We reviewed the Maxtor Shared Storage II a while back, which is essentially the predecessor to the the new Maxtor Central Axis. One of our biggest gripes with the Maxtor Shared Storage II was its complicated set-up and software interface, which luckily the new Maxtor Central Axis improves upon greatly. Another feature that we longed for was the ability to access files on the NAS over the internet, which the Maxtor Central Axis now brings to the plate. We also appreciate the Maxtor Central Axis’s much sleeker and modern design that wont put off Mac owners, such as ourselves. Unfortunately the new Maxtor Central Axis doesn’t support two hard hard drives in Raid configuration like the Shared Storage II did, but the 1TB of storage should be ample enough to back up all of the computers on most people’s home networks. Plus the Maxtor Central Axis has support for connecting external hard drives via USB.

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Installation:
The Central Axis comes with a Quick Start Guide, a software CD, an Ethernet cable, and of course – an AC adapter. The Central Axis’s packaging is held together by stickers that say “Save Your Life”. Anyone who has ever lost valuable data to a hard drive crash, can appreciate that sentiment. We set up the Maxtor Central Axis by connecting it to our Time Capsule router. I was a little nervous that connecting it to the Time Capsule (also a NAS device of a sort) would create problems, however my iMac recognized the Maxtor Central Axis right off the bat. I was a bit confused when the software prompted me for a username and password since I hadn’t set up any yet. The moral of the story – it helps to read the included guide and go through all of the steps. The included software CD comes with both PC and Mac software. Many NAS devices tout Mac support but often fall short. Fortunately the Maxtor Central Axis holds true to its claims. Once you install the Maxtor Central Axis software you are presented with a pretty simple interface which gives you access to setting and scheduling back ups, setting up a media server and setting up shared folders as well as web access. In Leopard, the Central Axis also shows up as its own network under Shared – so that you are able to conveniently access the files on the Central Axis without having to load up Maxtor’s software.

Software:
Overall, the new Maxtor Central Axis Manager software is very much improved, it is more responsive and simpler to use than its predecessor’s software. However, a gripe that we do have is that accessing some of the functions and settings such as connecting a USB hard drive or setting up a print server, brings you to your web browser, so it can get a bit disorienting. But overall the interface and software has been improved and is much more newbie friendly – but still requires a certain level of tech savviness to configure.

Design:
The Maxtor Central Axis sports a slick black design with brushed metal side panels. The front has three lights for indicating power, a light for hard drive activity which intermittently flashes and finally one for network status. The device runs very quiet and you can only hear the hard drive if you put your ears really close to it.

Functionality:
The backup software works well for backing up document files, and even features a neat optional Drag and Sort feature which automatically sorts files in to their appropriate folders -eg: Jpgs would get sorted in to a My Photos folder. Unfortunately while the backup system works efficiently and reliably, it’s kind of limited in that it doesn’t give you the option to backup an entire hard drive in one step, but rather you have to choose the folders and files you want to back up. Want to back up all the documents in a User’s account? Just add that user’s folder to back up – but if you want to backup the complete hard drive it becomes a much more tedious task.

The Central Axis can also function as a print server. Our printer is already connected to our network so we couldn’t test that but we did try connecting a Lacie USB hard drive to the Maxtor. The Central Axis picked it up with no problems, though it’s important to note that it will only pick up a hard drive formatted as FAT32. However the Central Axis does give you the option to format the hard drive as FAT32. Just be careful not to format any valuable data on that external drive before formatting it .

Another really cool feature of the Central Axis is its ability to let you access files over the internet. This function requires you to sign up with Seagate’s Golbal Access site. In order to get up and running with this feature you have to sign up for an account at globalaccess.seagate.com. After that you can access the files on the central access from any web browser in the world by logging on to globalaccess.seagate.com – even if you’re computer isn’t on! You can also use the site to share files with other people. Downloading files using globalaccess.seagate.com wasn’t speedy but it wasn’t too bad -  for example, a 15mb file took about 9 minutes to download. As for accessing the hard drive on computers on our local network, the read speeds were ok as well – it took 11 minutes to write a 3GB file on to the drive and about half that to read it.

Conclusion:
More and more homes have several computers, and most family members realistically aren’t going to take the time to backup their files frequently. We think the Maxtor Central Axis is a great solution for home networks – just set it up, install the software on each persons computer and let the Central Axis take care of all the back up chores. The price of avoiding hearing a horrible shriek one night when your teenage daughter’s computer crashes and she loses her term paper – priceless. The ability to easily share files over your home network is also a great feature which you will wonder how you ever lived without. That coupled with the fact that you can use Seagate’s Global Access site to access files on the Central Axis from anywhere in the world, makes the Central Axis very desirable. The additional media server and print server features are nice touches as well. The Maxtor Central Axis comes with a 5 year warranty and can be found online for around $290, a very reasonable price value for what you are getting. Dell Home is currently selling it for a steal for just $237.

The Good:
Lets you backup and share files on your network without much hassle, remote file access via the internet, sleek design, also works as a media server and print server, good price value.

The Bad:
Some features and settings are more complicated to set-up, back-up software is limited and doesn’t let you backup entire hard drives in one step.