Fantom Drives Gforce/3 2TB USB 3.0 Black USB 3.0 External Hard Drive GF3B2000U

Pros: I honestly don't know, I can't get the computer to detect it long enough to do anything with it.

Cons: I've had this drive for about 6 months and my computer has only detected it twice. I plugged it into a different usb port and it was detected, unplugged it and plugged it back into the same port and it wouldn't detect it. And I know all my ports work fine because I've tested them all with different devices.

Other Thoughts: Thinking about just cracking open the case and using the drive as an internal even though I really wanted this as an external drive.

Pros: Solid metal enclosure well packed. Has an on/off switch. Formatted in NTFS. I use this as an external backup for a graphics workstation, backing up event photography files. It does the job well and USB 3.0 is fast enough. Previously I used 1394. I have also used WD Mybook drives which have been reliable, but I like this one better.

Cons: None that I can think of. I think Newegg could pack a bit better in the shipping box by putting the brown paper packing both under and over and around the item being shipped. As it arrived, the box was lying on the bottom of the shipping carton with no cushioning there.

Other Thoughts: Using as Asus MB, I found that Windows Update had messed with my USB 3.0 driver and I had to go and delete that update and driver and reload the drivers from Asus. When I had done that, all was well and the USB 3.0 throughput was fast!

Pros: + usb 3.0 fast transfer speeds
+ Samsung Spinpoint HDD inside

Cons: Within a week of use, the hard driver would power up, but the PC (nor the laptop, both with usb 3.0 ports) was not detecting any hard drive. The SATA connection was loose. Not wanting to risk the connection coming loose again, the Samsung spinpoint HDD is now used as an internal HDD with a 64gb Crucial SSD as cache.
On the other hand, I have an 8yr old 320gb Fanthom Drive which is still in perfect working condition.

Pros: The drive seems fine for normal file copying within Win7.

Cons: My only complaint is the lack of warning with the "Advanced Format Disks". I can not create a Win 7 System Image with this drive.
Fantom refers to KB982018.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018.

This patch does not help with my problem, I tried on on 3 Win7 64-bit machines. These drives can be used for system image backups.

If we were warned, we would not have bought these drives.

Other Thoughts: My problem seems to be with Microsoft's lack of proper support for "Advanced Format Disks", not Fantom. But once again a warning would be nice, this is a new tech that is not supported properly in Windows 7.

Pros: - Lots of space.
- Great for backing up whole systems.
- I'm not utilizing the USB 3.0 portion. Though moving files to it across a 1Gbps network into USB 2.0, averaged about 60MB/sec.
- Some gave negative remarks on the blue LED. I like it :)
- Has good weight to it and a stand for some good stability.
- With the prices of other 2TB HDD's, you could purchase this one and remove it from the case for use as an internal drive.

Cons: As long as it doesn't fail anytime soon, I have no cons.

Other Thoughts: I've got about 5 developer machines that need some space for backup. Match Ghost 15 with this on a computer with a 1Gbps network, and you've got yourself a good highspeed network backup.

Pros: Works great so far. I will update my review if any problems occur.

Cons: There is only one port, so you can't place this drive in the middle of a chain.

Other Thoughts: I am wondering what the difference is between this model (GF3B2000U) and the one with 32MB cache (GF3B2000U32)....

Pros: I leave this drive connected to my WD Media Player, I leave the player on most of the time and when there is no drive activity the drive spins down. The drive case is only slightly warm, never hot.

Cons: Blue light is a little bright, this can be corrected with some black electrical tape. Takes about 3 seconds to spin up, but for me that is ok considering my usage.

Other Thoughts: You can make a poor mans NAS using this with a WD Media player.

Pros: This drive is amazing! It's like installing a new 2 TB drive on my computer. I have usb 3.0 ports on my computer so I am able to take full advantage of the speed offered by usb 3.0 devices. I back up steam games on it (when I'm done playing them) and it copies these huge files as if I had installed another hard drive. Solid enclosure. No drivers to install on windows 7. Just plug it in, turn on the power, and enjoy an extra 2gb of disk space as if you installed a hard drive. Amazing...

Cons: Thus far I can't think of any cons. I guess the only minor thing is that the drive needs to be plugged in so you have 2 wires. I don't know if you could even get speed like this unless the drive had it's own power source outside of the computer

Other Thoughts: If you need space and have USB 3.0 ports buy this drive. 2TB of space for this price is simply amazing. I am very happy with the drive and would recommend it to anyone needing extra space, especially if you have USB 3.0 inputs on your computer.