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Another factor boosting external hard drive sales is the exploding popularity of digital photography and video on personal computers, with the often super-sized files requiring storage space - lots of it, a need nicely addressed by the latest multi–terabyte hard drives that are now the cutting edge. Hard drive specialist Hitachi has determined that vertical product integration is a desirable business plan, recently taking over both the SimpleTech SimpleDrive external hard drive brand, and likewise with the California-based G-Technology brand, whose new G-Drive quad-interface model is the subject of this first-look mini-review.
One thing that will particularly appeal to Mac-users about this product is that the G-Technology has obviously made Mac - friendliness a priority, rather than adding Mac support as an afterthought playing second fiddle to Windows-compatibility, which is the case with some competing products.
For example, the G-Drive Professional External Hard Drive comes out-of-the-box Mac-formatted and Time Machine ready for true plug in and play convenience. Then there's the drive's all-aluminum housing, whose styling and engineering are obviously Apple-influenced, complementing current Apple styling conventions harmoniously. The perforated aluminum end panels are especially evocative of Apple's Mac Pro tower machines. The aluminum enclosure is also 100% recyclable, giving this unit serious "green" credentials.
G-Drive is also a very rugged piece of equipment - probably the most robust such product this reviewer has yet encountered.
Another cool feature - literally - is a built-in finned aluminum heat sink that helps dissipate heat generated by the 7200 RPM Hitachi SATA 2 hard drive (with up to 32 MB cache) by passive convection without resorting to noisy cooling fans. It isn't whisper-quiet by any means. There's a full-sized 7,200 RPM 3.5" hard drive in there after all, but as with the unibody MacBook Pros, the solid aluminum housing seems to deaden internal noise somewhat.
As noted, the G.-Drive professional hard drive features a quad I/O interface, with a 3 Gbit eSATA port, two FireWire 800 ports - which also support FireWire 400 with the included adapter cable, and a USB 2.0 port.
Also as mentioned above, the drive comes formatted for Mac (HFS + journaled) and is Apple Time Machine ready out-of-the-box. it sports the acclaimed Oxford 934 chipset, and supports MacOS X 10.3 and higher, and Windows Vista, XP, 2000 (presumably Windows 7 as well). G-Drive also supports professional music production tools including Pro Tools, Logic Studio, Cubase, Nuendo, Digital Performer, and others.
At 9.25" x 1.25" x .82" (230 x 130 x 46 mm), and weighing in at 2.6 pounds (1.2 kg), the G-Drive is no lightweight pocket drive (a mini G-Drive is available, however), but as I mentioned, this is an extremely robust unit that fairly hollers "professional grade hardware."
Bundled in the package with the drive unit are an AC power supply (100 - 240 v), a FireWire 800 cable, a FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable, and eSATA cable, and a USB 2.0 cable, measuring 1.8 m, 1.8 m, 1.6 m, and 1.0 m respectively.
Unfortunately, there is no hard copy documentation whatsoever, other than what's printed on the shipping box, but there is a digital product manual delivered on CD media, and online backup is available at http://www.g-technology.com/support. Product registration is also online at http://www.g-technology.com/register .
G-DRIVE is backed by a standard 3-year factory warranty and unlimited free technical support
G-Drive is available in three capacities - 500GB at $149.99, 1 TB at $199.99, and 2 TB at $349.99
For more information, visit:
http://www.g-technology.com
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