G-Technology announced the launch of several new products today including the Evolution Series family and the G-Drive Pro. The Evolution Series is totally new and has been specifically designed with creative professionals such as media editors in mind. The series includes the G-Dock ev with two Thunderbolt ports as well as two drives which both support USB 3.0 and come in slim 2.5″ form factors. The first drive is the G-Drive ev offered in 500GB and 1TB capacities, while the second model is the G-Drive ev Plus 1TB which is differentiated from the ev by its performance gains in transfer speeds. Additionally, the other product offered is the G-Drive Pro which is similar to the G-Technology 4TB G-Drive we recently reviewed, but this model offers a few added features including Thunderbolt.
G-Technology announced the launch of several new products today including the Evolution Series family and the G-Drive Pro. The Evolution Series is totally new and has been specifically designed with creative professionals such as media editors in mind. The series includes the G-Dock ev with two Thunderbolt ports as well as two drives which both support USB 3.0 and come in slim 2.5″ form factors. The first drive is the G-Drive ev offered in 500GB and 1TB capacities, while the second model is the G-Drive ev Plus 1TB which is differentiated from the ev by its performance gains in transfer speeds. Additionally, the other product offered is the G-Drive Pro which is similar to the G-Technology 4TB G-Drive we recently reviewed, but this model offers a few added features including Thunderbolt.
Evolution Series
We’ll begin by looking at the Evolution series family and what makes it unique. G-Technology strongly focused on portability and simplicity. The Evolution branded G-Drive ev and ev Plus can be used as true standalone drives externally and can also be inserted into the G-Dock ev. The thinking here is that user applications will revolve around content distribution with these drives. Since the drives have the ability to function as standalone units, users can backup their camera’s media cards, make distributable copies of a TV show for editing, deliver work securely because of the drives’ rugged designs, etc. Additionally, the dock form factor allows for easy capacity expansion as data growth occurs.
The drives themselves offer users some flexibility as they come in a couple of capacities as well providing different performance levels to meet budget and workflow needs. The G-Drive ev is a 7,200RPM drive in 500GB or 1TB capacities that offers transfer rates up to 136MB/s. G-Technology designed this unit to be used for data backups, duplications, and transferring media. Meanwhile, the sibling G-Drive ev Plus is a faster performer and is offered in a single capacity at 1TB which enables transfers up to 250MB/s. The drives both come in the well-regarded all-aluminum style enclosure that helps G-Technology drives to stand out. They feature USB 3.0, a 6Gb/s SATA interface for connection to the G-DOCK ev, and bottom-mounted labels to keep track of drives.
As for the G-Dock ev with Thunderbolt, it can hold drives in 2 hot-swappable bays, and users can setup JBOD, RAID 0 or RAID 1 configurations. Additionally, as the G-Dock ev interfaces via two Thunderbolt ports, speeds should be quite high. The dock will ship with two 1TB G-Drive ev drives and a Thunderbolt cable, and users can expand the capacity using the G-Drive ev or ev PLUS models to scale up. The dock also features a matching aluminum casing with a Kensington Lock Slot. Designed mostly for Apple users, it comes pre-formatted for Mac.
G-Drive Pro External Hard Drive
The G-DRIVE Pro with Thunderbolt is a compact external hard drive designed to provide users with the robust capacity of HDDs while leveraging Thunderbolt for performance gains over standard drives. The G-Drive Pro will come in both 2TB and 4TB capacities that offer transfer rates up to 480MB/s via the Thunderbolt interface, though without testing it is difficult to judge just how fast these drives will be. Yet, overall the drive provides creative professionals in the market with extremely solid capacity capable of handling the needs of high-resolution video for compressed 4k and multiple streams of 2K, HDV, DVCPro HD, XDCAM HD, ProRes 4444 and uncompressed SD workflows. Like the Evolution Series, the G-Drive Pro is pre-formatted for Mac; it is also Apple Time Machine ready.
Availability
Premiering in May, the G-Dock ev includes two 1TB G-Drive ev modules and will be available for an MSRP of $749.95 including a 3 year warranty.
Additional G-Drive ev modules are available in 500GB and 1TB capacities and can be purchased for an MSRP of $149.95 and $199.95, respectively.
For stronger performance, 1TB G-DRIVE ev PLUS modules will be available slightly later, debuting this summer for an MSRP of $349.95.
The G-DRIVE Pro 4TB with Thunderbolt will also arrive in summer and the MSRP will be $849.95. A 2TB model will be available for $699.95.
UPDATE 12/5/13 – G-Dock ev Review Posted
