I had the 2TB version of this drive for just under 4 months, using it a few times a week, before it completely died. No lights, no fan - nothing worked. I described the problem to the customer service people, and they stated it was likely a power supply issue. I asked if a power supply problem would impact the data, and they said likely not. They received the drive, and decided that they would format it. It took several days for them to explain exactly what happened, and Richard, Greg and Joe each seemed to be telling me a different story. Richard and Greg stated it was not formatted - yet I told them the drive they sent me was formatted. When I informed them that I would contact the Torrance Police Department as someone must have taken my drive - Joe then stated that the drive had been formatted. While it is their policy to contact the customer before formatting, this time, it seems they forgot. According to Joe, he "had a meeting" to remind people to not format things.
I understand that there is no warranty on the data stored on drives - especially when something is taken in for repair. My main concern about this product is (1) why it failed in the first place, (2) why my drive was formatted and (3) why the response/reply constantly kept changing.
1. The drive simply died. No warning, no clicking sounds, nothing. I asked several times of Richard and Greg what happened to my drive. At first, they would not tell me - they simply repeated "we replaced the power supply and we fixed a component." When I pressed, Greg said "I don't know." When I asked if it would happen again, the response was "probably not." Is this the type of drive you want to store YOUR stuff on if their "experts" don't know why the product fails? For nearly 4 months, it worked great! I transferred over 1.7TB of data onto it. All of that stuff is now gone.
Do you want to risk your data with them?
2. According to Joe, the Tech manager, their policy is to contact the customer before formatting a drive. Joe admitted that was not done this time. How could something like that happen? My e-mails to them said "please save my data." My RMA slip on top of the drive inside the box said, in big blue letters, "please save my data." According to Joe, the tech does not see the box, only the drive. I guess I should have wrote in large print on the drive itself - DO NOT FORMAT! However, no one ever told me before I sent it to them that they would format it.
3. First, no one knew what happened. Then, no one knew where my drive was. Then, the tech was on a trip to Taiwan (all their techs were). Finally, the tech manager said "oh well."
In summation, I have a 3 1 TB drives that have been working great for nearly 4 years. These are the drives you need to get if you want reliable data (LaCie, Beyond Micro and Western Digital). Micronet/Fantom Drive is NOT something you should risk!
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