If you are dealing with digital animation or video, the need for more storage space is never-ending. Fortunately, the number of available Firewire and USB 2 drives is increasing while prices are constantly decreasing. Recently I tried a Maxtor 5000DV, a 200GB external hard drive (other options are 120 or 160 GB) for storing my 3ds max-rendered frames and my Avid Xpress Pro video clips.
I added the Maxtor 5000DV to an HP workstation running Windows XP. XP immediately recognized and installed the drive. The 20MB-per-second transfer rate of the drive was interpreted into a smooth playback of my animation and it gave me a chance to edit a lengthy piece of video.
Maxtor 500 DV weighs just under three pounds’It’s slightly larger than a DVD box and approximately three times thicker. (It has a vertical stand also.) Since it features a Maxtor 7200RPM internal hard drive and both FireWire (IEEE 1394, i. LINK) and USB 2.0 interface parts, the 500 DV is one of the most versatile drives available for both PCs and Macs.
The Good News: A button allows you to save/backup files with a touch (thus the ‘one touch’ backup button). You can set it so it knows where and when to save/backup files. As for expandability, you can connect up to 62 drives via FireWire or 129 USB 2.0 drives with hubs. The requirements for this are a Pentium II-class CPU or higher and 32MB of RAM.
The Wish List: A better cooling system.
The Bottom Line: We found Maxtor 500 DV to be a very reliable drive. It is a great storage device for both animators and video artists.
Web Address: www.maxtor.com
Animation Magazine’s Seal of Excellence
Ease of Use: *****
Storage Size: *****
Transfer Speed: ****
Price/Performance: *****
Final Score: *****
