Fantom GreenDrive Pro 1 TB USB 2.0/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive 16 MB Cache with 2 Year Warranty GDP1000EU

Fantom GreenDrive Pro 2 TB USB 2.0/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive GDP2000EU I purchased this external hard drive to use primarily to backup my laptop hard drives in case of a system crash. The drive is large enough so I can also store Karaoke music files on this external hard drive and use the hard drive to load Karaoke music from on Karaoke nights.So far the drive has met and exceeded all my expectations. I have no negatives about this drive. For the price, you can't beat this drive! Even if you had to replace it because of drive failure, you would still only have a nominal amount of monetary outlay to replace a defective unit. If I need another hard drive in the future, I would not hesitate to buy another Fantom external hard drive.This drive is certified by Microsoft to run on Vista and Windows 7 64-bit operating systems. I have spent a good amount of time researching compatibility with software operating systems I plan to upgrade to in the future. Some product information on websites do not indicate compatibility on a 64-bit operating system, but this particular piece of hardware is compatible with the 64-bit architecture.

fantom drives in general are pretty much consistently the best deal out there and this is a classic example of their drives. The only caveat for use on a Mac computer, (which is what I use), is to follow their directions for reformatting before use. If you do follow those directions the entire process should take about five minutes including finding apples disk utility in your utilities folder and reading directions. The rest of the process for use as a usb drive is plug and play. Don't worry if you turn it on in a high noise environment and can't hear it. It is just that quiet. Likewise if you have a working esata connection it is simple plug and play. Another caveat here though... not all esata cards are created equal so if you get this drive first and then get an esata card or adaptor for your mac make sure it works on a mac. My advice on buying a card is get it from amazon and make sure it is direct from amazon because no one else has as good a return policy. I have the newer tech maxpower card and it works like a champ but I went through two 'less expensive' cards that LOOKED like the same spec before I got it. If you have a proper esata set up this drive will show up when turned on or plugged in exactly the same as it would for usb.... only it works a lot faster. Finally there is the reliability factor. I have five fantom drives. Mostly used for backup and data storage. The oldest one was an over five year old 200 gig usb only, which finally died a few days ago. The last couple of years it had been used as a live backup drive so it was on about 8 hours a day three or four days a week. It is the only failure I have seen on fantom drives so far. Delivery is the classic "order it from amazon wait for delivery, get surprised when it shows up early" experience.

I purchased this drive to attach extra storage to my Motorola DCT6416 iii (cox communications).Good:It works with the DVR, which is great. I now don't have to worry about filling the internal 160 GB drive too quickly. I simply plugged it all together, then plugged the power back into the DVR. It asked to format the new drive, so I selected yes and it formatted very quickly.I did not lose any recordings that I already had on the internal Drive. My DVR storage went from 80% full to 7% full.Bad:The only problem I have with this drive is that it is noisy. I have the drive mounted vertically in the stand. Everything seems to be working properly, but there is a loud rattling and spinning noise. I think the drive stays powered on all the time, and the light on the front keeps blinking as if data is being transferred, even when the DVR is powered off (doesn't seem as green as advertised). I hope this is not a sign that it is failing. If it does, I will edit this review accordingly.

I bought this to use for high speed backups for my Windows 7 PC. I don't have USB3.0, so chose this drive for the eSATA interface, unfortunately, the eSATA interface never really worked.I plugged the drive in, but my PC didn't immediately recognize the drive. I went to device manager and had it scan for new disk drives. Windows found the drive and I was able to view it in windows explorer. I opened a readme file on the drive successfully, closed and deleted the file. The file disappeared, but seemed a little slow. I then started a test copy of a 400MB file to the drive. The Windows7 version of the hourglass appeared and after 3-4 minutes of waiting, I lost patience and walked off to do something else. That was the last time I was able to access the drive via eSATA. When I came back, the drive had disappeared from Explorer and no amount of screwing around was successful in making it appear again. I eventually disconnected the eSATA.I next connected it via USB. It came up without a hitch. The file I 'deleted' earlier was still on the driveand the file I had tried to copy was not. So nothing had functioned correctly via eSATA.I contacted Fantom support via email, explaining in detail the steps I had taken. Unlike some other reviews, they responded quickly. Unfortunately, their succinct response was, 'return the drive to Amazon', so I did. Given the mixed reviews in the first place, I have no intention of buying another. In my further reading on line of eSATA drives, I'm electing to do a little more research, spend a bit more money, and buy a NAS instead.Other comments:- If USB 2.0 is your speed, this was relatively inexpensive and seemed to work fine via that interface.- I'm completely fed up with the design engineers at consumer electronics companies. I would be happy to spend a couple dollars more to have an AC plug that doesn't take up its own outlet, plus 50% of the one next to it. They could make a good AC plug a selling point. I'm sure it would earn sales.