Fantom Drives G-Force 500GB 3.5" External Hard Drive Remember when you could buy a 100Mb drive for this price? Well, those days are gone and good riddance! Here's 500 gigabytes of external storage you can plug into your eSATA or USB 2.0 port, compatible with Mac OS 10.2 or higher, and flavors of Windows from 98SE to Vista. A heat-dissipating aluminum case provides sturdy protection for the drive system while the drive system provides protection for your valuable data with USB 2.0 transfer rates of up to 60 MB/s or eSATA transfer rates of up to 300MB/s. Video archives, backups, auxiliary storage; if you need it, this system will probably provide it! At a price like this, you might be able to afford two or more, and you know you'll need the extra storage next week. Interface: USB 2.0 / eSATA Form Factor: 3.5" Dimensions: 7,8" x 4.5" x 1.4" Weight: 2.4 lbs. Features: This products features sturdy aluminum casing to provide maximum durability fanless design for silent operation and could be placed horizontally or stand vertically to allow maximum deskspace. Parts: 1 year limited Labor: 1 year limited

Worked Great For A Year

Reviewed By: Cheap Sucka on 10/14/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Low cost, attractive, reasonably fast. Esata port. Good for storing things that are not critical.

Cons: Drive is about to fail-starting to lose sectors almost daily. Has always run a little on the hot side-Per Data Sentinel 45C. Noticed a slight clicking sound when the lost sectors began to arrive-slightly after the one year mark-imagine that. Data Sentinel puts its health at 9%. Once you get past 500gb storage I thinks its probably time to kick in an extra $20 and get a reliable drive.

Still works just fine

Reviewed By: coyote on 6/7/2009

Tech Level: average - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Compact, reliable, comes up quickly when turned on (USB). Both USB and eSATA work just fine.

Cons: None (I have come to like the blue light - can easily see it flashing when disk is active).

Other Thoughts: Have now been using for 9 months as second backup (not offsite but secured from fire/water) in USB mode with no problems at all. As of last 2 days have been using via eSATA. Windows copies are at least twice as fast on eSATA as on USB (my SATA is only 1.5Gb/s), and essentially the same speed as copies to my internal backup disk (by chance the same model as in the Fantom).