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Switzerland, Bern
1 Level
731 Review
83 Karma

Review on πŸ’½ Fantom Drives GFP3000Q3 - External Hard Drive 3TB 7200RM, USB 3.2 Gen 1 - 5Gbps, eSATA & FireWire, GForce 3 Aluminum, Black, Compatible with Mac, Windows, PS4, Xbox by Chris Cooper

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Very good performance as a Time Machine drive - UPDATED in 2020 and 2021

Check for updates below. I was very happy with this external drive. First review: I've had this disc for about 4 months now. It is connected to my Mac mini via a Thunderbolt/Firewire adapter. My drive is partitioned for Time Machine backups (4TB) and photo files (1TB). I've never had any hard drive problems. My home office isn't exactly quiet, so I don't know if this drive is terribly quiet when running, but it certainly doesn't feel loud. The blue LED light is bright but not bright enough to bother me. If that were the case I would put a piece of black tape over it or otherwise block it from my view. I am very happy with this drive and will probably be buying another Fantom drive soon to consolidate all my photo files. May 2, 2018: I have continued to use it as my Time Machine desktop drive and have had no problems in over two years of continuous use. I just installed a new Mac to replace the Mac mini. I have disabled this drive and it will not be used in case I need to restore backups stored on it. After making sure my new Mac works the way I want, I'm going to reformat this drive and use all of its 5TB for Time Machine backups on the new Mac. (I'm currently using a portable drive for TM, but that's not my permanent plan.) UPDATE #3, May 2nd, 2020: I checked my purchase of this and another Fantom HD this morning and see that exactly two years have passed are since I updated this review. The Fantom drive has worked well as a backup drive for Time Machine for the past two years, with a total of over 4 years of continuous use. Needless to say I am satisfied. UPDATE #4 February 17, 2021: This drive was used as my Time Machine desktop drive until the end of December 2020 when I retired it and replaced it with a 6TB Fantom drive. serve as a time machine for my new Mac mini. This drive is fine, but I was accumulating a lot of photo files and decided I needed a larger capacity Time Machine drive. Since it's still working fine, I'll likely find another use for this drive, perhaps as an additional backup for media files. I now have four Fantom external hard drives and have had no problems with any of them, although I understand that no hard drive lasts forever.

Pros
  • Host Interface: eSATA / FireWire 800 (2) / FireWire 400 / USB 3.0
Cons
  • Insanely slow