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Dan Albrich
Manager, Microcomputer Services
dalbrich@uoregon.edu
In the Winter 2004 Computing News, I discussed a number of backup solutions in the article “Hard Drives: Bigger, Faster, Cheaper…and Less Reliable” (http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/winter2004/hdrives.html). One of these was the Maxtor OneTouch backup solution, which I promised to test and review in a follow-up article.
To make good on that promise, Microcomputer Services acquired an external Maxtor OneTouch hard disk backup solution and we began our evaluation in February. A summary of our findings is presented below.
We paid $265 for the 200GB version of the drive through www.cdw.com. The 200GB and larger versions come with both USB and Firewire ports (important if you need both Windows and Mac compatibility). Lower capacity models with USB-only compatibility are less expensive, presuming you need it only for use with Windows.
Windows: The drive comes with software for Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, and XP.
Macintosh: On the Mac side, both OS 9.1 and higher and OS 10.1.2 and higher are supported.
The drive should work with almost any modern PC. We tested the unit on a Mac running OS 10.3 connected via Firewire, as well as a Windows XP system connected via USB 2.0, without encountering any problems.
While the drive will work with USB 1.0 ports, for performance reasons we strongly recommend you connect only via USB 2.0 or Firewire. Note that Desktop Windows PCs can typically add a USB 2.0 card to the system for less than $75 even when professionally installed. Most Macintosh models already have Firewire ports.
The product looks like a high quality external hard disk: it comes in a nice looking metal case and the backup button glows blue when the drive is powered on.
Unfortunately, our test drive failed in the first week and we had to return it for a replacement under warranty. The replacement drive seems to be working fine. Given our limited experience with these drives, it's entirely possible we just had some bad luck with the initial unit.
In its simplest form, the drive mounts normally and can be found as a drive letter in Windows, or on the desktop of the modern Mac. Once it's mounted, you can manually drag documents and folders to the disk for backup.
The software bundle works as advertised on both Mac and Windows. The first time you press the button, you're asked to enter some setup information. For example, you need to tell the software which volumes to back up.
After the initial run, subsequent presses on the backup button start the process automatically. By default, the software copies all of the files on your system to the external hard disk except system files or those that are currently in use.
Unfortunately, the backup software included with the OneTouch drive does not make the type of backup that would enable you to restore every-thing to a new disk transparently. In the event of total disk failure, you would need to manually reinstall system software and any applications you use. The backup disk would still allow you to restore almost any file that was lost in the process. As such, this system is much better than nothing, but it's not as complete as most folks would wish.
To get a “real” backup of the system that takes a true snapshot of your system and restores it exactly the way it was, you'll need disk imaging software—a tool that's not included in the OneTouch software bundle.
Note that while these tools do exist (e.g., Symantec Ghost), they may be difficult or impossible to activate with a specific USB or Firewire external disk due to driver incompatibility. In addition, if the computer's hard disk is formatted for Windows NTFS file format, the Ghost program may not be able to read the data. Most newer PCs use NTFS file systems, so the disk imaging solution isn't as easy to achieve as it may sound.
Hardware issues aside, users must initiate the backup and the computer cannot be used for other purposes while the imaging process completes. The entire process can take more than an hour. Unfortunately, not all users will be patient enough to suspend their activity for that long while the backup process completes—making it more likely that they won't do backups at all.
We advise purchasing an external hard disk as part of your backup strategy. This setup has the added advantage of giving you the flexibility to move large data files between home and work.
Whether or not you use the OneTouch system makes little difference. Some folks will prefer manually dragging important files to the external disk, while others will want to have the system do this for them. Either way, an external disk dramatically improves the convenience of backups—making it more likely that you'll actually do them!