Fantom Drives18TB External Hard Drive HDD, GFORCE 3 Pro 7200RPM, USB 3.0, Aluminum, Fanless, On/Off Switch, Silver, GF3S18000UP

Okay, I've bought a total of four of these now, and finding them to be slowly but surely reliably unreliable after only very little usage.This is a big problem. Most people would just plug and re-plug them until it finally worked, and probably lose their files to corruption, and not realize it.I don't use them a whole lot, so by the time they're doing it, it's too late to return them.I am as careful with these as I am with an egg. Same with pulling the cords in and out, nobody is as careful or specific in their movements as I am. They've had very, very little use. The ones that disconnect, as described below, I've probably plugged in just a small handful of times, like, literally, under ten times.They have a super solid, awesome aluminum hard case, it's practically a Faraday cage, I like the case a lot.But there's something up with the soldering inside, on either the USB cord or the power cord hole soldering, internally. I am getting them to work, seemingly by keeping tension on the cord, with slight pressure to the left, as they are in use, as viewed from behind, looking at the holes.Disconnecting problem - 2/4 of the drives:I definitely swapped both cords out, multiple times, and have gone through multiple different ports on the computer. Other drives I have don't do it in the same USB ports on the computer. The only thing in common with the problem has got to be the soldering on the inside, so I'm 99.9% certain it's definitely internal to the drive case. It's not the drives themselves, those are good. Once it disconnects during file transfer, you have to run chkdsk to fix corruption, a big time sink. The problem must be either with the USB interface soldering, or the power cord soldering on the interface board, I'm certain after switching both cords out with multiple other cords, and seeing the same thing happen on only this type of drive, at least two out of four of them, independent from what cord I'm using. The third had a slightly different but similar and equally devastating problem, I talk about below. It's not the cord. It's not the internal actual drive. It's not the case itself, obviously. It's the USB interface on the board inside that must be faulty, or the power interface. You can see and feel the wiggle, when you plug it in, both for the power cord and for the USB cord, which are right next to each other.Fluctuating speed problem, 1/4 of the drives:The first time I observed a problem, I was copying files with the super helpful FreeFileSync software, and I was seeing the copy speed fluctuate between 50-150 megabytes/second all the way down to just a few kilobytes/second, back and forth, super fast to super, super slow. So slow that I saw something was causing a huge problem, so I stopped that, ran chkdsk and it found corrupted files and supposedly fixed it. Then I could start copying again and it could copy at normal speed mysteriously again. I think what was happening there was again, loose soldering, but I'm not sure. I've seen that a few times, on just one of the three.I bought the second drive because the first one was fluctuating speed, causing corrupted files while copying files. No good, then you have to run chkdsk, and copy again, who knows if you got all the corruption, if I find out in 10 years the files are toast, that will be indeed quite disappointing. Same with the other two, I kept buying them because they were not working right, not realizing exactly what the problem was until I had all four of them in a row, testing them one by one, seeing the same thing exactly - the disconnecting problem - on two of the four of them. Big mistake getting several, part of my reasoning was to have swap-able cords, which was helpful in pinning the problem to the interior board. I tried USB cords from other drives too, that work fine, so it can't be that all the cords they send out are faulty. It's got to be the internal board soldering. I have other drives that never do this.If it disconnects, it reconnects moments later, on and off like that, until it chokes, and can't reconnect, run chkdisk, it's fine again. So what I do is I catch it while it's connected, disconnect it with the usual official manual disconnect routine, and plug it in again, with tension on the cord. If it stays on, it will stay on just fine for hours, copy a whole 16 terabytes if you want, when it's working, but I have to jimmy with it a lot to make it work right, and who knows if it will want to work if I ever really actually need it. What I'm thinking is maybe I'll take the drives out and stick them in my computer. But then I can't use the awesome super solid aluminum case. But if they aren't working anyway, the awesome aluminum case is pointless, so I might just have to do that.Another weird thing about them is how the box says USB 3.2 speed, and the USB hole in the back of the aluminum case itself has printed 'USB 3.0' I thought the advertisement said 3.1 but I read it just now and it says '3.0'. I didn't notice any difference when I used my USB 3.1 port.I'd love it if someone can give me better advice than to say take them out of their hard aluminum case and stick them in your computer and use the SATA port and/or re-solder the USB interface board myself. The case itself is a huge plus. But not if the interface doesn't let the drives work. At least if I take them out I'll hopefully be able to see the lose soldering point for myself, to prove I'm right, and prove the drives work using just the SATA computer interface. I'll update this if I do any of that, for now I might just give up on them and buy another brand.I think this company is going in the right direction, with the super solid aluminum case, but they need to provide a working reliable USB interface to complete their product. At this point I'm about a grand in the hole, with reliably unreliable drives because I liked the drive case, and gave the company the benefit of the doubt. I think they should start being very, very honest with themselves, and with myself, and tell me exactly how to fix the multiple drives I've purchased from them, even if I have to re-solder the interior boards myself.

This is my second Fantom Drives I purchased in the past few months. I basically use one for a backup to my Synology NAS. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with the second one; most likely as external storage for my Fire Recast.The only issue I had was this last one I purchased came without it's USB cable. However, I contacted the seller and they mailed it to my house very quick.Very good device! I wouldn't hesitate to purchase additional units when the time arises.

I bought this because I was specifically looking for a 7200 RPM, external USB hard drive. I hooked this up to my iMac and serve all of my documents off of it.

I use this drive with my PS5. I want to like this drive, and in many ways I do but it hasn't been without it's downsides. The first drive I ordered from Amazon came defective, when the system would shut off the drive would abruptly stop which caused it corrupt itself again and again. I returned and replaced the drive, and that solved the issue.Then a new issue arose, and I think it may have been the cause of the first issue. The power supply that the company provides is not reliable. The first power supply I received was different from the one that they supply on their own website, as is the second one.The power supply shipped with my new drive has began to hum while plugged into the socket. Now, my drive does not have any text printed on the ports like the pictures selling this product shows. The picture says the drive has a 12V 2A input, while the power supply they ship has a 12V 1.5A output. Why does Fantom Drives ship a power supply that is rated lower than what their hard drive requires, and if that is not the case why does the picture selling this item have wrong information?Nowhere in the user guide does it talk about this information, and their "warranty" says not to use a third party power supply. Yet my first drive that Amazon shipped came with a completely different knockoff power supply, and the "official" one is underpowered according to what little documentation they provide.The drive itself is nice, it has a power switch on the back, and the encasing is a nice metal sleek finish. In the future though I think I will go with a product that does not feel so shady.

Ordered this as a replacement drive, price was acceptable and delivery next day, but no UK power adapter (blade) was provided, the drive is also a little noisy when in use, let's hope the longevity is good and this is a reliable drive to keep my data

I just want to help out the average joe like myself who had trouble finding a compatible EHD to work with their BELL 6131 receiver . This one has worked well so far (2-3 weeks) and formatted in about 20 minutes . All the necessary specs that BELL 6131 requires are met inside the box . DC power , 7200 rpm , no sleep mode etc...The one thing I cannot comment on is its long term use since I've just used it for 3 or so weeks to replace a western digital unit that gave me 8 problem free years until it died during a power outage .I bought the 1 tb size that give you 3oo HD hours ....

I use Fantom USB drives for backup of a SMB bunch of servers for numerous years. These drives run 24/24 and they last at least 5 years. I have two that are 9 and 10 years old and run without any problem.But I bought a replacement Fantom drive last year that last less than a year. It was a 4TB External Hard Drive - USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 Silver Aluminum - GFORCE 3 Serie. The problem is that the data got corrupted several times. I finally found the cause of the problem: the internal temperature of the drive is well above 50 degrees Celcius. That is way too hot.All my other Fantom drive were 3TB or less and their temperature range from 39 to 47 C. Do these 4TB drives need forced ventilation? Looking now for a replacement, I am not certain if Fantom drives will make it to the contender list.

As soon as I took it out of the box I knew it was worth money, its got some weight to it. Has a solid buil not cheap or flimsy at all pure aluminum case, also help to keep the heat down. I bought this for movie storage, has no problem what so ever keeping up with me running 3d 4k movies on two screens at times. True plug and play no drivers or updates. Speed are really fast for a HDD drive Copying movie files around 10gigs at 100mbps and much faster then that for smaller files. Totally recommend. Ps also comes with a neat little stand to have it vertical.

Not normal that after only 1 and a half years this device no longer works (the device does not turn on anymore). This support is supposed to give us peace of mind by keeping our data safe (not making us lose it). It's fine to offer a one-year warranty, it's not normal to fail after only 1 and a half years (unless it's of poor quality)‐-------------------------------Pas normal qu'après seulement 1 ans et demi que cet appareil ne fonctionne plus (l'appareil ne s'allume plus).Ce support est supposé nous garder l'esprit tranquille en gardant nos données en sécurité (non pas nous les faire perdre).C'est bien beau offrir une garantie d'un an c'est pas normal de faire défaut après seulement 1 ans et demi (à moins d'être de mauvaise qualité)