Small in size, big on storage

Damian Koh | Apr 20, 2006

We’re not sure about you people, but this writer here has a bottomless pit with regard to portable storage devices. Good thing Maxtor has unveiled its first small offering in the OneTouch product family: The OneTouch III Mini Edition. No, it’s not the Mac Mini, nor is it the iPod mini. We’re referring instead to a storage device designed for mobile professionals.

As the latest member to the company’s OneTouch III family of hard drives, this pocket drive (honestly, it fits better in a bag or briefcase than a pocket) measures 133 x 90 x 20mm--which is about the size of an adult’s palm--weighs 205g and is available in two capacities: 60GB and 100GB. We won’t go into the math here, but you can store quite a fair bit of data, music, video and photos in this 2.5-inch drive.

The OneTouch III Mini Edition also comes with a bag full of features including a OneTouch button that makes backup copies of your files, two levels of security (Maxtor DriveLock and Encryption) to prevent unauthorized access, automatic synchronization of data between two or more computers, and a system rollback setting to restore your computer to a more stable and rosy past while keeping data current. We’re just wondering if the next edition will up the stakes with biometric scanning.

That said, this external drive requires only a single USB port to run (no FireWire capabilities, though). But according to Maxtor, the software is compatible only with PCs for now, with support for Macintosh platforms expected in the third quarter of this year.

The Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Edition is currently available in stores. The 60GB drive will cost S$219 (US$144.08), while the larger 100GB drive will set you back by another S$80 (US$52.63).

More product specifications