Fantom G-Force Megadisk 2 TB Network Attached Storage (MDN2000)

by Micronet

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 6.1 x 6.5 inches ; 6.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6.3 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000XUUNHM
• Item model number: MDN2000
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 26, 2007

Product Description

Fantom Drives G-Force MegaDisk NAS is the latest addition to the G-Force MegaDisk family of storage products, packing dual SATA300-NCQ enabled disk mechanisms, dual USB expansion ports, and a gigabit ethernet network connection in the same compact, heat dissipating aluminum enclosure. The G-Force MegaDisk NAS features CIFS/SMB, NFS, and FTP connectivity, USB external disk and printer sharing, iTunes server, and an unattended bittorrent download manager. The G-Force Megadisk NAS supports robust RAID disk configurations including RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD, and SPAN, all monitored and managed via a universal web interface. Award-winning NTI Shadow offers real-time, continuous backup in addtion to scheduled backup to virtually any storage device. Its powerful yet easy to use interface offers customers the ability to securely backup and safeguard their valuable data files. NTI Shadow also offers custom file type filtering, version control, drag and drop file restoring, and more. NTI Shadow supports Windows® XP/2000, Macintosh OS X v 10.2.8+, and U3™ Smart Devices.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I had high hopes, February 18, 2008

By 

Michael Bowers "Restlessmind" (Richmond, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fantom G-Force Megadisk 1 TB Network Attached Storage Raid (MDN1000) (Personal Computers)

In October 2007 was in the market for an inexpensive solution to store a large collection of documents, ebooks and family digital photos. This unit looked interesting and was the right price, so I bought it with my fingers crossed. It performed this task laudably for a few months until the fan got very noisy and started to have intermittent problems spinning up to dissipate the heat.

Hoping to head off problems, I put in a request at Fantom's tech support site to ask if they would like to send just a replacement fan or should I get a replacement unit, and if I can get one shipped and then return the other unit the next day once I've rescued the data from the unit which I now have powered down. Unfortunately, I have heard nothing from them after a week and a half, and have concluded that I probably won't be hearing from them.

I now realize I should have gone with my gut and built out a low-power server myself rather than depending on this unit to safeguard data that's important to me. Once I move this data off the unit, I suspect I'll use it for experimentation rather than as an personal file server. Thanks for nothing, Fantom!

Oh, one more gotcha: even if you turn off the DHCP server on the unit, it will turn itself on if it loses its IP address. This means if you disconnect it from your network or power cycle the switch or router that you have it plugged into it may re-enable the one on board, giving you an extra rogue DHCP server on your network. This can cause all sorts of problems on your network (we routinely threaten to have people at my office shot if they plug something in that has a DHCP server embedded because it causes a LOT of support calls until we track the offender down), and isn't worth the headache.

To resolve this sort of behavior, make sure you power down the unit before disconnecting and reconnecting it to your network or power-cycling the networking device it's attached to. It'll save you headaches in the long run.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Inexpensive But Unreliable, July 31, 2008

By 

la_ham "la_ham" (Shreveport, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fantom G-Force Megadisk 1 TB Network Attached Storage Raid (MDN1000) (Personal Computers)

A Review of the Micronet MDN1000 Fantom Drives G-Force MegaDisk NAS

With a name like that, how can you go wrong? Well, I've now owned two of these little NASs within the span of one year, and I'm about to get a third one, but I haven't had multiple copies because I like this thing...

My first unit was broken right out of the box; its networking hardware was faulty. How I wish that I had simply returned the MDN1000 for a refund rather than doing what I did, which was to get a replacement.

The second one was fully functional out of the box, and I was generally pleased with how easy it was to setup on my home network. Plugged into the wireless router, it provided a nice way to move files around among various computers and store / share my iTunes library. I found its performance to be satisfactory.

However, the device always ran hot, and from the day the drive was first powered on, the noisy little fan on the back ran incessantly. After several months, the little fan STOPPED running incessantly, and when the fan was off, the device became almost too hot to touch. Predictably, it failed (this week) about two months after the fan operation became intermittent.

My drive is still under the 1-year warranty. My contact with the company's tech support people has, so far, been positive; after I reported my problem via email, they emailed back within 24 hours with some basic questions, and my answers convinced them (as I am convinced) that this was a hardware failure. My NAS is on its way back to them now for a warranty repair / replacement.

I would only select this drive if price is overwhelmingly the most important factor in your NAS buying decision. At most, I would recommend it only for occasional home use, not for business or any other "constant on" application. Even for home use, I would only use it for storage of files that are not of great importance and that are routinely backed up to other media. (Don't keep your family photos on this without backing them up somewhere else!) If you buy one, do your best to keep it cool, and return it for repair at the first sign that the fan is going bad.

However, the frustration that I (along with many others - read the other user reviews that you can find through search engines) have had with this thing makes me wish that I had never bought one, and I would recommend that you buy something else as well. Although inexpensive, this device is not a bargain. One star.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Astonishingly unreliable NAS, July 2, 2008

By 

LoneGunman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fantom G-Force Megadisk 1 TB Network Attached Storage Raid (MDN1000) (Personal Computers)

I've had this thing for over a year. Six times I've been convinced it's cooked off a drive because it vanishes from the network and won't get back on. Each time it's just the NAS climbing a tree. Shares don't work. iTunes sharing doesn't work. It's a horrible print server. Tech support is completely unavailable - I once wrote them a "I can't get at my data please help!" email and they got back to me six months later. They've pushed a firmware update that doesn't work at all. They don't answer the phone. This is an awful product from an awful company and there are *no* solutions that wouldn't be better. Avoid like the plague.

2115|R1L4WDUBD9P67M;2115|R34XRJ9C2XADJP;2115|R1EJ2TFVSGC0V6;