Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini

I take a lot of photos and I always had the bad habit of loading them n my laptop and not backing them. My laptop is starting to get old and has minor problems sometimes. I have always been worried that someday it will just not start and I will lose everything not backed. My husband bought me this small external hard drive because he knew I would be heartbroken if that ever happened.

This last Christmas he bought me this small external hard drive and I love it! I used to back all my photos on CDs, but my CD burner is not working right anymore. I never thought about getting an external hard drive instead because I thought they were big and bulky, mainly for desktops. This One Touch 4 Mini is perfect for my laptop.

I have the 250GB USB 2.0 version, but there are other sizes you can buy. Even with all the photos and other files I have saved to it so far (and there's thousands), I have only used about of the total memory! For most typical household needs, this size is perfect.

The hard drive is very easy to use. All you do is plug in the 2 USB cords and go. There is a program that comes with the unit to make it easy to transfer files. I loaded the software and looked at it, but I found that if you manually open the unit from My Computer all you have to do is drag and drop the files you want to transfer. This suits me just fine, so I never use the program it came with.

The first time I transferred files, I must have transferred around 3 thousand files. I let it go overnight and it took about 6 hours to transfer them all over. I did not use a firewire, but it says the unit would work faster if you did. On average, I'll transfer a few hundred over at a time and it takes about 30 minutes.

This hard drive is small enough that I can take it anywhere! I can put it right next to my laptop in the laptop case, or even in a small purse. It's great for transferring files from one computer to another when you don't want to lug your computer around or don't have a network set up between computers. It is just about as big as my hand and is only about 1" thick.

I would suggest this external hard drive for anyone and everyone. From computer savvy people to those who only know how to click and go, this unit is very easy for everyone to use.