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.

We reviewed the Shared Storage II networked hard drive a while back and now Maxtor has just released new firmware and software for the device. The new Central Axis software allows you to access and share files on your Shared Storage II hard drive over the internet. We got to see a preview of the software back at CES 2008. The software is still in beta but it's a must have to unleash all the potential of your Shared Storage II, if you have one. And it's thankfully available for both PC and Mac.

Here at Chip Chick we constantly talk about Laptop cases and iPod accessories. Because we could never let our readers down on what next to dress their Nano in or USB that has the latest design on it. However when it comes to security many seem to be a little too lax. Sure some of us are savvy enough to buy firewalls and anti-virus programs for their computers (don' t forget to update the definitions), while others go about never expecting to have their entire identity and credit stolen right under their nose. We were lucky enough to attend an event sponsored by Staples that focused on security in your home, work, and in public. Bill Stanton or better known as"Wild Bill" is a Security Consultant for NBC and a regular on the Today show, was the guest speaker at the event and he gave us all helpful tips that are not only technology related but just common sense. Bill goes by the 3 Ss - Shredding, Software, and Storage. *Shredding is obvious - Staples had on display their newer 10 - Sheet Micro Cut Shredder which not only slices and dices your papers into dust but shreds Credit Cards, CDs, and DVDs as well. *Software is your Anti-Virus/Firewall/Spyware programs that prevent those nasty trojans and intruders from coming into your computer. *Storage means back-up, back-up, back-up your precious files on your computer as well as storing important documents away in a vault or lock-box.

Seagate has a new portable hard drive to show off that is looking good enough to make its way down the cat walk, if there ever was a cat walk for hard drives. The Maxtor BlackArmor has been designed for users looking to carry around their important documents while having the piece of mind to know that they are safe and secure. Available in a 160GB capacity, the BlackArmor keeps your data locked up and private using hardware-based encryption so that there is no need to set up and install software (they must know about how lazy we are). The drive is expected to retail for $149.99.

I guess it comes along with the territory that I have lots of computers. So when you have that many you tend to save documents and images separately on all of them. Which makes it very frustrating when you are trying to work with a document and it's on another computer. It's a terrible unorganized way of working. I always seem to be running between computers constantly to find what I need. So thankfully many companies are making external network shared hard drives which you can dump all your files on to and access remotely from anywhere as long as you have a Ethernet/WiFi connection where you are and the hard drive is connected to a live connection as well. The Maxtor Shared Storage II with 1 Terabyte of space is one such drive that we fortunately were lucky enough to get our hands on to review.

Chances are that you have more than one computer in your house, maybe even several. Personally, I find myself constantly running in between computers to pull off files that are located on different PCs, and it can get really frustrating. Sure you can carry around a hard drive, and I actually do usually carry around a portable hard drive with me, but there is a more convenient solution out there for home users - networked hard drives. A network hard drive allows all of the computers using your router's internet connection, to share and access files located on the hard drive. Many network hard drives also offer other features like FTP access and printer sharing. Unfortunately network hard drives of course cost significantly more than regular external hard drives - with the average one costing around $300 and up. However, Linksys's NAS200 can be found on Amazon for just $99.

A recent Harris poll found that 35% of all Americans surveyed neglect to ever back up computer files, including personal photos, and 33% respondents say that their content is priceless, and 22% say it’s worth more than $1,001 – yet nearly half of U.S. adult computer users never back up their data. On Monday we reviewed the Maxtor 4 OneTouch Mini, a speedy little drive that manages to pack in 160gb of storage for backing up files. Now you can win the opportunity to get one for yourself. Just send us in a photo of your "little monster" in his or her Halloween costume and two winners will each be drawn randomly. ...

A recent Harris poll found that 35% of all Americans surveyed neglect to ever back up computer files, including personal photos, and 33% respondents say that their content is priceless, and 22% say it’s worth more than $1,001 – yet nearly half of U.S. adult computer users never back up their data. On Monday we reviewed the Maxtor 4 OneTouch Mini, a speedy little drive that manages to pack in 160gb of storage for backing up files. Now you can win the opportunity to get one for yourself. Just send us in a photo of your "little monster" in his or her Halloween costume and two winners will each be drawn randomly. ...

A recent Harris poll found that 35% of all Americans surveyed neglect to ever back up computer files, including personal photos, and 33% respondents say that their content is priceless, and 22% say it’s worth more than $1,001 – yet nearly half of U.S. adult computer users never back up their data. On Monday we reviewed the Maxtor 4 OneTouch Mini, a speedy little drive that manages to pack in 160gb of storage for backing up files. Now you can win the opportunity to get one for yourself. Just send us in a photo of your "little monster" in his or her Halloween costume and two winners will each be drawn randomly. ...

Back in August we reviewed Seagate's FreeAgent Go Drive and now we got the chance to review another brand name under Seagate which is Maxtor's OneTouch line the Mini 4. Like the rest of Maxtor's OneTouch Hard Drives' the Mini 4 is no different in its ability to do instant back-ups by touching the button on the face of the hard drive, in this case it has a glowing button for starting an instant backup. Following the concept of many portable external hard drives before it - the Mini 4 is also designed to be portable and fast. With its rugged design and sleek shape it's a breeze to pick up and travel with. External hard drives used to be huge. In some cases they still are, but the tide is changing and the importance to schlep around extra hard drive space is becoming such a necessity that Maxtor has made it easier to lug around up to 160GB without feeling like its weighing your bag down. The Mini 4 measures 4.9 x .59 x 3.22 inches and weighs just under 6 ounces, making it a pleasure to carry. Installation of the OneTouch 4 Mini was a breeze. I am currently running the Windows Vista OS and all I had to do was plug in the USB 2.0 "Y" cable that comes with the OneTouch 4 Mini into my computer. On the USB cable, one USB connector is labeled 'Power' and the other is labeled 'Power and Data' and the computer picked it up right away. Only requiring USB power and no AC adapter is great, but the fact that the OneTouch 4 Mini's manual advises to use two USB ports for power is a bit inconvenient because what happens if I don't have two USB ports to spare? Most laptops only have two to three USB ports, so that can be an issue. Still having a totally USB powered hard drive is much more convenient than having to carry around an AC adapter. However, even though the manual advises you to plug in both USB connectors into your computer, both my laptop and desktop were able to pick up and use the OneTouch 4 Mini with just one of the USB connectors plugged in. Also, the One Touch Mini was very quite and cool to the touch. I didn't hear any constant spinning or revving. Using HD Tune 2.53 the One Touch 4 Mini read files at an average 17.2mb per second, which results are speedy. In other words, this is a great drive for back ups and general drag and drop file storage. We can't help but compare it to Seagate's FreeAgent Go Drive, which sports very similar specs - a 5.400RPM drive and it is available in similar capacities. Personally, I like the design of the the OneTouch 4 Mini more so then the Seagate FreeAgent Go Drive. Size-wise they are almost identical, but I like the rugged design of the OneTouch 4 Mini a lot, it's silver finish matches my Macbook Pro and its black edges make it look like it would be a great hard drive companion to match the new stylish new iMacs as well. But looks aside, a major difference between the two drives is the Creedo software that comes bundled with the FreeAgent Go Drive, which turns the hard drive in to a portable desktop for yourself so that you can easily access your bookmarks and personal documents as if you were on your own computer - even if you aren't.

If you've been looking for a light-weight solution to carry around your files, and the capacity of a USB key just won't cut it, look no further. Pexagon Technology's Store it Pro hard drive is a stylish and lightweight hard drive available in pink or black. Our test unit came in pink. Not a light pink, but a darker shade which I personally prefer. We’re crazy about the fact that you can customize it with an engraving. Pexagon customized ours with the Chip Chick Logo on the front and my name on the back. Not only does that admittedly make me feel special, it's also practical so that in case you ever lose your drive, the person who finds it will instantly know who it belongs to. The drive itself is just 1.3cm thick and very light, yet it has a pretty tough aluminum chassis that provides good durability. Also, it is USB powered so it doesn’t require carrying around any bulky AC adapters. Inside the case is a 5,400rpm Hitachi Travelstar hard drive with an 8mb buffer which is speedy enough for most tasks. However, keep in mind that anything less than 7200rpm is really not appropriate for playing video files off of and other media intensive tasks. We used SiSoftware's Sandra benchmarking software to test the hard drive's transfer speeds and compare it to other popular drives. The Store-It faired very well, coming out in second place, right under Maxtor's much heavier and larger One Touch hard drive. The comparison test also proved it to be significantly faster than the popular SanDisk Cruzer Titanium flash drive and the Sony Micro Vault.