Fantom Drives FD DUO Mobile 2 Bay RAID Aluminum Enclosure Silicone Black Bumper Add-On (DMR000ERB)

Easy, clear instructions to format for my MacBook Air and auxiliary drives.

Here is my review of this great device in the first 24 hours of its use. It is the "FD Duo 2TB SSD Portable 2 Bay RAID - USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C - 10Gbps - RAID0/RAID1/JBOD - Aluminum - Compatible with Mac/PC/PS4/Xbox (DMR2000S) by Fantom Drives" sold by Fantom Drives.UNBOXING & BUILD QUALITYThe surprisingly heavy little box was easy to unpack and thoughtfully laid out. The box is small and easy to store away for future use. The device itself is hefty (in a good way) and very well built with its extremely strong black metal enclosure with lovely slighly rounded edges. The little "grille" on the front looks great too and the whole thing is very unassuming, not shouting out for visual attention.The only somewhat ugly thing was the serial number sticker which Fantom put on the side of the enclosure; it should have been on the bottom IMO.The power supply in the box appeared to be, in the hand, about half the total weight of the box, although I am sure it wasn't exactly. So when you first pick the box up, don't worry thinking that the RAID drive is going to be that heavy.There are a couple of tiny blue "activity light" LEDs on one side, and a pinpoint blue LED on the back to show the RAID level selected. There is also a fold-out instruction card included in bottom of the box; I suggest you read it before plugging in: it contains necessary info on how to configure the RAID level you want (see more about this below).POWER SUPPLYI did not need to use the power supply at all with my MacBook Pro 15" connected to the device via the USB-C port. When I plugged the power supply in, there was no difference I could discern, so not needing the power supply is a big plus in my book!!OUT-OF-BOX FIRST USE FOR MACPlugged into my Mac, the drive showed up as a 2TB drive (in RAID 0 mode). Disk Utility "info" does not see the internal drives as SSDs, but that doesn't matter a bit. The RAID was formatted for Windows PCs as NTFS.THE SSDs THEMSELVESI think my device came with two SanDisk SD8SB8U-1T00-2000 drives (aka SanDisk "X400" perhaps), which is different than the drives you find in the same device sold on the Fantom Drives website which come with Western Digital "Blue" SSDs. Perhaps this explains the great difference in price ($348.65 on Fantom's website vs. $289.85 which I paid via Amazon)CONFIGURING RAID & FORMATTINGIt was hard to figure this out even though the instructions clearly say to set the pins and then press "reset" on the body. What I was missing is that (on a Mac at least) you **must** have the drive mounted and running when you press "reset". This went completely against my intuition, since I would think it a bad idea to reset a mounted drive. Nevertheless, Finder simply pops up and says the drive needs to be initialized, which I did using the Erase option in Disk Utility, setting the drive as old-style "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with GUID Partition Map which then gave me a 1 TB RAID as expected.NEW DRIVE SPEEDTESTBlackmagicDesign Disk Speed Test (using the 4 GB test setting) reported the original RAID 0 (2 TB) configuration as having 806 MB/s or greater writes and 857.7MB/s or greater reads. This is great and as advertised. With the device set to RAID 1 (1TB size) and with none of my files on it, writes were 477.7 MB/s and reads were 515.3 MB/s, also great and well above what I expected!REAL-WORLD STRESSFUL COPYI made the new RAID 1 (1 TB) config work hard right away. I copied 92,787 files (422.6 GB) using Finder from a Samsung T5 500 GB SSD to the Fantom Drive Duo (as formatted above) with my MacBook Pro 15" plugged in to power. Files included:- 1,377 video files comprising 208 GB- 21,173 images comprising 4.24 GB- 3,363 audio files comprising 16.89 GB- 72 GBs of FinalCut Pro Libraries- A 2 GB Photos Library- A 40 GB Virtual Machine…and piles of other stuffThe copy took about 28 minutes to complete (excluding my Mac's preparation for the copy which took 34 seconds). I imagine I would have spent literally hours staring at my screen if these were old-style spinning platter drives, so I am very happy with this performance.SECOND SPEEDTESTWith all 92,787 files copied over and after letting the drive sit for almost 24 hours(to be sure Spotlight and other processes were all done), the Blackmagic test reported 287.7 MB/s writes and 522.5 MB/s reads. So write speed was down to around 60% of what the empty drive was doing, and reads were the same or better. Still, I am very happy with the performance!I think the drop in write speed may only affect those working with very high-bandwidth video files who are using the Fantom as their live editing drive. For normal storage, I find these speeds to be more than acceptable. (By comparison, my little 500 GB Samsung T5 source drive with *exactly the same* set of files on it has 487.2 MB/s writes and 521.2 MB/s reads, tested with same Speed Test a few moments after the Fantom test.)SLEEPINGMy Mac went through several sleep-wake cycles with its power unplugged, and I am happy to report no issues with the Fantom drive unmounting itself or draining my MBP's battery. That's good news! The LEDs went dark except for the pinpoint blue LED on the back which added its own little blue glow to my office at night. You could easily tape over it if complete darkness is needed.EQUIPMENT USEDMacBook Pro 15" late 2018 "Vega 20" model with 32GB RAMAll connections to drives via USB-C with thick shielded good quality cablesMac power plugged in during file copy test with no other apps using significant processor time.I hope this helps someone out. Overall I have no "cons" and only "pros" for this device. Disclosures: I am not a paid reviewer, I write *very* few reviews and only do so for products I really appreciate, and I bought this with my own money.

I have both this and the StarTech S252BU313R and they both have their pluses. Both worked with two 8TB Samsung SSD's (16TB total). The StarTech has an on/off switch and speed adjustable fan, but the USB 10Gbps cable connector format is rarer, the lights on the front are very bright, and the case is twice the height of the Fantom. This Fantom has no on/off switch or fan, but is thinner, uses a more standard USB-C cable, the lights on the side are more pleasant to the eye, and the optional rubber proctor (made in China) offers great protection. I couldn't get the Fantom to format APFS on my iMac, but it did on a Mac mini and then it worked in APFS back on the iMac where I could reformat APFS (odd it took the mini to make it work, maybe it's my iMac's fault). Otherwise, they both worked in Ext4 (Linux), NTFS (Win), Journaled, and APFS (Apple) formats. When setting the jumpers for RAID the StarTech Reset when clicked changed a little faster, while the Fantom needed to be set, and then the Reset held for about 3 seconds or so until the light (a light indicator is found on the Fantom, no light indicator on the StarTech) moved to the corresponding setting. Without waiting the jumpers on the Fantom didn't automatically correlate to the RAID setting and problems resulted.Overall the StarTech seemed easier to implement with more features albeit while larger in size, but I like the Fantom's smaller size, the optional rubber protector, a fan really isn't needed with SSD so much, the lights on the side worked perfectly, and the case itself is made in the USA. I would prefer an on/off, but I still like the Fantom, one just needs to hold the Reset long enough when changing RAID - which is seldom done anyway, and all will align and work as it should. The Fantom seems less dependent on the included power wart too - in part because I use the Fan on the StarTech (hey, it's there) while the Fantom worked okay with just the USB power, but I usually use the power plug anyway for added peace of mind. For transporting data from home to office the smaller Fantom with rubber cover may be preferable - but since I use the power wart too, I need to look into getting both a second power plug and good quality USB-C cable. I always buy the best connection cables I can get anyway.I am keeping and using both...it's almost a six of one and half a dozen of the other.If these could be customized, I'd add an on/off to the Phantom and get them to sell as another accessory sole power plugs too so I could just carry the case to and from work. Or change the connector to a USB-C on the StarTech and get them to sell a rubber protector and extra power adapters. Twice the height of the StarTech is more awkward and bulkier though. Maybe you are okay forgoing the power adaptor too...and then the smaller Fantom might be preferred, but it's my data so I like knowing the added power is there if needed. Then too, the multi-speed fan can be turned off on the StarTech making it as silent as the Fantom.They do sell universal power adapters...I might get one for the office and carry the USA made Fantom case with its rubber cover accessory from China. When unplugged it is off after all. Almost perfect.

This is the exact same item as the Vantec NexStar NST-272S3 except that it has USB 3.0 C socket for data/power and a 3.5mm DC socket for added power. The Vantec has USB 3.0 micro B for data/power and a USB 3.0 mini B for added power only. I decided to "upgrade" to USB C because I was having trouble with one of my micro B connections--it would not always work. It turns out it was the cable, not the Vantec.Anyway, this box works well except that the 3.5mm socket is not reliable. If you wiggle the power plug, you can hear a little click-click coming from inside the box. That is not good. If you want to rely on power coming in through the USB C conn. then this RAID box works great. But if you need the extra power, then you might have a problem.I use HDD drives in my RAID boxes for two reasons: One, they consume less power than SSDs and two, I don't yet trust SSDs for long-term storage of data. Will my data still be there after five or ten years? I don't know. I decided to return this item for a refund and stay with my Vantecs (I have six of them).

I bought one empty enclosure installed with two Micron 5300 Max SSDs. The enclosure is by far the most compact one. This is a very good portable device. I had other brands' dual bays enclosures, but they are kind of big. You will love this enclosure if you buy it. Another concern is updating firmware. I do not expect to manage the SSDs in this USB enclosure. However, I can use Micron Storage Executive to check firmware in this USB enclosure. I am not sure it's because of the enclosure with new chips or Micron SSDs with other designs. I will update the comments after further use.[Updates, Reduced one star from 5 to 4]: The enclosure is still the most compact one for two SSDs set-up. I really like the enclosure design. After using two Micron 5300 Max as Raid 0, the speed keeps around 500~600 Mb/sec; I tried the same set-up in my thunderbolt 3 raid enclosure, the speed can reach >800 Mb/sec in reading; >700 Mb/sec in writing. I even tried to plug a power adapter to enhance the performance; but it didn't work. Although I can use Micron software to check the firmware, I only see one drive, not two. So I will not update the firmware under a raid 0 set-up in a USB enclosure. Compared to the first reviewer, I would conclude the Micron 5300 SSDs are not the best fit for this enclosure. However, if you like a portable dual drive, this one should be your shopping list!