Legacy Network Products

[imessenger]

Hello

I am looking at buying the Maxtor Shared Storage II however I have read on sites such as amazon.co.uk MANY reviews citing poor reliability and short life span.

On the other hand, many computing magazines are quite favourable.

So I would like to ask those who have purchased the drive, would you buy it again?

[Piglet]

I would not recommend it to anyone I like .

I bought the MSS 2 (firmware version 3.1.28) a month ago to be used for backup and as a print server. I therefore enabled RAID 1 for extra security; however, there is no use for the RAID 1 functionality since it is impossible to change the harddrive without loosing waranty. Furthermore, very soon after buying it found that the drive hangs very often (every day) and there is no way to reboot it without unplugging the power. So, I unplug the power and plug it back in, only to find that there is a problem with the RAID 1 setup. I was still able to read information, even though the warning led was blinking, but wasn't sure for how long it would work so I decided to switch back to RAID 0. RAID 0 does not seem to get corrupted when you unplug the power so it is actually more secure to use it in RAID 0 mode.

As I mentioned earlier, the other reason for buying it, was to have a print server. However, when the drive hangs the print server also hangs so there goes that functionality. It needs a reboot before use.

I hope that there will be a firmware update VERY soon that would make the MSS 2 more stable. It is a shame that there are electronics /software that simply don't work out of the box, but that is how it is nowadays. Be it mobile phones, operating systems or network harddrives, nothing works when it is new.

[Sunfox]

Currently I wouldn't recommend it... and that's purely due to the firmware and software. With those fixed/improved, it would be pretty good.

[princeofIT]

np so far ...strong material...support easy to reach  (that was for an software update...no for a Pb )

after S....can happen but it seems to be a good product ....

[mpkm1225]

I've had my MSSII since the beginning of the year. I would not recommend it. I paid extra for the raid capabilities but tested first as basic extra storage on the network. i couldn't get the private directories and accounts to work so i just used it as a backup (really big backup at 1tb).

Since then, it started 'disappearing' off the network periodically. Now I can't acccess it at all. I've never gotten a good response back from support.

Currently, i'm trying to get warranty service but wish i had just bought 2 500gb drives for much less money.

[ChrisG]

I certainly wouldn't recommend it. I've only had mine 4 days and I'm ready to return it to where I bought it
- 2 Mac's (10.4 & 10.5) and neither can see the drive with Maxtor "Easy"Manage, though I can access the web UI and can access the shares I created
- speaking of web UI, it's poorly written. the javascript code on the initial page doesn't even work so I have to look at the source code to figure out which URL to go to.
- twice already I've checked it in the morning and it's locked up, once with LED sequence indicating "share file system error" even though I've not used it that heavily (because I don't trust it). I've done some research on the web and this seems to be a common error.
- worst part is, I've submitted all these issues to technical support and have yet to receive ANY response. So I have a very poor impression of Maxtor support.

[rc]

I really wish I had not bought this product. I originally bought a MSS II because it contained a print server in addition to the NAS. After I installed it I found that it doesn't work with multi-function printers. Okay, my mistake. After a recent power outage, my MSS now disconnects from the network every 30 seconds. Have you ever tried to use a NAS that disconnects itself every 30 seconds? You can't even copy files off it during that interval, so everything is basically lost.

Run away from this thing.

[SZ]

Before I bought the MSSII, I had (still have) a Maxtor One Touch 250gb. After one month that drive crashed and I got a replacement under warranty (I was lucky to get this as I was living in New Delhi at the time). The replacement has been OK.

When I was shopping for a NAS, I wanted 1 tb and there was not that many options. I also knew that Seagate bought Maxtor, so I thought there may be some improvements in quality. I am now living in Europe, and chose to take a risk on Maxtor again. I have been using the drive a a single 1 tb drive (not RAID 500mb) and have it on a network with 2 Apple machines.

The drive seems ok, but I think that the issues I have are purely with the firmware and/or the EasyManage software. The drive will automatically appear when I boot up the computers (a setting in the Admin of the EasyManage) most of the time, but at an unpredictable interval (hours to days) the drive will suddenly unmount and disappear from the network. I think this is a firmware (on-board drive software) that is the problem. The issue is resolved by powering down and re-starting the drive. It is a hassle but at least the drive is "functioning".

I will update the firmware (even though it does not address this particular issue) and see if it helps.

If anyone reading this has a similar issue, I would like to get your comments. Perhaps we can figure out a fix.

[CTL]

I originally looked around at a number of drives but my primary objective was to find one that included a UPnP server.  At the time, there were only a handful available and the Maxtor SSII seemed to be the best value among them.

I haven't had any issues with the network connectivity - I have mapped drives to it and they are always present whenever I turn on any of my PCs.  I use MS Synctoy2 for mirroring my music/photos between drives which seems to work quite well.  The drive is reasonably fast.  The print server is so SLOW, I gave up on it and connected my Pixma iP5000 back to my main PC.  Would have been nice not to have to turn on the PC to print stuff from the notebook!

The UPnP experience has been a little dissappointing.

After ripping about 400CDs onto the drive as VBR WMA files, I turned on the PS3 and began to play.  The PS3 found the drive fine and allowed me to display a list of files.  But every file I tried to play came up as unsupported data.  Note that these files play fine from a USB flash or hard drive plugged into the PS3.

After much mucking about and wasting of time, I found the ONLY file types the MSSII presented correctly via UPnP were MP3 audio files and basic MPEG2 video files (like on a DVD or converted DTV transport stream).  So now if I want to use the MSS for streaming, I have to convert music to MP3 (my least favourite compression format but thank god for dBPowerAmp) and video to standard MPEG2 (which gives me files around 4 x the size they could be if AVCHD, WMV or DivX would stream properly!).

Once I was reasonably happy with the way I had it set up, something went wrong and the media server stopped working.  I got a replacement from Seagate without too much trouble (once they'd given up trying to work out what was wrong) and it is working as well as the first one ever did (apart from being much noisier - think it's the coolign fan rather than the drive).

I'm considering scrapping the NAS streaming concept and just connecting a big USB drive to the PS3 to store my media... It will be a little harder to manage but at least I'll be able to play all the formats the PS3 now supports.

Some other gripes about the UPnP server - the directory presentation is slow.  It isn't sorted (or able to be sorted) but this may be a client function.  Playlists aren't supported.  There are minimal content grouping options (compared to streaming from Windows Media Player or other apps on a PC).  In all, it seems to be rather simplistic.

As a network drive for backup and file access from PCs it has been fine.

Hope this helps ppl with their decision to buy...

Craig

[cybdiver]

HELL NO!  I only wish I had read this board.  PC Magazine and a whole lot of other magazines gave rave reviews about this technical boat anchor.

We bought 4 of these for backups. Everyone said use Disks instead of tape, they forgot to say don't buy a Maxtor Share Storage II.

I put them on the network,  changed the IP and it keeps changing back to the subnet they started in.

There is obviously something wrong with the either their software tool or the firmware as they will not hold onto the IP that I set.

It says manual for the IP but it keeps changing to any IP except the one I select.

Try running a backup to a drive that keeps moving.  It Na Gonna Happin.  So I say this is a boat Anchor.  And what kind of USB plug is that Male to Male and they don't supply you with a cable?  2,000 dollars in hard drive out the window.