Transportable disk drives Maxtor

Evgenie Rudometov

Rudometov@rudometov.com

For the purpose of the extension of the presence in the market of external disk drives company Seagate releases models under two brands. The products oriented to the corporate market, save a brand of the recent competitor — «Maxtor»

Development of a modern civilisation is accompanied by fast growth of the stored information. In 2006 the size of the digital information created, received or played back, has made 161 exabytes (or 161 billion gigabytes). And rate of accumulation of the information is not gathered to decrease. The size of annually stored information is expected, that till 2010, will increase more than six times: from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes. Responding to requirements of the market, manufacturers HDD in hard competitive struggle fast increase release of the products providing a reliable information storage.

But it is not enough to develop and release the next product, it is necessary to present and sell it favourably still. For reaching of these purposes there are different variants of implementation. One of perspective paths are development of successful names and creation of the appropriate brands leaning against positive image of legal owners. Solving this task, many companies quite often gain contestant firms together with their developments, including known brands. As an example it is possible to result rather recent sorbtion of Maxtor corporation by company Seagate which is the leader in the field of development of hard disks.

However, having neutralised the competitor, the winner did not begin to delete its best reachings, and has decided to use them on advantage of business. Moreover, he even has decided to leave a brand of the competitor, labelling it a part of the products presented by several bars of external disk drives, created on the basis of hard magnetic disks. The requirement for these arrangements is very high, and is estimated already more than 30 million products that makes approximately 10 % from all market of hard disks.

Two brands of one company

For the extension of the presence in the market of the disk drives created on the basis of hard magnetic disks, company Seagate has declared in 2007 the beginning of campaign for simultaneous support of two brands.

The first of them — Seagate. This brand on a plan of the appropriate divisions which are responsible for marketing and a public relations, will mean freedom of access and operation with data (Convenience and Access).

The second brand — Maxtor, extended in corporate sector thanks to a number of successful developments of the company with the same name in the field of a network information storage, will mean safety of the digital information (Protection and Storage).

Fig. 1. Models of disk drives Seagate with brand Maxtor

At the moment of the initiative declaration following disk drives with brand Maxtor (a Fig. 1) were accessible: Maxtor ONETOUCH III (USB and USB/FireWire), Maxtor ONETOUCH III TURBO (Dual Drive), Maxtor SHARED STORAGE II (Network Storage), Maxtor ONETOUCH III MINI (Portable Lifesaver), Maxtor FUSION (Personal Web Server).

Fixing the success, in the end of 2007 company Seagate announced some new arrangements of Maxtor OneTouch set: Maxtor OneTouch 4, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini. First two, are created on the basis of 3,5-inch HDD, the last product from the given list contains 2,5 ”HDD. Appearance of the given arrangements is presented in a Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. New arrangements of MaxtorOneTouch set

Assignment of arrangements of the set of bar Maxtor OneTouch is described by the formula: Backup – Synchronization – Enciphering. Information backup is carried out by means of function Maxtor Backup realised in all products Maxtor OneTouch. The installed software supports synchronisation of files in two or more systems on one operational platform. Automatic synchronisation of folders is possible at hooking up and disconnecting, and also continuous synchronisation of folders or synchronisation manually. For synchronisation performance patterns with usage of key Maxtor OneTouch are possible.

Data encoding is made by means of moving of files to folder Maxtor Encryption. 256-bit program enciphering AES is provided. Protection of the maintenance by the password on a case uteri or plunders is provided. The built in hardware-software support limits data access even at dredging of a hard disk from tank and its hooking up to other computer. For all models the guarantee of 5 years is provided.

All resulted arrangements are completed by hard disks Seagate. Thus in bars both the previous models, and the newest developments which have replaced them it is quite often possible to detect the same hard disks. However would be an error to consider, that all was reduced to design changeover. It is possible to be convinced of it on an example of transportable disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini, created on the basis of 2,5-inch HDD.

Transportable models Maxtor

The high representative of bar Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition now is the model which information capacity makes 160 Gbytes. This package consists of following components: a packing box with the nested shock-proof container, the transportable USB-disk drive of 160 Gbytes with preinstalled ON, a cable of hooking up of the disk drive to computer USB-ports, a manual on fast installation.

Short parametres of high model Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition are resulted in Table 1.

Table 1. Short parametres of high model Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition

Model	R14E160
Size, a Gbyte	160
The sizes, mm	133 h 90 h 20
Weight, g	205
The interface	USB 2.0, compatibility USB 1.1
Power supplies	Through USB
Band of an operating temperature, With	5-35
Operating systems	Windows 2000 Professional, XP Professional or XP Home Edition; Mac OS

The disk drive is hooked up to the computer by means of an USB-cable. This cable from one end has USB miniplug plug, another — is ended by two standard plugs USB. Thus one of them is for an information transfer with simultaneous realisation through it of power supplies of the controller and HDD the arrangements, the second — for feed of the additional energy necessary in case of insufficient power supply through the main plug. Presence of second plug USB on a cable guarantees necessary power supplies even at nonconventional ports USB of the computer that happens in case of usage of some models of the notebooks which are not supporting to the full specifications USB 2.0. Nevertheless, possibly, possibility and external energopitanija the disk drive from the special adapter gained separately is just in case provided.

All accessories of the transportable disk drive are placed in metalloplastikovyj tank.

The disk drive is delivered with the preinstalled firm software. It provides possibility of fast saving of data (backup), and also supports enciphering of contents HDD.

Realised in Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition hardware-software resources of the interface are compatible to all widespread operating systems. These resources do not demand additional drivers and provide a data transfer high speed: as is known, speed limit of interface USB  2.0 — to 60 Mb per second.

On change Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition the company has developed and has released disk drive Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini.

The structure of package Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini includes plastic packing, the transportable USB-disk drive of 160 Gbytes with preinstalled ON, a cable of hooking up of the disk drive to computer USB-ports, a manual.

Now at the bar of transportable disk drives Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini there are three models possessing in size 80, 120, 160 Gbytes.

As well as models Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition, arrangements Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini are oriented to the computer market of corporate compact transportable disk drives. They can be used both with servers and workstations, and with notebooks and desktop computers.

All accessories of transportable disk drive Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini are placed in metalloplastikovyj tank.

Short parametres of high model Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini are resulted in Table 2.

Table 2. Short parametres of high model Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

Model	R14E160
Size, a Gbyte	160
The hooking up interface	USB
The sizes, mm	125 x 82 x 15
Weight, g	167

In a package design USB miniplug and the plug of external power supply, and and also the plastic button highlighted by a light-emitting diode are provided. This button provides activation of process of saving of the information (backup).

The disk drive is equipped 2,5 ”HDD with a perpendicular magnetic recording. Informational size HDD — 160 Gbytes, speed of rotation of slices — 5400 ob./mines, a cache memory — 8 Mb.

The disk drive is delivered with the preinstalled firm software. It provides synchronisation of files in two or more systems on one operational platform. According to the description automatic synchronisation of folders is possible at hooking up and disconnecting. To a clod of that, continuous synchronisation of folders, and also synchronisation manually is provided. For synchronisation performance patterns with usage of key Maxtor OneTouch are provided, that essentially raises convenience of usage of the disk drive.

In addition to the marked functionality data encoding which is made by means of 256-bit program enciphering AES is provided. Protection of programs and given by the password is provided also. This possibility can be essential to private and corporate users on a case uteri or plunders of the disk drive containing the confidential information.

Appearance of disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini is resulted in a Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Appearance of disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

As to high-speed metrics of disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini they have been defined in the course of the testing which results are resulted more low.

Testing

Considering transportable orientation of the specified arrangements, as a computer platform for testing of transportable disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini with informational sizes of 60 Gbytes compact notebook Fujitsu Siemens LIFEBOOK P7010 used.

Into notebook structure enter:

·         Motherboard FUJITSU FJNB189 (the processor bus of 400 MHz, Intel chip set 855GME with the built in graphics subsystem and ICH4-M),

·         Intel of Pentium M ULV 733 (1.10 GHz, 2048 Kbytes of cache memory L2, clock rate of the processor bus of 100 MHz that provides data transfer with frequency of 400 MHz),

·         the Disk drive on hard 2,5-inch magnetic disks HDD FUJITSU MHT2060AT in size of 60 Gbytes,

·         Units of dynamic storage DDR333 SDRAM of 512 Mb,

·         the Videoadapter presented by resources of the built in drawing of a chip set of Intel 855GME,

·         Optical drive MATSHITA UJDA755 DVD/CDRW,

·         the Operating system of Microsoft Windows XP HomeEdition.

After consecutive hooking up to the transportable computer each of disk drives was identified at once by WindowsXP operating system. As a result of hooking up in a window «My computer» appeared a new logical disk.

By means of a choice of appropriate options on the display screen values of information capacity have been output.

In a Fig. 4 menu fragments «My computer» / "Properties" for disk drive Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini are presented

Fig. 4. A menu fragment «My computer» / "Properties" for disk drive Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

As software of an estimation of high-speed parametres of transportable disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition (Maxtor III) and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini (Maxtor 4) specialised tests of popular package Winbench  99 have been used . The received results are presented in Table 3, Table 4 and in a Fig. 5.

Table 3. The Transfer rate

Arrangements	Tests
	Disk Transfer Rate: Beginning (1000 bytes per second)	Disk Transfer Rate: End (1000 bytes per second)
Maxtor III	30800	25200
Maxtor 4	32800	24500

Rice.5. High-speed parametres of transportable 160 Gbytes of disk drives Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

In Table 3 access time estimations (less – better) are resulted.

Table 3. Access time

Arrangements	Results of testing
Maxtor III	16,8 msec
Maxtor 4	16,4 msec

As follows from the results received in the course of testing, high representatives of transportable disk drives of bars Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini possess not only high size — 160 Gbytes, but also very good speed regulation characteristics. Thus received estimations of a transfer rate are very close to the declared value making according to specifications of 33 Mb per second (here it is necessary to consider, that results of testing somewhat depend on used tests and hardware-software resources of the computer).

Comparing results of testing Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini with metrics of its predecessor, it is necessary to mark, that changes have concerned not only design, but also the controller. And if the first have allowed to reduce the sizes and arrangement weight modification of internal interface chains have provided higher speed regulation characteristics. Nevertheless, despite advantages Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini, high parametres of the tested disk drives allow to recommend both arrangements as effective remedies of carrying over and an information storage for users of computers of different sectors of the market: from compact notebooks to servers.

The transportable disk drive of bar Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition has been given by company EAST SIDE Consulting, notebook Fujitsu Siemens LIFEBOOKP7010 — the Moscow representation of company Fujitsu Siemens Computers