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G-Technology kicks out USB 3.0 G-Drives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro well-fed

Jon Fingas — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:01:00 -0400

If you've just picked up a MacBook Pro with Retina display or a 2012-era MacBook Air, you may be jonesing for a matching external hard drive to take advantage of that much-awaited USB 3.0 support. G-Technology has you covered -- and how. Updated versions of the laptop-oriented G-Drive Mini, Mobile and Slim (you're looking at the Mobile up top) all roll in the higher peak speeds and progressively trade raw speed as well as 1TB capacities for sleekness, while the twin-drive, 1.5TB G-RAID Mini will tax that 5Gbps bandwidth without becoming too ungainly. Not taking your external storage on the road? The single-disk G-Drive now climbs to 4TB in addition to jumping on the USB 3.0 bandwagon, and the dual-drive G-RAID will serve up as much as 8TB at the newly brisk speeds. All but the G-Drive Slim support FireWire to ease those jitters over transitioning from old to new, although they won't all arrive at the same time. Most of the G-Drive and G-RAID gear will be showing up in August at prices between $110 and $810, but the two Mini-labelled drives could be a bit late to the party with a less defined summer target. You can get the full scoop after the break.

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USB 3.0 for Mac review and benchmarks (with a LaCie 2big USB 3.0)

Darren Murph — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:45:00 -0500

It took LaCie nearly a full year to ship the 2big USB 3.0 RAID drive -- a device that was announced in the fall of 2009 -- but now that it's here, it's being accompanied by a concept that actually far outshines the unit itself: USB 3.0 on a Mac. For whatever reason, Apple has refused to offer SuperSpeed USB on any of its machines, even a fully specced-out Mac Pro costing well north of $10,000. We've seen purported emails from Steve Jobs noting that USB 3.0 just isn't mainstream enough to sweat just yet, but coming from the guy who's still bearish on Blu-ray, we get the feeling that it'll be ~~quite some time~~ far too long before Apple finally caves and upgrades from USB 2.0. We're obviously no fans of the holdout -- after all, even a few sub-$500 netbooks are enjoying the SuperSpeed spoils already -- so we couldn't have possibly been more excited to hear that a longstanding storage vendor was about to fill the void that Cupertino continues to ignore. We were able to pick up a LaCie USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card as well as a 4TB (2 x 2TB) 2big USB 3.0 drive and put the whole setup through its paces on our in-house Mac Pro. Care to see how it stacked up against USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800? Head on past the break for the grisly details.

Gallery: LaCie USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card and 2big HDD

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Seagate introduces new GoFlex range: multi-port HDDs, media players, etc.

Darren Murph — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:00:00 -0400

We all knew Seagate's FreeAgent line couldn't hang around forever, and tonight the storage mainstay has revealed the next logical step for the line. The GoFlex family is one of the more varied ranges out there from any hard drive maker, with the primary intent on the HDD side being to create drives (ranging from 320GB to 2TB) that are friendly with both Macs and PCs (simultaneously) while also giving users the ability to upgrade their connection or switch it out depending on what workstation they interface with. The new crew supports USB 2.0 out of the box, though upgrading to USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA can be accomplished via the new GoFlex cable system. Also launched today is the GoFlex TV HD media player, which essentially acts as a liaison between your tele and your media, regardless of whether it's stored locally, on the LAN or on the internet. Moving on, there's the GoFlex Net media sharing device, which transforms any USB mass storage device into one that's happy to pump out content via the 'net -- think Pogoplug, and you've pretty much got the idea. It looks as if the whole crew will be available for purchase starting this week, with the full list of details and prices just beyond the break.

Gallery: Seagate GoFlex hard drives

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Verbatim's SureFire FireWire 800 external HDD does all it can to cater to new MacBook Pro owners

Ross Miller — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:51:00 -0400

There's no question in our minds that Verbatim had brand new Macbook Pro owners in mind when it developed this addition to the SureFire external hard drive lineup. Let's run through the features: it comes HFS+ formatted for OS X, it's got touted support for Time Machine, and it features a FireWire 800 port, which is once again useful for Apple consumers, along with USB 2.0. It's even got a fingerprint resistant matte finish, which might just make you a bit envious given your own lack of matte options at present. Just a little bit larger and heavier than your iPhone, it comes with a leather case, all the necessary cables, and 250GB / 320GB / 500GB capacities, all 5400RPM, with prices ranging from $110 to $180.

[Via Yahoo! Tech]

Filed under: Storage

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Goodbye, FireWire 400

Nilay Patel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:01:00 -0500

We'll miss you.

Filed under: Peripherals

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OWC introduces first external Blu-ray drive with quad interface

Darren Murph — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:41:00 -0400

It's debatable whether or not Apple is losing its touch with FireWire, but you can rest assured that OWC hasn't. Said outfit has just announced the industry's first Blu-ray external drive with a quad interface, meaning you can link it up to your PC or Mac via FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 or eSATA. The Mercury Pro SW-5583 arrives with the capability to toast BD-Rs at a rate of 4x and includes a pair of 25GB BD-R discs for $499.99; the closely related Mercury Pro SW-5583T throws in a full retail version of Roxio Toast 9 Titanium (OS X) and sells for $579.99. Now, if only we could convince Steve that Blu-ray and Macs could indeed get along together, we'd really be satisfied. Full release after the break.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Storage

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OWC introduces first external Blu-ray drive with quad interface

Darren Murph — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:31:00 -0400

Filed under: Blu-ray, Players, Recorders, HD

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Fantom Drives releases roomy new Triple Interface G-Force MegaDisks

Darren Murph — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:39:00 -0400

It's an all too common dilemma: you've thrown down some serious change for a new Mac Pro and Godot brushed metal DAP, but you've got nowhere to turn for a massive external hard disk that sports that token cheese grater look. Okay, so it's probably not "common" per se, but if it's your reality, Fantom has the solution. The G-Force MegaDisk is the latest lineup of Mac-ish looking external drives; touted as a "heat dissipating aluminum enclosure," the sleek box drive sports USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. The MDC500 and MDC800 house 7,200RPM SATA II drives with 32MB cache, each with 500GB and 800GB, respectively -- the big boys, also known as the MDC1000 and MCD1500, rock 1TB and 1.5TB of SATA II storage, but "only" manage 16MB of cache. The Fantom Four can be snapped up now for $269.95, $499.95, $599.95, and $999.95, running from smallest to roomiest, and looks to be today's surefire winner in the Mac Pro sidekick contest.

[Via MacMinute]

Filed under: Storage

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WD adds FireWire 800 to MyBook Pro external drives

Evan Blass — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:19:00 -0400

So if you were interested in one of those decorative MyBook hard drives from Western Digital, but the spouse/kids felt that its FireWire 400 port just wasn't fast enough for their data transferring needs, now the whole family may be able to agree on these drives-in-disguise thanks to a key spec bump in the Professional series. Both the 500GB and 200GB Pro models now come with a FireWire 800 connection -- giving you maximum transfer speeds of 800Mbps -- along with the previous FireWire and USB 2.0 jacks, which offer pokier 400Mbps and 480Mbps, respectively. Shipping now, these models will set you back $350 or $220, depending on capacity.

[Via Reg Hardware]

Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

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