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

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).

I purchased this because I didn’t like the idea of having my personal information on the internal drive of my Mac Mini - because that SSD is a permanent part of the motherboard. If you have to send your computer off to be repaired, everything that is on the internal drive will likely become the property of the person fixing it. Therefore, I don’t like keeping that information trapped on that drive. This is the same for any MacBook as well. I configured this as a bootable drive, and it works every bit as well as the internal SSD. In fact, this drive benchmarks essentially with identical specs as the OEM Apple internal 1TB SSD. TB3 is fantastic. I imagine you can install another drive in the enclosure as well. There are numerous 3rd gen drives that are faster and have better MTBF numbers than the WD Black, although it’s a proven and reliable drive in its own right.

Very fast, but the include cable is just too short.

Initially had problems as the disk is formatted for a Mac. No big deal I had a successful career pretending to be IT, I can handle this! Could not reformat the drive, updated all USB/Thunderbolt drivers, and still could not recognize the drive. Turns out the TB and USB ports on my name-brand computer were marked backward. Great work (insert name of major computer manufacturer here) dont need to be sued)).. Great thanks to the folks at Fantom Drives who had me up and running in no time at all

The best and fastest way to adding more storage to m1, m2 pro. This thing is amazing, I never used a thunderbolt ssd and when I tried this for the first time I was blown away at how fast it is. I have the sandisk pro extreme witch I thought was fast coming from a HDD but this fantom drive is so fast it’s insane. A super large folder with thousands of files usually takes days to transfer with a HDD or 1-2 hours with the fastest SSD, but with this thunderbolt it takes less than 5 minutes to do both copying and pasting. I can edit 4k videos directly from the drive with ease. What makes this better in my opinion than any other thunderbolt ssd out there is the size and build. This drive is hands down the smallest self power thunderbolt ssd. The next option is OWC which is a good option but this fantom has the latest technology and it’s smaller. The drive is made in Taiwan not China and then assembled in the USA. Mind you the high speed it’s only noticeable if you have a Mac with thunderbolt port to utilize the full speed. When I use it on my iMac 2017 it’s fast like the sandisk but not like when using the thunderbolt port.

I bought this product to use during an upgrade from MacOs High Sierra to Monterey, but unfortunately the Thunderbolt firmware on High Sierra was too old. It could recognise the drive on the Thunderbolt bus, but couldnt mount the disk. Once I had upgraded to Monterey the disk worked perfectly!

Works perfect, I benched the speed also and its pretty high as advertised. The speed it self when you transfer huge projects files its really fast ! Its expensive tho but if you got the money, worth it !

Im no tech smart like i would like to be; only because i stop learning or advancing the knowledge after i graduate at high school. Im 30 btw so im not old lol I live in small village with hardly technology on hand, so thatll give the picture ideal of knowledge i have. The steps and information how to set it up and add onto is somewhat confusing. took a little time of thinking and understanding how to do it (like using command prompt), but actually is simple setup and works perfect. Love this device and well invest to have

this little drive flies. I deal with a lot of video footage and what took an hour+ was cut down to 15 minutes!!! Drive doesnt get very hot and has not throttled itself yet. Consistent read/write speeds 2200MBs+. Just added to workflows so we will see how it does overtime. Its already had an impact of my daily productivity and paid for itself in just a couple weeks.

used for 5 months, was fast enough, but got really hot, finally failed a few weeks ago.