Fantom Drives releases roomy new Triple Interface G-Force MegaDisks

It's an all too common dilemma: you've thrown down some serious change for a new Mac Pro and Godot brushed metal DAP, but you've got nowhere to turn for a massive external hard disk that sports that token cheese grater look. Okay, so it's probably not "common" per se, but if it's your reality, Fantom has the solution. The G-Force MegaDisk is the latest lineup of Mac-ish looking external drives; touted as a "heat dissipating aluminum enclosure," the sleek box drive sports USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. The MDC500 and MDC800 house 7,200RPM SATA II drives with 32MB cache, each with 500GB and 800GB, respectively -- the big boys, also known as the MDC1000 and MCD1500, rock 1TB and 1.5TB of SATA II storage, but "only" manage 16MB of cache. The Fantom Four can be snapped up now for $269.95, $499.95, $599.95, and $999.95, running from smallest to roomiest, and looks to be today's surefire winner in the Mac Pro sidekick contest.

[Via MacMinute]

[Wonderboy @ Aug 23rd 2006 3:45PM]

$1000 for 1.5 TB in a single enclosure... not bad. But does anyone have a history with this company? Can I trust my data to these products? I know there are always risks, but I'm wondering if this company has a relatively good or bad history.

[felix @ Aug 23rd 2006 3:55PM]

bought one of their externals last year. Hard drive just died a month ago. they use crappy Diamond brand hard drives.

[Gio - NYC @ Aug 23rd 2006 4:03PM]

Looks like the midget version of an apple G5, cool design.

[Serge @ Aug 23rd 2006 4:18PM]

I got a rosewill enclusure that looks just like that. http://rosewill.com/product/product.aspx?productId=248 it comes in black or silver, usb only, usb/firewire_a combo, or usb/firewire a/b combo. great enclusure for a great price on newegg. and matches a mac pro / g5 case perfectly.

[CharlieX @ Aug 23rd 2006 4:45PM]

we've used them exclusively in our video post studio for over three years. mostly the 220-300GB titanium drives. not one single problem - even travelling back and forth across the country. However, the drives only get used for 1 job, and the get shelved as an archive, so there's little more than 6-8 weeks of heavy use per drive.

[Ted @ Aug 23rd 2006 5:48PM]

This looks pretty cool.

[Todd @ Aug 23rd 2006 6:16PM]

Like Felix said, Fantom uses cheap white label refurbished drives in some of their less expensive enclosures. Buyer beware, proceed with caution on this one. I personally don't trust my data to just any old crap brand of hard drive.

The drive in the Fantom I owned was not Diamond brand, but I can't quite remember who had refurbished it. It was definitely a third-party refurbishment, not performed by the OEM of the drive. Had a generic white label on top.

I actually thought it was really shady of Fantom to use a refurbished part inside of a product that is being sold as new.

[Rob @ Aug 23rd 2006 6:28PM]

Other World Computing has a version too.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/ProRAID/

[keith waddington @ Aug 23rd 2006 9:27PM]

I bought a no name brand from a mac store that specialises in video. It looks identical and cost 50 dollars US. I also got a SATA card for 70 dollars. I then filled it with reliable Hitachi 300GB drives that cost just over 100 US each. So following the home-made method you can have a faster raid connection with drives you can trust and the cost is 550 US for 1.2TB.

From my experience most of these companies put the cheapest hard drives they can get inside and you pay a lot for that pleasure.

waddo
http://www.waddo.net/

[mblind @ Aug 23rd 2006 9:54PM]

fantom drives SUCKS.. I have been throught 3 of them.. BUYER BEWARE

[Joe Shmoe @ Aug 24th 2006 2:12PM]

I've had the USB version of this hard drive for over a year without incident. After reading the comments here I got curious and opened the enclosure, inside were two retail labeled Hitachi drives (still under their warranty too). I'm wondering if it's just luck of the draw or what, but they've definitely lasted for me.

How many refurbished 750gig SATA II drives do ya'll think are out there? 500s? 400s?

[Rick Lyon @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:17PM]

When quoting maybe check your sources? The articles states the MDC1000 & MDC 1500 only have '16m cache' while the cheaper smaller units have a whopping 32m cache? Huh? Well of course the article quoted another article with incorrect info. According to their website, the 'big boys' 1000 & 1500 are the ones with 32m cache not the smaller units.

[soultouch @ Dec 11th 2006 10:51AM]

Fantom 150 gig firewire harddrive just died on me. I'm pissed.

[Steve @ Jan 5th 2007 1:21AM]

I have a 160 gig drive that loses data all the time. Now, how can you use it as a back-up when you can't trust it. This Drive really sucks

[rar1234 @ Jan 28th 2007 5:27PM]

I bought a product from this company some years back. The product
didn't work and I spent innumerous hours trying to get Fantom to
deal with the problem. It became a very expensive bookend. Worst
customer support I've ever encountered. FANTOM will never get
a dime from me again.

[Tia Bourg @ Feb 20th 2007 10:53PM]

I was looking for a way to contact Fantom because my external I store wedding photos on has corrupted them, NOT good. Now it looks like I am in good company. I paid alot for this, too!

[mike f @ Jun 18th 2007 2:34PM]

my 160gig just broke out of nowhere i had it less than a year don't buy these drives!!!!

[d gore @ Nov 27th 2007 12:37AM]

Yep, fantom is junk, bought five of them for my business, customer support sucks, and the ones i have used maxtor drives, fantom wouldn't warranty them. Maxtor refused to honor thier warranty on the drives. said it was up to fantom.. BOO! Fantom you suck!
Never Again!!!

[chinchin @ Jan 15th 2008 3:17PM]

I just bought one of these and on my first data tranfer it failed. After 2nd transfer/reboot had another failure and then the drive started to rebuild the RAID. Hardware is nice but the HDs suck!

[Daniel Klein @ Feb 11th 2008 10:25AM]

Have had two Fantom 200gb and one 250 for three years. Archiving Video, etc. on them. No problems, lots of use. I use Disk Warrior on all my drives, though - best utility you can own.

[WordizBond @ Apr 27th 2009 1:40PM]

Fantom Drives are worthless for live captures! DO NOT USE THEM!!!! They failed every time, and on top of that they would never keep the information on the hard drive once it failed. Complete waste of $$ and time- buy LaCie or Western Digital before you invest in this piece of crap hard drive.