Maxtor is getting serious with their external drive line. Speaking as a guy who owns one himself, I can safely say that they have yet to let me down…

On Thursday, Maxtor Corp. announced a new family of Maxtor OneTouch III external drives, based on the design first incorporated by its 1-terabyte Turbo Edition in October.

The capacity range of the new line will include 100-Gbyte models on up to the terabyte offering, with a 500-Gbyte model designed to compete with existing external drives from Seagate and Hitachi. However, the fate of the OneTouch line remains in doubt, given that rival Seagate agreed to buy Maxtor for about $1.9 billion in December. Seagate announced its internal hard-drive roadmap in October, and disclosed its external drive plans last week. The acqisition is expected to close during the second half of 2006, however, meaning that the Maxtor OneTouch line will most likely be manufactured until then. [Read the rest]