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Review: Two blazing fast G-Technology SSDs for on the move and in the office.
The choice available for SSDs now is growing all the time. We take a look at two options from G-Technology that promise blazing speeds, and durability.
When you are looking for a storage drive there are now countless options available, from credit card sized drives through to big desktop models. The two I’m reviewing here will suit those looking for a rugged system to take out into the field, and one that will be more at home on your desktop without taking up too much space. The G-Drive Mobile Pro, and the G-Drive Pro.
The G-Drive Mobile Pro SSD
The G-Drive Mobile Pro
The G-Drive Mobile Pro comes with the big promise of 2800MB/s transfer speeds. I’ll talk about this in the real world in just a moment, but let’s start with the build quality.
The G-Drive Mobile Pro looks lovely. It really does. I know that the looks of a storage drive technically shouldn’t be in the forefront of users minds, but I do love good industrial design, and true to G-Technology’s previous form the Mobile Pro doesn’t disappoint. It looks great. From the metallic ends (I’m not sure if they are actually metal or not) through to the rubberised main body with a grill that allows you to see the aluminium blue heatsink chassis beneath, G-Technology has clearly taken things seriously in the looks stakes.
Top view of the G-Drive Mobile Pro showing the aluminium chassis under the rubberised protective outer body
At the front of the drive is a small power light, while the rear is home to a single Thunderbolt 3 port. The body itself has been designed with durability in mind with full shock resistance for up to 3-meters of drop height, and a crush proof rating of up to 1000lbs. G-Technology is also claiming that many components are hand picked. This is an SSD then that really is designed to cope with daily on-set and location abuse.
Front and rear views of the G-Drive Mobile Pro
The G-Drive Mobile Pro is available in two capacities, 500GB and 1TB. Our review sample was a 1TB variation. G-Technology state that the drive is capable of a read transfer rate of up to 2800MB/s. I tested it with both the AJA System Test Lite and the Blackmagic Design Disc Speed Test and the results were extremely good as you can see. On my system it managed to hold a sustained speed of over 2000MB/s for both reading and writing tests, with the read speed reaching 2235MB/s at maximum. Regardless of whether it was my system having a bottleneck somewhere preventing the full 2800MB/s from being reached, the speeds it achieved were extremely impressive.
To put it into perspective, the internal SSD drive on my 2016 MacBook Pro manages around 1500MB/s write and 1970MB/s read, so the G-Drive Mobile Pro is quite considerably faster when it comes to writing data. G-Technology has designed the Mobile Pro with future proofing in mind, with such speeds enabling the ability to multi-stream up to 8K footage in some formats.
You do pay for this however, because at $399.95 for the 500GB and $699.95 for the 1TB version, it isn’t cheap. But then you are paying for an extremely high quality set of components, design, and extreme durability. The drive also comes with a 5 year limited warranty. Two words, seriously impressive.
The G-Drive Pro
The G-Drive Pro is the more desktop focussed of the two drives here, although it could well be used quite easily in a portable editing setup as long as you aren’t moving around all the time.
Top view of the G-Drive Pro
The G-Drive Pro’s external chassis design follows on from previous G-Technology HDDs, with its familiar aluminium enclosure, and holed grill style front with illuminated G-Technology logo, which lights up on power on. This is a great looking design, and it is good that it is consistent with previous models so they can all be stacked making for a matching aesthetic.
Unlike the Mobile Pro, this drive requires mains power, and comes supplied with an AC adaptor. The rear of the drive enclosure features an on/off switch, two Thunderbolt 3 ports (for daisy chaining up to 5 devices), a security locking socket, and a fan exhaust for cooling.
Rear view of the G-Technology G-Drive Pro
The G-Drive Pro is available in capacities from 960GB ($1299.95) through to the top end 7.68TB ($7499.95). We were supplied with the 3.84TB version, which retails for $3999.95. The drives come with a limited warranty for 5 years, and has an endurance rating of one full drive write per day for the same period.
As per the Mobile Pro, the Pro has a claimed 2800MB/s read transfer speed. In my tests I managed between 1020-1060MB/s write and around 2000MB/s read. So although the write speed is slower than the Mobile Pro, the read speed is still very, very good indeed.
Speed tests for the G-Technology G-Drive Pro
Both these drives may appear at first to be on the pricey side of things, but you are paying for durability and reliability, and they are more than worth their weight in gold when it comes to the often slow process of transferring data. And they look great while doing it! If you want highly dependable and stunningly fast SSD storage, these are very much well worth a look.
Tags: Technology
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