Product Summary
Mfg Part#: TFD500U16
Buy.com Sku: 203400931
UPC: 00749656134607
Item#: CCYPY5
Buy.com Sales Rank: 86444
Product Guides
Titanium II USB 2.0 Hard Drive offers the most affordable storage solution for USB enabled PCs and Macs. This drive provides transfer rates of up to 60MB/sec on USB 2.0 and are fully backwards compatible with USB 1.1. It features sturdy aluminum casing to provide maximum durability, fanless design for silent operation, and could be placed horizontally or stand vertically to allow maximum deskspace. From increasing storage space to providing a safe and flexible data backup solution, Titanium II USB 2.0 Hard Drive is ideal for home and business users alike.
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http://www.buy.com/prod/fantom-titanium-ii-500gb-usb-2-0-7200rpm-16mb-cache-external-hard-drive/q/loc/101/203400931.html
| Customer Reviews |
 |
| Value |
 4.6 |
| Performance |
4.4 |
| Ease of Use |
4.7 |
| Overall Satisfaction |
4.3 |
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4 of 5 Caution: 1 of 3 had a bad power supply 11/6/2009
from Pittsburgh, PA
I bought 3 of these drives for storage. 2 of them were in frequent use to backup a server. 1 drive failed within the first year. I sent it back and Fantom refurbished it. Several weeks later it died again. This time, it had been over 1 year so they wouldn't fix it for free. It seems I need a new power supply (AC adapter).
The other 2 drives work fine so far. I would think twice about buying Fantom again. I'd look for something with a 3-5 year warranty instead.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
2.3 of 5 11 months later this drive is dead 6/8/2009
from Boston, MA
I bought this drive for the price and based on the good reviews here, but after 11 months the drive failed and would not spin up anymore. As you can see from the more recent reviews, these drives seem to have a high failure rate over time. I won't buy Fantom again.
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2.3 of 5 Think again... 1/27/2009
from Washington, DC
It kept resetting itself and suddenly died on me. I even bought a new power cord (only made in Hong Kong) and it still wouldn't turn on. So...think carefully before buying.
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2.3 of 5 Died exactly after 1 year warranty expired 12/22/2008
Sergey from New York, NY
It was a good deal and a good product until it died 1 week after its 1 year warranty expired. All archives are lost. Absolutely useless purchase (or do not buy during the Christmas sale?)
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5 of 5 Excellent purchase 10/29/2008
from McKinney TX
Other then needing to reformat to NTFS before using, this was a great deal. I've had it since June with no problems. Received my rebate without issue. I do wish they would make it easier to find the correct rebate form though.
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5 of 5 Fantom Titanium-II 500GB USB External Hard Drive 8/31/2008
from Oak Park, MI
Product works fine. I am waiting to receive the rebate. Setup was very easy. Everything worked as expected.
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3.3 of 5 Fantom Drives fail every time 8/7/2008
Vance from Albuquerque, NM
I have recently stopped using these drives. I have purchased 4 of them over the past several years. Every single one died suddenly (no warning) after various lengths of time. All of been completely unrecoverable failures. The first time, I lost a significant amount of data; primarily application install sets. Nothing that couldn't be found again elsewhere, but what a PITA. All others were just used for misc / backup duties.
Again, ALL 4 of them failed. That's 100%. I will never buy another Fantom drive and if you buy one or already bought one, I would highly recommend you back it up again or not store anything you care about on it.
Just my 2 cents.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
4.3 of 5 Rebates thru PromoProcess.com are a scam! 8/4/2008
firedude2894 from Redlands, CA
The drive came in a timely manner.
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It was easy to hook up and configure for Time Machine automated back-ups on my Mac. Although there are higher performance drives out there, for back-up needs this drive is perfect! It is quiet and unobtrusive and was offered at a good price.
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Submitting for the rebate was easy enough… until you realize that they are looking for any reason to DISQUALIFY you. I tried to contact PromoProcess and no one has returned my inquiries. Hmmm. My guess is that they must get to keep a portion of what they don't return to good customers.
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3.7 of 5 fantom drive itanium 2 50 GB 8/3/2008
chinalifebooks from atlanta, ga
I find that this drive is a bit "finicky" as the computer has troubl recognizing it. Overall, I think it's still a good value, if you're not concerned about compactness (it's big and heavy). Not the product if you need to travel with it.
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5 of 5 Great External HDD 7/25/2008
Wes from Morgantown, WV
This little drive is excellent. I have had it for almost a week now. Virtually no noise and very fast transfer. The price is great for this drive. All I did was unpack it, plug it in, and turn it on. I did a full reformat to NTFS and it was ready to go. Great drive that I will recommend to anyone looking for an external drive.
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5 of 5 cheated out of rebate 7/12/2008
from Harvest, AL
Fantom drive declined rebated becuase of no invoice. I bought online and sent a copy of emails from Buy.Com, serial number from box, everything I received and was declined. If you're buying the product because of the rebate, don't do it! Otherwise, product works fine.
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3 of 5 Cheap and Unreliable 7/3/2008
from Seattle, WA
I have had this drive for 2 months, and the connections on the back only work half the time. At first it was great. Then after about 7 weeks the power and USB connections began failing and I'd have to jiggle them to make them work. At that point, I had to buy another hard drive to transfer the data to (good thing this Fantom thing was cheap). At the moment, the files that didn't make it during the transfer are trapped on this Fantom thing and a friend of mine is going to try to help me recover them. I would recommend backing up anything you put on here. If you make it a habit to take risks, go ahead and try this Fantom drive.
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5 of 5 Great Value 7/2/2008
Nigel Fairbank from Brooksville, Florida
I purchased this drive to replace a full 160GB backup drive.
Easy to setup. Noticably faster than some of my other external drives.
So far, no negatives. In fact looking to purchase one or two of the Fantom/Micronet 1 TB units.
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5 of 5 Back up your important Data and take it with you! 6/25/2008
Tony Welly from Hicksville, Ohio
This is a great way to back up important file or do a whole ghost back up!!!
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4.7 of 5 good value 6/23/2008
from phial, PA
Set up was easy outside of the recommendation to re-format the drive which took a few extra minutes.
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4.7 of 5 Plugs and works right away.. 6/20/2008
from Oaklyn, NJ
Simple to set up and get working. I'm on a Mac, and simple format instructions had it going in a few minutes. It's my third external and it works as good as the other two (Acom and an "I'm not sure".) Maybe not the fastest external HD, but it's a good piece of equipment....
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4 of 5 Good Product But Rebate is Fraud!!!! 6/20/2008
milind_friendy from Philadelphia, PA
Beware my friends ... the product is good, just like all others mentioned but the Rebate will not be honored. Following are few important facts :
1. Rebates processed by www.promoprocess.com
2. Buy.com does not send Invoice with the shipment. What you receice is the "Packaging Slip" !!!!
3. For rebate to be honored, you MUST send the INVOICE , which you can print from the buy.com website.
4. Make sure to attach INVOICE not the PACKAGING SLIP with your rebate form.
My rebate got reject for this reason, hope the luck shines upon you.
Good Luck !
Milind
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5 of 5 Good Value 6/18/2008
heddy from pittsburgh
I bought 3 of these a few weeks ago and have been happy thus far. It is true what they say, the LED is extremely bright blue. Mine are in a network closet so it doesn't both me at all.
They came formatting in FAT, so I switched them to NTFS, which took a while (lots of space). All 3 are in action and working well. I like the design and the preformance seems to be fine (I have only used a few externals, I can't tell which is fastest). Xcopy takes a long time to run no matter how mast the drive is.
Overall the price is what makes this a great product. I was hoping to get 3 rebates, I only got one - disappointing - but my fault, it is definately stated on the terms (oh well).
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4.3 of 5 Good 6/17/2008
from Lowell MA
Good one for the money paid
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5 of 5 Smooth & quiet 6/16/2008
scottrx from St. George, Utah
Plug it in, re-format it, and it purrs along very nicely.
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4.7 of 5 Good bootable Mac OS X backup drive 6/15/2008
Gary from Columbia, MD
I've had this drive for a couple weeks and have been satisfied. I've used Carbon Copy Cloner to make bootable backups of two Mac OS X 10.4 machines to this drive. After doing an "Erase and Install" of 10.5 (Leopard), the Apple Migration Assistant reinstalled my user data and applications from the Fantom drive with no hiccups.
I can't speak to the performance--haven't compared with benchmarks--but I think it's been fine. There's a version of this drive that also has a Firewire port; I expect that would be a bit faster, but I'm sure it would be more expensive.
I just submitted the rebate--hopefully that won't be a hassle. Overall thumbs up, particularly at the price.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Excellent so far. 6/13/2008
from Richmond, VA
I could not be happier with this external hard drive. The unit is pretty small, easy to connect, and ready to use in minutes. Simply drag-and-drop folders or files and they quickly transfer.
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5 of 5 Great little hard drive 6/10/2008
from Rockville, MD
Never thought I'd call a 500 GB hard drive "little," but it is relatively small, quiet and has been very reliable. I'd recommend it.
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5 of 5 No problems at all 6/9/2008
Duane from York, PA
I saw many reviews complaining about this product, and I saw the percentages of satisfied vs. dissatified. However, when I compared to products from other vendors the stats were about the same and complaints were for the same things. So I figured for the price I'll give it a shot. I've only had it for two weeks but I have had NO trouble at all with it. We'll see in 1 year, but for now it's been great.
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4 of 5 Good deal for an OK Drive 6/8/2008
from Virginia
First one was dead on arrival. They sent a second that was a bit unstable. I did a full reformat (not a quick format) which takes about an hour. Since then it has been perfect. I think it is a good idea to do a full reformat on any drive that I get, but you may not think so. I also think that the initial dead drive was a one off event. So all in all the price was very good and the drive is working fine.
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0 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
1 of 5 Worst product i have ever used 6/3/2008
from NJ
Did not work after couple of days. did not received good response while i want to return the product. didn't heard any thing about refund??? worth spending money on good brand product like WD.
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1 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
1 of 5 My files disappeared 5/30/2008
from Pleasanton, CA
After using the HD for less than a week, my files started disappearing. Unfortunately, it's past the 14 days since placing the order on Buy.com, so I couldn't even return or exchange the drive. In order to get the HD fixed by Fantom, you need to get an return authorization and it's only a "FIX".
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2 of 3 customers found this review helpful.
3.7 of 5 OK HDD, but don't expect to actually get the rebat 5/29/2008
Jon D from New York, NY
This is my 3rd external HDD. It slower than my 2.5" LaCie, but just as quiet.
Note that your USB power is insufficient, and you will need to use an external power supply (included) as with most 3.5" external HDD.
I am still waiting on the rebate check from Fantom. They will use all sorts of excuses not to pay (e.g., did not include receipt, never received the rebate form, form not signed). There are a few of us who purchased this HDD from buy.com, and signed up for the online rebate tracking. Each of us received a note indicating there was something wrong with the rebate request, and the rebate was denied. Still following up with buy.com and Fantom - neither are responding.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
4.7 of 5 Nice External Drive 5/27/2008
Ken from Gainesville, Florida
nice small compact external drive.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 A true plug and play 5/26/2008
Jerry from Plymouth, MA
Sweet deal. Silent and efficient. My other one has been retired to the "outback" because the fan noise was unbearable.
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4.3 of 5 Not the best... 5/26/2008
from Islip, Long Island, NY
I've had this for about 2 years now. It is a good stable drive, but it is loud, and has a very annoying (and very bright) blue light that never goes off. Another problem I have is that when this drive goes into sleep mode, it takes an annoying couple of seconds for it to start up. Another annoyance is that when you open up any document (word, excel, notepad, etc.) the drive has to come out of this sleep mode first, and then your document will open (even if the document doesn't exist on the drive) - I don't understand this. Never had any issues with the drive itself though (yet). Overall, there are much better drives out there that I would recommend before buying this. Oh yeah...did I mention the annoying blue light!!!
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4 of 5 Not bad so far 5/21/2008
oneretseabee from Choctaw, Ok
I haven't worked it real hard, but I'm happy with it so far.
I've a couple of LaCie's & a couple of Maxtors that I'm really impressed with...time will tell.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Good Value 5/21/2008
from Brookfield WI
No problems to date; easy set up (actually no setup).
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 500GB HD 5/21/2008
Ronald Schimes from Fort Wayne, IN
What can I say, very fast, Holds close to 500GB and hooked up as easy as sticking in a USB memory stick. It really couldn't be any easier. Very pleased with it.
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3.7 of 5 Good Value for price 5/21/2008
P Rao from Blaine, MN
My First Backup Device has worked flawlessly. The time to format the drive is a pain. Also does not come with any back up software.
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1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Great price for what I got!!! 5/21/2008
from Buffalo, NY
Easy to use, easy to install, great value! I was expecting the full 500GB but for some reason all hard drives have a little bit less than what is actually advertised. It is bigger than what I expected but than again it does have a decent amount of drive space. Computer picks it up as a separate hard drive and needs virtually no installation. Great buy, would buy again!
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4.7 of 5 It is great - thanks. 5/20/2008
from NJ
I like it very much
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5 of 5 Works well with my pc laptop but not my MacBook Pr 5/19/2008
from North Chili, NY
This drive works no problem with my HP laptop. Just plug it in and recognizes it right away. But for my MacBook Pro, I need to reboot the machine in order for the Mac OS to see it. A bit inconvenience.
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3 of 5 Compatibility issues 5/19/2008
from mn
I would probably not chose this product again - I would go with WD or try another. I have three of these and am finding the same problem with two (I haven't opened the third). I am using for backing-up data on six machines and have found that most of them do not 'like' this drive.
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5 of 5 Would buy again! 5/19/2008
from Rio Rancho, NM
We got this external hard drive at a great price. It came really fast and was easy to install. It's a nice size and not too bulky. It's good to have for backing up digital photos and videos.
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5 of 5 Just Plug It In! 5/19/2008
artgolden from Guttenberg, NJ
Took it out of the box, attached the power supply, plugged it in and voila. So simple, a caveman could do it!
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5 of 5 Greatest I;ve had of many -- so far 5/19/2008
willalbert from Punta Gorda, FL
I've had the best, Maxtor, Seagate, others too and perhaps a dozen external hard drives (USB) in the past few years for home & business and school teaching... Most (like the Maxtor) are slow, or die (like the Seagate) after a few months... terrible customer service all, just wound up throwing them in the trash, alas and irate at he waste of our precious natural resources plus my hard-earned cash. This one is inexpensive, BIG in capacity and nicely small in size and best of all FAST reading and writing and being recognized by Windows immediately after I flip the on switch each time I start it up. Let's just hope it lasts 10 years or so instead of ten months or less like the rest.
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4 of 5 Oh, so slow! 5/19/2008
from Columbia, SC
This drive is big and the price was right. But it's about twice as slow as two other external USB drives I have.
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3.7 of 5 Great price, OK value 5/19/2008
from Seattle, WA
Great price on a half-TB of storage, just OK on performance and features. This unit is either on or off and when on generates a lot of heat. It is quiet and was very easy to install. I had to move it from inside my CPU storage cabinet to desktop due to the amount of heat generated. It does not spin down when not in use for prolonged periods of time like some other drives. Had to reformat the drive to NTFS to work properly with Vista and Windows Live One Care. Very slow backup using One Care - took over 20 hours to back up 180GB the first time. For my purposes - secondary backup of important files, I'd buy a drive that spins down and hibernates when not in use.
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5 of 5 Satisfied 5/18/2008
from Oklahoma
Faster than my old IDE hdd on my p4 running ubuntu. Run it non-stop archiving my videos and music, as well as backups. LED is BRIGHT! Case is a little warm but no issues.
Also to get the rebate you have to check the manufacturers website and follow the steps to print a form and mail in your upc with the form. There is no paper work with the product about the rebate be sure and remember it!
Great product for the price.
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4.7 of 5 I hope I do not have the failure others have repor 5/18/2008
gilbert_nicholls from Wimberley, TX
I bought this unit because of the price/GB (if the promised rebate materializes). There where reports at the time of purchase of persons never receiving the rebate! I prefer to buy products with a good price without a rebate. There where also reports of early failures, therefore I am leaving it on all the time (which I do not do with my other external harddrives).
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5 of 5 Works Great! 5/18/2008
from Placentia, CA
Runs 24 hours a day - works great - use it with Symantec Ghost to backup my laptop automatically every night!
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5 of 5 Worth your money! 5/18/2008
Linh from Cali
I have used this one to storage tons of movies and important files and got no problem with it sofar. Overall, it's very fast,convenient, and has nice look ;)
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5 of 5 Great value 5/18/2008
Jeff from Omaha, NE
Received within a few days using normal free shipping.
Very easy to attach and use.
Got the full 500GB of space.
Right on the money.
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5 of 5 Nice Product 5/18/2008
MAB from Troy, MI
I bought it a couple of weeks ago. Product reached on time and it was brand new, as expected. I like it. It is small, easy to install and works good. Formatting was completed in less than 30 min and rest is abundance of storage space. Though it says it is 500 GB but it actually was 465 GB. When compared, 465 GB is also a good amount. Anyways, it is a good product to buy and with the prevailing prices, it is absolutely YES. No problem !
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