Maxtor BlackArmor 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive STM901603BAA1E1-RK
- Box Content – BlackArmor external hard drive with pre-loaded security and backup software, Quick Start guide, USB 2.0 cable, and Protective slip case
- Protected by Seagate Secure hardware based encryption technology delivering Government certification as the strongest data security available
- Removal of the USB cable from your computer auto locks the drive
- No tedious manual security procedures found in software-based encryption technology
- Hint feature offers a reminder in the event of a forgotten password
Product Description
Designed for those who have valuable information they wish to keep secure and private, the Maxtor BlackArmor product is an attractive, portable solution that provides unparalleled security for direct attached storage devices. Using Seagate Secure technology, Maxtor’s BlackArmor drive is designed to keep data locked up and protected in the event of loss or theft. Seagate Secure technology is a hardware-based encryption, making the encryption transparent to the user and free of complicated installation and use procedures required by software based security.The Maxtor BlackArmor external storage solution uses a government-grade AES encryption certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to deliver the strongest commercially available data security available for external storage. The Maxtor BlackArmor product provides transparent, real-time encryption of all the data on the device, not just selected files; providing performance and ea… More >>
Maxtor BlackArmor 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive STM901603BAA1E1-RK
This drive isn’t supported in Mac OS X and Seagate/Maxtor appear to have no plans for supporting any operating system other than Windows.
An alternative for Mac users is the Lenovo Secure Drive (although it has to be reformatted), but Amazon doesn’t sell it directly.
The partition with the utilities will mount on my system but as soon as I unlock the drive it unmounts and is no longer recognized by the Windows XP OS. This drive is too finicky – all I wanted is one to mount up and do backups too. Online help is not good. I wish I would have never bought this drive.
Nice, sleek. Security is a bit overkill for the music and photos I’m keeping on it, but nice to know its there I guess.
Having a drive say it’s for Windows is fairly useless information these days. Mac users are used to buying external drives, which are almost always formatted in the PC FAT format, and reformatting them for Mac use. But this drive won’t let you reformat or erase it – it won’t even mount. Even the latest version of DiskWarrior couldn’t even locate, much less mount, this drive. The manual states that erasing the drive is an option if you don’t mind losing all data, but that’s not even possible as far as I could determine – not from Macs running OS 9, or OSX Panther, Tiger or Leopard.
Maxtor/Seagate needs to do a better job of giving detailed information on the outside of the box, not just in the users manual you don’t see until you’ve bought the thing and taken it home. Finding Mac preformatted drives that were made in this century is difficult at best (Fry’s Electronics, the largest computer store in my area, doesn’t stock a single one).
Maxtor’s website was down when I tried to get tech support, and calling them only brought me to a pre-recorded message saying their tech support system was down. So Mac users looking for a portable bus-driven drive, look elsewhere. This might be good for Vista users, but for the ever-growing number of Apple users, it’s a good idea gone bad.
Not very user friendly. Would not purchase again if I had a chance to do it over. Instruction “manual” sux big time.