Maxtor 320Gb External Hard Drive €99.99 at Dixons.

Oracle

I've been waiting for this to come up again, and it has. The Maxtor 320Gb External Hard Drive is on offer now at Dixons for €99.99 This drive was on offer at this price in December in PCWorld. I know there are slicker and higher capacity drives available for just a little more, but this unit is excellent value when all you want to spend is €100 or less.

It's basic, no software is included but it does the job and comes preformatted as NTFS. Also works under Linux (with the new Linux NTFS-3g driver) so sharing data between systems is easy.

* Great price point- under €100
* 7,200 RPM Speed
* 16 Mb Cache
* Plug and Play installation
* No Delivery Charge.

pauly3

La Cie 500GB external hard drive at dabs.ie for 103.49 in 5-7days.

Link: http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=44LG&CategorySelectedId=11157&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11157,47610000

Oracle

Great find although it's €116.99 including delivery. In the description the line "Due in 5-7 days" is followed by "A further £10 saving for one week only !!!" Looks like you won't be getting that €10 off then???

Just kidding I think you can order at this price now, and they send it to you when it comes into stock.

Beelzebub

But delivery is €13.90 I think.

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/550960/art/western-digital/elements-by-wd-external-h.html

Oracle

Order the LaCie drive from Dabs through Pigsback.ie and get 200 PiggyPoints per order. (You can get a further discount on the Dabs.ie web site if you're a Employee, Pensioner or Shareholder of BT.)

here.from.day.1

Oracle wrote:

Order the LaCie drive from Dabs through Pigsback.ie and get 200 PiggyPoints per order. (You can get a further discount on the Dabs.ie web site if you're a Employee, Pensioner or Shareholder of BT.)

Whats the pensioner discount? How do you get it?

Was looking at this one on frys.com: Acomdata 750GB for €130 but would there be issues with using it here (220v 50hz) if it came with an American AC adaptor? (110v 60Hz) or would a simple plug converter work.

Oracle

You've got to be someone on the BT pension scheme (i.e. a former employee), to get the discount.

here.from.day.1 be careful buying from the US, even if they accept your order you may be caught for customs import duty, which can be substantial. (I speak from experience )

here.from.day.1

Oracle wrote:

You've got to be someone on the BT pension scheme (i.e. a former employee), to get the discount.

here.from.day.1 be careful buying from the US, even if they accept your order you may be caught for customs import duty, which can be substantial. (I speak from experience )

Hmm thats quite a good point, apparently the manufacturer may not honour the warranty either. Might just go with the 500GB on dabs. Are dabs decent for shipping, warranties etc.?

workaccount

Oracle wrote:

I've been waiting for this to come up again, and it has. The Maxtor 320Gb External Hard Drive is on offer now at Dixons for €99.99 This drive was on offer at this price in December in PCWorld. I know there are slicker and higher capacity drives available for just a little more, but this unit is excellent value when all you want to spend is €100 or less.

It's basic, no software is included but it does the job and comes preformatted as NTFS. Also works under Linux (with the new Linux NTFS-3g driver) so sharing data between systems is easy.

* Great price point- under €100
* 7,200 RPM Speed
* 16 Mb Cache
* Plug and Play installation
* No Delivery Charge.

Yeah but it's a Maxtor.

johnplayerblue

Maxtor. You said Maxtor. If you ever need a fire so as to claim on the insurance make sure and use a maxtor hdd. ****ing rubbish. When a thing is cheap theres usually a good reason as to why.

Doodlebug

johnplayerblue wrote:

Maxtor. You said Maxtor. If you ever need a fire so as to claim on the insurance make sure and use a maxtor hdd. ****ing rubbish. When a thing is cheap theres usually a good reason as to why.

Sounds like you had a few difficulties with your own Maxtor, johnplayerblue?

I have a Maxtor 250GB HDD for the last 8 or 9 months and never had any problems with it.

Have you some negative experience you could share with us?

Sir Oxman

I've had awful experiences with Maxtors unfortunately - four internal drive failures through overheating and no, the case(s) were well ventilated etc.

Also, my first external HD was a LaCie with a Maxtor and guess what - toast within the year due to overheating.

Don't like them at all - Samsung for the win!

Oracle

I know some people seem to get a bad run with Maxtor drives, but even then the 2-year warranty with Irish support and replacement is decent.

Doodlebug

Jeez, I hadn't heard that before - good to know! I'd be inclined to get a samsung or similar next time so if the price is right!

Oracle

Doodlebug, it's your decision, and I don't for a minute doubt what the posters above are saying about their experience with Maxtor drives, but Maxtor are one of the leading hard drive manufacturers. Millions of people have great experiences with Maxtor, and many swear by their drives (while an unlucky few swear at them, it's true.) I've a Maxtor drive in a Dell PC since 2002, it's never had a problem, been formatted lots of times, and always performs well.

You've got to consider the millions of hard drives supplied by Maxtor, through retail, PC component sellers and installed in PC's (for example Dell.) If 1% or less develop a fault thats a lot of drives and a lot of people affected, but in perspective it's a tiny amount.

pauly3

The Dabs 500GB external hard drive is a Hitachi HDS725050KLAT80 according to one reviewer. There is a good comparative review here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/print/seagate-barra-720010.html

Seems to be a PATA drive with an 8 MB cache, but that could be a plus if you plan on using it with an older machine at some point in the future.

Delivery is 3-4 days now

Oracle

I hope you've ordered it Pauly it's only reduced for 1 week!

There's some hot products on dabs just now, this little baby would be an ideal companion: http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=3DYF&CategorySelectedId=11161&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11161&InMerch=1

What about one of these to use up all those old IDE hard drives lying around: http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3V6Q&CategorySelectedId=11157&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11157 Looks like a toaster but does a whole lot more!

steve 0

pauly3 wrote:

The Dabs 500GB external hard drive is a Hitachi HDS725050KLAT80.....
Delivery is 3-4 days now

Had decided to go for this but its not available for 3-4 weeks now! :eek:
Has everyone been ordering it?

here.from.day.1

Was going to order the Lacie Porsche Design 500GB from Dabs but due to the 3-4 weeks waiting they had I had a look in town and managed to find the same one for €130 (Only around €10 more than Dabs Inc. Del.) in Max Burns on the Quays.

Fnz

For those concerned about Maxtor hard drives:

Maxtor Corporation was acquired by Seagate in 2006. As of December 2005, just prior to the acquisition, Maxtor was the world's third-largest manufacturer of hard disks. It now operates as a subsidiary of Seagate.

I don't know if this will make a blind bit of difference to their (suggested) reliability issues.

When I was looking for a new hard drive a couple of months ago, I found that the brand that got slated most varied widely from website to website. You could come away thinking any one brand is terrible. My 'research' left me with the impression that 'Western Digital' hard drives were the least reliable.

monkeyfudge

For what it's worth I have bought about 15 or so external hard drives in work over the past few years... the only two Maxtor drives I had have failed completely.... So I'd certainly have trust issues with them anyway.

the_syco

Fnz wrote:

When I was looking for a new hard drive a couple of months ago, I found that the brand that got slated most varied widely from website to website. You could come away thinking any one brand is terrible. My 'research' left me with the impression that 'Western Digital' hard drives were the least reliable.

3 maxtor HDD's went, one after the other...

I currently use 2 Western Digitial drives, and I have a 500MB (the "M" is NOT a type-o) which still worked when I plugged it in years ago. After being in the shed for 5 or 7 years...:cool:

My point: you'll hear horror stories from different folk. Pick and choose wisely, though.