagate.
I tried to contact tech support, and had the pleasure of talking to the rudest, most non caring customer support agent. He basically blamed me for the problem, and just told me "reformat your drive".
Stay away from this product.


BAD technical services
It has obtained the hard drive and it has not worked to mine mac. I have called immediately and they are said to me to that it was a problem of sofeware. The technician has promised to transmit a software to me with the email in some hours. I have not waited for a day and email. Still called the following day and they have been still promised that I will receive an email within within an hour. I have waited for an other day and nothing is happened one. I will still call them.


Fast and quiet
It has obtained this inside. HD during this time thanksgiving of shopping. Good affinchè me they store my DV and image arches to you. Fasts and are quieted down.


Problematic and prone to failure, buyer beware
I purchased one of these from a retailer a month or two ago. First, it started having connectivity problems, where Windows would either not recognize it upon startup or it would "disappear" from view after a certain period of time.

More recently, it stopped working completely. Maxtor's own software claims it has a capacity of ~52 GB and ~532 GB of free space, while Windows will not allow me to access the contents of the drive while asking me if I would like to format. I did a bit of research, and found that unplugging the drive would make it show up correctly (and it did), however it would not restore my data.

Be aware that this exact problem has been reported by more than a few people who own this particular drive, and it is NOT a reliable backup if you must store data of any importance.


Functional and inexpensive. Loud and bright
For: - factor of the shape de Nizza. More small of the greater part of 3.5"esterno the competent HDs. No demanded separate base for the vertical operation. - one characteristic has standby pleasant. It will feed outside the drive and the LED when you are not connects you to it, rendering a switch of useless feeding. - Against Economic: - it is enough strong while it is trying. Several times of other higher guide. - the LED is REALLY luminous. I have not used the included software, so as to I cannot judge it.



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--end of Seagate STM305004OTA3E1-RK Maxtor OneTouch 4 500 GB External Hard Drive