A wonderfully easy to use and set up drive, let down by its annoying software. Otherwise, it's approaching storage perfection.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131961 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Freecom
• Model: 28397
• Released on: 2006-12-04
• Dimensions: 3.78" h x 4.88" w x 7.87" l, 6.39 pounds
• Hard Disk: 400GB

Manufacturer's Description
The new Freecom DataTank is the ideal platform to store all your valuable data on. The easy to use configuration tool allows you to choose between RAID 0 (striping, combines the capacity of both disks into one volume; you will see the total capacity as one driveletter in your operating system), RAID 1 (mirroring, one disk copies the other automatically, so you always have a safe copy of your data; you will see one driveletter in your operating system for half of the total drive capacity) or JBOD (dual drive letter, both disks will appear as separate drive letters in your operating system). Large storage capacity is one thing, but what about security?Freecom offers the first drive with an Encryption button; at the touch of this button you can access a password protected encrypted partition on the DataTank; your data is encrypted in 128 bit AES standard, which was developed in close cooperation with the US government and is widely recognized as impossible to crack. The DataTank also features Freecom's SYNC button, for synchonizing files between computer and DataTank and vice versa. Equipped with Hi-speed interfaces, the Freecom DataTank gives you speed, space and security, all in one device! Freecom creates storage solutions from a user's perspective, where convenience and quality are key factors.Free your mind.

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Customer Reviews

Great backup drive!
This drive is pretty small, considering what it has inside. I was expecting it to be a lot bigger when I opened it. It has 2 x 400gb hard drives inside, which operate very quietly (most of the time, i'm coming to that).

You have a choice of how you want to use it:
RAID 0 (Fast) mode will combine the two hard disks into 800gb of storage. This means there is a slight speed boost, but you are twice as likely to lose your data.
RAID 1 (Safe) will give you 400gb of storage, which means that if one of the disks fails, there is a spare copy of your data. This is what you would buy this drive for. Anything copied to the drive is backed up automatically, by being copied into both disks.

When it's formatted for use (Mac OS Extended), you have 372.24gb of storage to play with in RAID 1 mode.

It comes with all the cables you need for every connection. You'll want to be using FireWire 800 with this disk, but if you don't have a mac with that port you can use Firewire 400. Don't even bother with USB 2, it's just not suitable for the task.

The build quality is great very very solid. Not cheap and plasticky like a lot of drives.

The only downside I have for it is that there is no physical on/off switch (tsk tsk) and that it seems to rattle from time to time.. touching the top of the unit instantly stops this, so it seems like something is resonating. Not a big deal though.

Overall, I'm very happy. It's working great in conjunction with Mac OS 10.5's time machine feature, plus there's the added bonus that I can throw other large files onto it that wouldn't be backed up with time machine and know they are safe.

Fails to connect via Firewire
After much research for a fast FW800 twin hard drive data store for use in video editing, I chose this Freecom model. It arrived when I expected it to, and the construction is of good quality - nicely packed too.

Unfortunately, when I installed it following the Freecom instructions to the letter, the drive would only connect via USB2, not either Firewire 400 or 800. I have plenty of USB2 drives, and don't need another!

Uninstalled the product and reinstalled it ten times, to no avail. Rang the Freecom 'unlimited technical support' hotline, but got a recorded message about opening hours - at 09.30! Sent an email to support, but am not holding my breath.

Don't buy this product unless you like lots of hassle. The three mini software applications that come with it our confusing and superfluous. This one will be returning to Amazon. Pity, as the construction looked good. Now to see how bad Amazon's return policy will be.