With the increasing popularity of the IEEE 1394 interface, also known as FireWire, many people are predicting the demise of SCSI external hard disks. Although it is doubtful if SCSI would really disappear, the Maxtor Personal Storage 3000DV shows that external IDE hard drives are finally ready to mount a serious challenge together with FireWire.
FireWire has maximum transfer rates of up to 30 times faster than USB 1.1. The 3000DV requires an available FireWire port on your system. Installation was simple, as no drivers or reboots were necessary after connecting up the cables. The 3000DV itself contains two FireWire ports, allowing the user to daisy-chain up to 62 other devices.
It appears to be a normal IDE hard disk - a 60GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus - housed inside a hard plastic case with reinforced corners. It looks robust enough to protect against the occasional bump, but we do not recommend dropping it.
With dimensions of 41 x 152 x 219mm and a weight of 12kg, it's not the most portable device ever invented, but should fit nicely into a bag.
The performance of the 3000DV is significantly better than storage devices such as tape and Zip drives. It also outpaces the FireWire Iomega peerless, which has a specified transfer speed of up to 15MB/s. The performance of the Maxtor Personal Storage is also impressive. On the ZD WinBench 99 version 1.2, it recorded starting and ending disk transfer speeds of 33Mb/s and 23Mb/s, comparable with internal IDE 7,200 RPM hard disks. Its benchmarked disk access time was 18ms, longer than the typical 12ms for internal hard disks, but still shorter than many other external devices.
If we were allowed to nitpick a bit, the 3000DV is imperfect in two ways. Neither compromise on its performance as an external hard disk but, if addressed, would have helped to give it an added dimension of versatility.
For one, it requires power from a wall socket, which compromises the portability of the device. Using FireWire as a power source or diverting power from other peripherals would have been much more practical.
It would also have been useful if the Maxtor hard disk inside the 3000DV was replaceable. Unlimited expansionability would make it an even stronger rival to tape and zip backup devices.
There are 5,400 rpm versions of the 3000DV available in 40G and 80G capacities. Their performance characteristics should differ significantly from 60G 7,200 rpm evaluation unit we received; our benchmark results shouldn't be considered an indication of their abilities.
Alternatives to the 3000DV are the third-party FireWire cases that can hold normal hard disks as external storage devices. For these devices, the hard disks can be easily removed and replaced when necessary.
On the whole though, the Maxtor Personal Storage 3000DV is a product that does its job wonderfully, and then some. You can't ask for much more than that.
Maxtor Personal Storage 3000DV
Company: Maxtor
| Price: |
• 60G 7200 rpm AU$999.95 • 80G 5400 rpm AU$999.95 • 40G 5400 rpm AU$649.95 |
Warranty: 1 year
Distributor: Maxtor Disc Drives
Phone: (02) 9369 3662
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