G-DRIVE slim
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Hands-on with G-Technology's Mac-friendly, USB 3.0-packing G-Drive slim
When we set out to get hands-on with a hard drive, of all things, you can bet we're going to do more than just pick it up and marvel at how lightweight it is. Here at a gdgt event in New York City, we spotted G-Technology's new Mac-friendly USB 3.0 drives on display and immediately got to work running some speed tests on the thinnest of the bunch, the G-Drive slim. Though transfer rates varied, both download and upload speeds tended to hover around 95 MB/s, and that was after ten or so runs in the Blackmagic benchmark. (Next time we'll bring a USB 2.0 cable to test a backward-compatible setup.) According to a company rep staffing the event, the other drives in the lineup, the G-Drive mini, mobile and mobile USB 3.0, should deliver similar performance. Really, the differences here are in the specs: the G-Drive mobile and mini have FireWire ports, and all three offer more storage (750GB to 1TB, as opposed to 500GB for the slim). Design-wise, all the drives on display here seemed fairly impervious to scratches, and that rubberized band around the edges also makes the devices feel a little less delicate. On that point, you can check out the hands-on photos to see what we're talking about, though you'll just have to take our word on the speed testing.%Gallery-159095% Zach Honig contributed to this report.
G-Technology kicks out USB 3.0 G-Drives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro well-fed
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.
G-Tech G-Drive slim: stylish storage in a small package
I've been trying out the G-Tech G Drive slim portable hard drive for a few days and I'm quite impressed with it. The unit I tried was the 320 GB version, and in my "everyday user" tests, the drive performed remarkably well. Design The first thing you notice about the G Drive is that it looks like it was designed by Apple. As usual, that's a very good thing. And as a matter of fact, the G Drive website says that the external hard drive was made to mimic the look and feel of the MacBook Air. Perhaps it's the design of the G Drive that made Apple give this external their unofficial blessing. In a retail setting it's sold exclusively at Apple Stores and can usually be found hooked up to one of the MacBook Pros on display. The G Drive slim is made of a lightweight compact aluminum enclosure with a black rubber trim around the edges and features a single USB 2.0 port. The size of the enclosure is roughly 5"x3.2" and only 9.9mm thick. Best of all, it weighs only 0.33 pounds, so throwing it into your backpack, laptop case, or even a jacket pocket hardly adds any noticeable weight to your baggage. Usage Inside the G Drive slim you'll find a 2.5" 5400RPM Hitachi hard drive. Since the G Drive slim uses a USB interface, you've got a theoretical data transfer rate of 480 MB/s. But as to be expected, real-world usage is always slower. Still, transferring a 1 GB folder full of photos from my Mac to the drive took only about 38 seconds. That's not too bad for a consumer drive where design is clearly the most important element. Out of the box the G Drive slim is Mac-ready. It ships formatted for any Mac running OS X 10.5 of later. The drive is also Time Machine-compatible right out of the box. Also, for those of you with a Mac and PC household, though the drive is Mac-inspired and ready, you can still use it with any PC running Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7. Conclusion Nowadays a 320 GB USB drive doesn't sound like much, especially one that costs US$99. However, the target audience for this drive isn't one who wants to back up dozens and dozens of HD video files or use the drive as a scratch disk for video editing. It's for those people who want a quick, stylish, and easy way to store and transfer their photos, documents, and music. And most of the people in that group (including me) care more about design and portability than having the latest and greatest Thunderbolt devices. The 320 GB G Drive slim is available for US$99 at Apple retail stores, Apple Online, and on Amazon.com.
Hitachi GST's G-Drive Slim: world's thinnest 2.5-inch external hard drive
Not like we need our 2.5-inch external drives to get that much smaller, but who are we to kvetch about progress? Hitachi GST has just outed what it calls the thinnest 2.5-inch external hard drive in the world. The G-Drive Slim is encased in a 128.6- x 82- x 9.9mm aluminum enclosure, and tucked within is a slimmer-than-usual 7mm Travelstar Z5K320 hard drive. The USB-powered unit comes formatted for use with Macs, but a quick reformat on your Windows machine will have its mind changed in no time flat. For now, it's only available in a 320GB flavor for $99.99, and you'll only find it at your local Apple Store.
