Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 External 320GB Hard Drive

USB 2.0, 7,200 RPM, 16MB - MPN: U01H320

Description: Ideal for the home and office, the 320GB Basics Personal Storage 3200 USB 2.0 Hard Drive is simple to install. Just plug in the USB cable and your Personal Storage solution automatically appears as another drive on your computer. Perfect for the Home PC or laptop user who ne... read more

Ideal for the home and office, the 320GB Basics Personal Storage 3200 USB 2.0 Hard Drive is simple to install. Just plug in the USB cable and your Personal Storage solution automatically appears as another drive on your computer. Perfect for the Home PC or laptop user who needs extra storage in a hurry, you can use the extra capacity to free up the space on your PC or to add more of your favorite files. It can hold up to 375,000 digital photos (JPEG-normal), or 8,250 hours of digital music (MP3), or 35 hours of DV video. minimize

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jonlouisvill... from KY

Member Since
Jan 2005

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User has 2 Days of experience with this product

Barebones file storage - could be better

Strengths:

Good capacity for a typical computer user. Easy installation.

Weaknesses:

No power switch means it runs all the time. Short warranty. No Firewire or Sata capability.

Posted Feb 21, 2008 - Only a 1 year warranty on a drive that probably will contain either a backup of your computer is disquieting, when one can buy a retail-packaged hard drive with a 5 year warranty and slide it into an external case. There's no power switch, so it burns up electricity even when not being used. USB 2 is slow, much slower than Firewire and a turtle compared to external SATA drives. It's not truly portable, either; big and clunky with a huge power brick.

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robsf23 from CA

Member Since
Oct 2004

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User has 4 Months of experience with this product

Fast & quiet HD at great price

Strengths:

Clean, simple design, quiet

Weaknesses:

no physical on/off switch, plastic case, 1 year warranty

Posted Dec 10, 2007 - Got this for only $79 at officedepot. I use it as a backup drive for my windows XP machine. The drive has a simple and clean look. The body of enclosure is plastic but looks sturdy. There is a green light in front that indicates it's on and blinks when drive is being accessed. The drive is relatively quiet and does not feel hot even when on for a few hours. There is no on/off switch. I have 2 other external drives WITH on/off switches, which is nice to have when you want to just turn it off (just make sure they are not being accessed first). For WinXP, you can turn off by disconnecting it first from your quick launch task bar (Device Manager). Sometimes this doesn't work properly on my pc. Sometimes it will turn it off and sometimes it doesn't. So the on/off switch would be nice for those times. I like this "boxy" design vs the Seagate's tall (and beveled) Free Agent drive design. I've been using it regularly for weekly backups for 4 months now.

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bozo007 from GA

Member Since
May 2005

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User has 1 Day of experience with this product

Great for backups and extra storage

Strengths:

Plenty of space

Weaknesses:

None

Posted Jun 17, 2007 - This drive is perfect for backups or storing things that you do not use every day. Right now, I am using it to store photos, videos, backup documents, etc. - stuff that I need but not on a daily basis which means it need not occupy space on my laptop.

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bfar0173 from TX

Member Since
Jan 2008

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Great Buy!!

Strengths:

Design, Size, Look

Weaknesses:

None.

Posted Mar 21, 2008 - I bought this to save movies and such. It works great! I love the portability and the size. Doesn't look bad either. I have put on approximately 40 movies and it runs great!

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acutinho

Member Since
Dec 2003

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User has 2 Months of experience with this product

Value for Money

Strengths:

Good product. Good access speed. Reliable and zero setup time. Just hook the device to your laptop / PC and you are good to go.

Weaknesses:

Not as light as you would expect it to be. Clumsy looks. The effective capacity is only 300GB and not 320GB, this is because of the decimal and binary differene in what is 1K? Needs external power.

Posted Jan 13, 2008 - Good product with very minimal setup effort. Just hook the device to your laptop / PC and turn it on and it is ready to use. The write and read speeds from the device were impressive. The effective size of the harddisk is only 300GB and not 320GB due to the discrepancy in the determining the value of 1K in decimal and binray.

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maweisberg from FL

Member Since
Jan 2004

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User has 1 Month of experience with this product

Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 External 320GB Hard Drive

Strengths:

Large storage for a great price

Weaknesses:

no longer supported by maxtor

Posted Dec 17, 2007 - I like the unit and although most complaints are about the lack of an on/off switch you can use the software from seagate to turn te unit off/on and schedule back up intervals

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agyee818

Member Since
Sep 2006

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User has 7 Days of experience with this product

Good External Hard Drive

Strengths:

Price, 320GB, 16MB buffer

Weaknesses:

No on/off button, gets pretty warm when transferring files

Posted Sep 23, 2007 - This maxtor external hard drive is similar to most of the other externals that I have. Like most hard drives, this one does get pretty warm when transferring lots of files. It's great that this drive has a 16mb buffer. The only major downside to this drive is that it doesn't have an on/off button so that the drive can be turned off when not in use. Besides the missing button, it is comparable with many external hard drives on the market. I haven't had any problems with it so far.

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bunty7 from CA

Member Since
Sep 2005

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Looking for space?

Strengths:

Huge capacity & pretty fast drive

Weaknesses:

No power switch!!

Posted Aug 30, 2007 - I have been using this drive for quite a few months now & am pretty satisfied. I was surprised that I was able to use software that usually do not support usb drives for moving digital recording from camcorder It works faster than my previous firewire drive & works pretty silently. No humming or noise. The front LED is bright enough to know when its on. Speaking of which - whose idea was it to not have a power switch here?? I have to literally pull the wire to power it off which feels ugly at times. Still its a nice drive overall

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florabing8

Member Since
May 2006

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User has 50 Days of experience with this product

useful external drive

Strengths:

Low price, good perfomance.

Weaknesses:

where is on/off switch

Posted Aug 9, 2007 - It is really a powerful external drive to store whatever you want to store. Installation is very simple without technology tricks! The design save a lot of room in my unorganized desk. Performance is excellent without high heat and anoying noise. The only problem is that where is the on/off switch?

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shelbyvarhol...

Member Since
Feb 2007

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User has 1 Day of experience with this product

Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 External 320GB Hard Drive

Strengths:

Has a lot of storage space.

Weaknesses:

No on/off switch

Posted Jul 26, 2007 - Great buy for the money. Being a novice at all things related to a computer, this was even easy for me to use. I highly recommend this hard drive for anyone needing larger amounts of storage space.

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drmek from AL

Member Since
Mar 2001

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User has 2 Days of experience with this product

Maxtor Basics 320 GB External Hard Drive

Strengths:

Plenty of storage space for the buck, plug and play

Weaknesses:

No on/off switch, heavier and bulkier then comparable external hard drives

Posted Jul 2, 2007 - This hard drive gives you plently of space for the buck. At 320 GB it will cost me about 2 cents per gigabyte. The only complaint I have is that it does not have an on/off switch. It is also quite heavy and bulky but for long term storage it is great and it has a quick 7200rpm drive. Overall this Maxtor Hard Drive is a good value.

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Hendoshmoke

Member Since
Apr 2006

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User has 21 Days of experience with this product

Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 External 320GB Hard Drive

Strengths:

Easy to operate, affordable, works good.

Weaknesses:

A bit on the large side, why is there not an on/off switch?!

Posted Jul 1, 2007 - Quite a useful external drive to store backup data for a laptop or whenever the need for extra storage is needed. Hooks up via USB cable, plug in the power and that's about it. Even novice users shouldn't have any problems utilizing the extra hard drive space you'll have with this unit. Still baffled as to why an on/off switch wasn't built into this unit. The other complaint would be the fact it is quite a large unit and quite heavy compared to comparable drives on the market.

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fredhsu from OH

Member Since
Jan 2005

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User has 1 Day of experience with this product

Jsut need a External hard driver

Strengths:

Huge space to store

Weaknesses:

No power switch

Posted Jun 29, 2007 - I have a lot of data to store and this 320gb external hard drive is a perfect one to me. It works excellent on my computer. It really helps. The only concern is no power switch to me. Recommand!!

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guiyunzi

Member Since
Jun 2007

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User has 2 Days of experience with this product

Good spec for this price.

Strengths:

i got it from frys.com. it costs 80 bucks plus tax. 80/300=0.26 per GB. this is worth than those 500GB deals.

Weaknesses:

i did not find the switch on this hard drive and later i figured out there is no switch... well, it is not a big deal, but a switch could prevent some mistakes. enclosure was made by plastics.

Posted Jun 23, 2007 - i am a computer technician, i usually take my flash drive to the customer's home, but now i got this drive. it is much easier and a lot faster than my old flash drive. i use it boot up the computer and then start fixing the problem they got. with 300GB (it labled 320GB, but actually it is 300GB after formatted), i stored a lot of applications. it really helps! i use it all the time. the only thing is that i hope Maxtor could provide 3 year warranty, but only 1 year.

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