I have a Maxtor OneTouch II that I've been unhappy with. It was slow from day one and it's become very finicky over time, requiring multiple connections/attempts before showing up. Looking online, I'd discovered a lot of people with the same problem.
My biggest gripe was that Maxtor wanted me to install its OneTouch software regardless of whether I only wanted the driver files...and even then, the driver would periodically disappear, and I'd have to manually point the machine(s) back to it.
Maxtor was bought by Seagate, further complicating things by dimming my prospects for support.
On the other side, I've had good experience thus far with the Western Digital 250GB Passport--it's tiny, quick and thus far, quite reliable. I regularly play my music collection off it.
For backup, I've got the 1TB MyBook--also pretty nice, but the first thing I did was not to install the accompanying software that auto-plays when you connect it. XP and Vista manage my connections just fine.
Last, a friend of mine just built a mini comp and decided to use eSATA for his gaming: he got a simple enclosure and has been happy with the performance, since it's 3.0GB/s.
Whatever the case, I've resolved that any drive I only use for file backup, I will not connect to a machine any more often than is needed; I get the feeling that regular use of the Maxtor OneTouch II is what led to its failure.
