Maxtor's latest hard drive isn't just frighteningly large; it's also spookily portable. Firewire drives are nothing new, but the Personal Storage 3000XT takes matters to a new level.
When Maxtor released their enormous 160 GB DiamondMax D540X internal drive, it was only a matter of time before it came up with an external version. And here it is, possibly the portable device with highest capacity-to-physical size ratio out there. You won't get more storage at this size unless you fill a shoebox with Toshiba 2GB PC Card drives.
Sure, it's big, but can it go?
The Personal Storage 3000XT has the same translucent white-with-blue-trim housing as its smaller cousin, the Maxtor 3000DV. It also comes with the same high-quality IEEE 1394 (FireWire) cable and lightweight external power supply. Also kept are the two FireWire ports, so that users can daisy-chain other FireWire devices.
One hundred and sixty gigabytes of space may seem like a lot of room, but anyone who's dabbled in video editing will say there's no such thing. An internal EIDE chain can become full much too quickly; in such cases, there is little choice but to resort to external storage with devices such as the 3000XT. One point to note, however: After the drive was formatted in Windows XP's native NTFS, only 154 GB was available. The same was observed on a system running Mac OS 9.
The DiamondMax D540X hard drive that sits inside the 3000XT spins at only 5,400 rpm. This will have an impact on system performance, as most competing external drives opt for 7,200 rpm drives. Even Maxtor's own 3000DV has one. The 5,400rpm option may keep the price of the device at a somewhat lower level, but video editors may prefer speed over sheer size and may opt for a chain of 3000DVs instead. The D540DX drive, however, comes with a generous 2 MB cache and a fast UltraATA 133 interface.
Installation grief
Our testbed Windows XP PC has a SoundBlaster Audigy sound card , which has a built-in IEEE 1394-compatible port. We faced problems making the drive letter appear, but with Maxtor's tech support this was sorted out. The included setup poster, while clear and simple to understand, was on the shallow side and didn't include trouble-shooting during unexpected situations. Maxtor's web site, too, lacks in-depth user support.
Also, while initialization and formatting tools for Mac OS were included in the software CD, nothing is provided for Windows users to assign drive letters, fdisk, partition or format the drive. If problems occur, you'll have to use admin tools included with your OS.
Unexpectedly nippy
The drive is factory-formatted with the Windows-compatible FAT32 file system. This we replaced with Windows XP-native NTFS in a single 154 GB partition.
Our performance test with a 500 MB directory copy showed a transfer speed of 10 MB per second, a surprisingly good figure that beat the supposedly faster 3000DV, which has a 7,200 rpm drive. However, the score of 11 MB/second with the 383 MB compressed file transfer is marginally lower than the 3000DV's score of 12.61 MB/second.
At AU$999, the 3000XT is hardly in the chump change category, but still represents good value for a drive in its class. If you were feeling handy -- and weren't fussed by the potential warranty hassles -- you could always buy a DiamondMax D540X internal drive and house it in a firewire enclosure. A firewire hard disk enclosure would set you back between AU$250-$300. Given that the price difference between the D540X (AU$795) and the 3000XT is only AU$200, that'd only be an option for someone who suspected they were very likely to kill the drive in a non-warranty way.
If you need an external hard disk, the 3000XT presents very good value. It is more expensive than similar 60-80Gb Firewire devices, but on a pure per-Mb basis it's cheaper than any two similar 80Gb devices. For video editing houses, graphics firms or families with loads of holiday videos to work on, the Maxtor 3000XT presents an awesome amount of storage in a solid, take-anywhere package.
Maxtor Personal Storage 3000XT
Company: Maxtor
Price: AU$999
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: (02) 9369 3662
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