Small Businesses Can Reap Benefits Of Maxtor OneTouch

In addition, many small and midsize businesses are faced with expanding storage needs and the challenge of simplifying access to shared hard drives. Storage supplier Maxtor addresses those issues with the new Maxtor OneTouch 250-Gbyte external hard drive.

The OneTouch is aimed squarely at the SMB environment. Currently, most companies in that arena are restricted to low-cost storage solutions because of the management and organizational challenges presented by growth; that often results in lost or out-of-date files.

The OneTouch is great for most SMBs to use in place of a traditional file server because it provides a reliable source of storage. Milpitas, Calif.-based Maxtor claims the device is expandable so administrators can connect up to 63 drives via FireWire or 127 USB 2.0 drives with USB 2.0 hubs. Such daisy-chaining of multiple OneTouch units could serve as a Band-Aid for many business problems, but because the Test Center had only one drive available for testing, engineers couldn't fairly evaluate the scalability of the product.

Installation of the OneTouch is plug-and-play. All users have to do is install the software, plug the unit into a USB or FireWire port and launch the configuration wizard found on the accompanying CD on an attached PC. The storage device is designed to work on a variety of platforms,Macintosh included.

For Macintosh OS 9 and OS X, users should reformat the drive with the Mac OS extended format for proper operation.

The external hard drive was factory-formatted with the Windows FAT32 file system. Because of that system's limitations, however, Test Center engineers recommend that users reformat the drive with the NTFS file system to fully reap all the benefits of Maxtor's OneTouch offering.

The Test Center especially liked the power-management feature that Maxtor bundled with the device. With it, users can set their drive to spin down automatically after a period of inactivity. which is set for one hour by default.

Integrators will find that the OneTouch's ease of use is unmatched: The drive can be set up in a matter of minutes, and management is easily mastered. Also, the concise documentation that accompanies the unit underscores its

consumer-product roots.

Engineers did, however, have one minor problem with the software setup. For some reason, the bundled backup software, Retrospect from Dantz Development, didn't install when "Complete Software Installation" was selected, so engineers had to install the software manually.

Once the software installation was completed, setting up the OneTouch feature to automatically start Retrospect was a cinch. Users open the OneTouch interface and point the Retrospect .exe file to the OneTouch button. The Dantz software offers a clean, easy-to-follow interface that both technical and nontechnical people can appreciate.

With Retrospect, users can offer a progressive backup of selected source volumes or duplicate contents from one volume to another. They can also prepare their computers for disaster recovery with a bootable CD. Retrospect is not licensed for Windows 2000 Server, according to Maxtor.

Engineers evaluated the external hard drive in two ways: They used it to back up a server for disaster recovery and to back up a notebook to test performance.

For the general disaster-recovery test, a live server with a total backup size of 48 Gbytes (from a single 73-Gbyte drive) was backed up to a Hewlett-Packard DLT tape drive.

The data was backed up, the disaster CD was burned and the drive was removed from the server. A new drive of the same size but from a different manufacturer was placed into the machine. The data was then restored to the new drive.

For the performance test, a notebook running the Retrospect client was backed up entirely to a server, reformatted and then restored. In all backup procedures, the device worked in harmony with the software.

The Maxtor OneTouch family of products is shipping now and available through Maxtor's network of global retailers. The suggested retail price for the 250-Gbyte, 7,200-rpm drive (USB 2.0/FireWire combo) is $349.95.

Solution providers will find that the OneTouch is a good fix for storage problems in the SMB space. The unit's feature set, field upgradability and simplicity make it a clean solution in environments where extended fault tolerance and high speeds are not critical.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>MAXTOR ONETOUCH 250-GBYTE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE
PRICE: $349.95
MARGIN: 12 to 15 percent
WARRANTY: 1 year
DISTRIBUTORS: Arrow, Bell Micro, D&H, Ingram Micro, SED, Tech Data
TECH RATING:

CHANNEL RATING:

CHANNEL OVERVIEW: Milpitas, Calif.-based Maxtor is increasing the amount of its business that flows through the channel and helps partners target specific vertical markets through sales and technical assistance, marketing funds and solutions design. Marketing materials, technical resources and sales tools are available at the vendor's solution provider Web site.

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.