G-Drive G-Technology External Hard Drive Review

The G-Technology 2TB eSATA External Hard Drive is the latest drive from G-Technology, part of the Hitachi Global Storage Technologies family. He has a flashy appearance, but is he a home run or one for the bench? Read our G-Drive review to find out…

design and construction

The design and construction of the 2TB G-Drive G-Technology eSATA External Hard Drive is beautiful and premium. Its sensual yet strong metal case is slightly elevated and cleverly conceals a heat sink. The G-Technology 2TB G-Drive eSATA External Hard Drive almost looks like a sleek little baby rhino, which will charge like lightning when the need arises. And boy does it ever.

The G-Drive G-Technology 2TB eSATA external hard drive has a durable and stylish aluminum casing that envelops the drive. The case is very difficult to scratch and protects the unit; It has hundreds of small ventilation holes that allow this tiny rhino to breathe effortlessly and keep the temperature down. The sturdy nature of the drive makes it ideal for stacking under other devices or objects, and it has to be said that it looks fantastic next to an iMac.

On the front face you will find a large elegant “G” with a single white light below. This light is used to show drive activity, but unlike most other hard drives, this light does not blink, but instead becomes brighter when the drive is busy in operation. This is a nice twist on old age and annoying flickering, but as much as G-Tech has taken great strides and put effort into the design, they may have gotten a little too excited about the light as it gets excessively bright during large data transfers. You may wonder “It’s just a small light, how bright could it really be?” and the answer is: pretty bright actually – they resemble the headlights of an oncoming car which might not be a real problem but if you’re someone who likes to work in the dark then you might want to stick a small piece of black electrical tape over the light.

Inside the box

External hard drives often come with nothing more than a USB cable, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that G-Technology has provided in each box all the cables anyone will need to use this drive, not the short ones manufacturers make. . Instead, we came to expect G-Technology to have provided us with cables of generous lengths. Inside the box you will find:

1 x 1.6 meter eSATA cable (black),

1 x 1.8 meter FireWire 800 cable (white)

1 x 1.8 meter FireWire 400 cable (white),

1 x 0.6 meter USB 2.0 cable (white)

1 external hard drive G-DRIVE

1 universal AC power supply.

1 manual CD

1 3-year factory warranty

Set up

Setting up this little rhino is a piece of cake – as simple as plugging in your chosen supplied interface cable, plugging in the AC/DC and pressing the on/off button.

The drive comes ready to plug and play on Mac computers, and it’s Time Machine ready out of the box, which is very handy. If you’re using Windows, then a simple and easy initialization is all you need to complete to get it up and running.

Performance and connectivity

Like an angry rhino attacking an annoying bird that just pulled a nasty prank, the G-Technology G-Drive 2TB eSATA External Hard Drive is ultra-fast and smooth. The drive runs at 7200rpm with up to 32mb cache, which is relatively quiet considering this.

For the fastest performance, you should look to use the eSata port, where you can get transfer rates that exceed the 100MB/second mark, which is perfect for backing up your favorite Blu-ray movies at blazing speeds. . You can also use the FW800 port, which is still extremely impressive at read and write speeds bordering on the 74MB/second and 60MB/second marks, respectively.

Size and weight

The G-Technology G-Drive 2TB eSATA External Hard Drive is a 3.5″ external hard drive and measures approximately – (LxWxH) 9.25″ x 5.125″ x 1.82″ / 235 x 130 x 46mm and weighs 2.6 lbs / 1.2 kg, which is pretty much standard for 3.5″ drives.

specs

SATAIII

7200rpm

Up to 32 MB cache

Integrated heat sink for cooling

Size (LxWxH): 9.25″ x 5.125″ x 1.82″ / 235 x 130 x 46mm

Requires Mac OSX 10.3.x or higher or Windows 2000/XP/Vista

Price

The initial recommended retail price for this unit was US$329 / GBP189 in the UK, but you can get it for around 40% cheaper from online stores. It is strongly recommended that you check with them first.

conclusion

advantage

– Quiet as a mouse

– USB 3.0 = Everything is SUPER fast

– Blazing transfer speeds

– Plug-and-play at its best

– Comes with several cables of generous length

– Instance setup with a Mac and 5 minute setup with Windows

cons

– Too bright light could have been dimmed a bit

Being completely honest, I didn’t have high expectations for this drive, however, I was really impressed and I can safely say that this is one of the best external hard drives on the market right now. It’s beautiful and smartly designed with strong, durable materials while delivering blazing-fast transfer speeds. Some may be put off by it being a 3.5″ size drive, but if you don’t mind that, you’re in for a treat. If size matters to you, we recommend the Western Digital My Passport 2TB, for everyone else, as you probably Whatever you’ve gathered from this G-Technology 2TB G-Drive eSATA External Hard Drive review, this is the drive to get.