Fantom Drives Extreme 2TB External SSD - 2800MB/s, Thunderbolt 3 and 4, USB Type-C, Aluminum, 3D NAND TLC, TB3X-2300N2TB

Love it, o ya issue is the cord is magnetic and sometimes disconnects when I move my laptop

Wow! This thing is fast! Purchased this to optimize the timemachine transfer from my 2017 core i7 MacBook Pro to my new 2023 M2 Max Mackbook Pro. When I first got it I benchmarked it on my 2017 MBP with Blackmagic connected via Thunder Bolt 3 and got 2.5 GB/s read and 2.3 GB/s write. Reformates it from HFS+ to APFS to optimize it for timemachine and re ran the benchmark with the same results. Very happy. Ran timemachine to it and with in an hour my 800GB Backup was completed. Went to restore the new M2 Max MBP from the backup and I was up and running in 30min! As you can see in the photo it was transferring at 2.02 GB/s couldn’t be happier!

Tested on an M1 Mac Mini. Couldnt be happier. Bought the 256 GB storage mini and this is my 1 TB external drive for everything else.

Love editing in FCPX with this little guy attached to my M1 MBP. super fast and works well! I then back this up to my home server and also backblaze.

It is fast access and fast write. My last SSD had a severe pause when I accessed it. This one doesnt. I use it for ArcGIS drone orthophotos.

The case itself is the issue, at first I though the whole thing was messed up because every time I put my ps5 in sleep mode and turn it back on I would have to repair the drive like I unplugged it every time, so I returned it in exchange for another, and this second one did the same thing. Just so you know, none of my other external drives have this problem, so instead of sending it back, I opened it up and took the inner Nvme out and put it into a spare Nvme enclosure I had and it worked, haven’t had a problem since, the inner workings of the enclosure are faulty, I couldn’t say what it is I just know the enclosure is the issue, would not recommend for gaming on consoles, I would just recommend buying an Nvme and an enclosure yourself and put them together, there’s tool less ones out there. As for me, I’ll keep this one in the new case and cut my losses, very disappointing to say the least

I bought this compact SSD for use as the Time Machine backup drive for my 2021 M1Max MacBook Pro laptop/notebook computer. I have only used it three times so far, but it seems to work great; definitely a lot faster than the external hard drive that I had been using for the same purpose previously. This SSD is roughly the same size as a deck of playing cards, but surprisingly heavy for its small size. Naturally, I wish it cost a hundred dollars less, but so far I am quite pleased with it. It is worth noting the Thunderbolt cable that comes with this SSD is quite short, so it works fine if you will only place the SSD on a desk or table right next to your computer, but otherwise you would want to get a high-quality Thunderbolt cable with more length.

I use this drive as primary storage for RAW photo files to improve the access and speed when working with photo editing software like Luminar or Aurora HDR. Before getting this Fantom FD Extreme drive, I used a Seagate USB 3 external drive, so opening images and switching from one saved template to another in order to compare photo looks would take 25-30 seconds. The lag time was so limiting that I had gotten into the habit of just moving the one file I was working on to my internal Mac SSD drive to make the comparison/toggling faster. Compared to the internal SSD speed, this drive is nearly as fast in accessing/editing files using a Thunderbolt connection [using unscientific counting, I would get to roughly one thousand one (~1 sec) on internal, and one thousand one, one thousand... (~1.5 sec) on the Fantom (versus the 30 seconds on a USB). Great purchase!

Wasnt initially impressed with the benchmarks, then I read the owners manual (make sure you do) and there were a few things that needed to be done in windows 10 to unlock the full speed. After that I ran benchmarks and got soeeds better than advertised. I also did some windows tweeks to improve performance for audio latency and that seemed to imorovr speeds even more. By the time I was done optimizing Windows 10 I was able to transfer a 90GB sample library from my Sabrent Rocket 4.0 NVME internal drive to the Fantom Drives Thunderbolt 3 external in under a minute, and that contained thousands of small files whicj are usually the slowest to copy. Fast and a very solid vuild quality.

Fantom offered the exact same drive, with 2-day shipping, for a total of $424.00. The price was based on a 10% off sale (of which they seem to have on a frequent basis). Hence, I bought the 2TB eXtreme Pro Thunderbolt 3 drives directly from the vendor. For those who absolutely must have Seagate or WD drives, realize that each 2TB drive (I purchased two) has the PNY brand Gen 4 XLR8 CS3040 M.2 NVMe 2TB SSD drive, which has been reviewed by PC Magazine as being not only significantly faster than the aforementioned TB 3 SSDs, but are rated for 2-million hours (MTBF); that’s 500,000 hours more than most. Like other similar drives, it has the same 5-year warranty. I once fell into the “It’s gotta be a Seagate or WD SSD!” camp, and only bought LaCie drives. I changed my mind after researching Internet sites and watching a number of YouTube videos that declared the PNY CS3040 to have superior throughput in comparison to the popular LaCie model and others, based on its excellent on-board controller. Reviews are one thing, but real-life tests are another: I was surprised to find that the Fantom drives had faster Read/Write numbers than the internal Seagate in my LaCie. The LaCie Ruuged TB3 SSD was almost as fast in the Read mode, but was noticeably slower in the Write mode(?). The Fantoms are faster than the internal Seagate M.2 NVMe SSD in my mid 2020 iMac i9 27-inch 5K 72GB RAM | 5700XT(16GB) GPU. While some might consider it a downside, I actually appreciate the heft and somewhat larger build of these portable drives. Location video shoots can be rough on equipment. These drives get warm, as expected, but thanks to the solid aluminum chassis with recessed heat sink ”fins,” they do not get near as hot as the USB C half-speed (1050 MB/s) drives I used to use on my video camera. Perhaps that’s why they last for 2-million hours. Did I mention that the Torrance, California built 2TB Fantom drive costs less than its portable LaCie and SanDisk/G-Drive counterparts? (Note: the 1 TB version of the same drive uses the ubiquitous WD M.2 NVMe 1TB SSD drive).