Tag Archives: external storage

G-Technology G-Drive Mobile Review

March 17, 2013Apple, Hard Drive, hitachi, mac, storage, USBApple, external hard drive, external storage, Firewire, G-Technology, Macbook, review, storage, usb3Andrew

On review today is the G-Technology G-Drive Mobile, a 1 TB mobile external hard drive. Aimed squarely at the Apple MacBook crowd, the brushed aluminium finish and white LED compliments the host machine, and the combination of both USB3 and FireWire 800 show its Mac heritage. Of course the drive can be formatted for Windows or Linux use but the G-Drive is pre-formatted for HFS+ and is TimeMachine-compatible. As expected, the G-Drive is bus powered so there’s no power adaptor.

The G-Drive Mobile has a couple of touches that set it apart from the other mobile drive offerings. To start with, it comes with all the cables that might be needed, so in the box there’s a USB3 cable, a FireWire 800 cable and a FireWire 400 to 800 cable. There’s no getting the box home only to find the cable need for your setup is missing.

Second, the packaging presents the G-Drive to best effect and the “Getting Started” instructions are printed on the inside lid of the box. Again, it comes back to appealing to the Apple crowd who expect good design.

But enough of how it looks. How does it go? Pretty well actually. Connected up to USB 3, the G-Drive Mobile recorded the following data rates:

– hdparm gave 107 MB/s for buffered disk reads.
– dd gave write speeds around 105 MB/s.
– bonnie++ gave 104 MB/s for writes and 141 MB/s for reads.

I’m fairly sure that those figures make G-Drive Mobile the fastest USB3 unit tested, beating the previous holder by a considerable margin. Under FireWire 400, the figures were obviously slower, but are provided here for comparison.

– hdparm gave 36 MB/s for buffered disk reads.
– dd gave write speeds around 22 MB/s.
– bonnie++ gave 22 MB/s for writes and 55 MB/s for reads.

Price-wise, the model here costs £129.95 but if you want USB3 only, there’s a much sleeker and cheaper version at £109.95 in the Apple store. However, if you need FireWire with USB3, the model viewed above is hard to beat, giving historical compatibility with older gear while also offering fast data transfers on newer kit.

Thanks to G-Technology for providing the G-Drive Mobile to review.

Rocstor Encrypted External Hard Drives

February 25, 2013ces, Security, Special Media, storage, USBces, Data Security, encryption, external hard drive, external storage, Rocstor, SecurityAndrew

Rocstor specialise in data storage and secure encryption solutions: that’s encrypted external hard drives to you and me, but it’s an increasingly important market. Andy and Scott talk to Anthony Rink from Rocstor about how their products can keep your data safe.

Rocstor offers a range of external data storage products with real-time encryption built-in as standard. The encrypted drives meet FIPS Level 2, meaning that it’s hardware-encrypted (not software) and that any tampering of the drive to get at the crypto keys is obviously apparent. To suit different circumstances, some models use tokens, others PINs and some use both with ruggedised and waterproof units also available. Depending on features, $250-$300 gets you 1 TB of secure external storage.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and Scott Ertz of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology for the TechPodcast Network.

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LaCie Thunderbolt at CES Unveiled

January 17, 2012Apple, ces, mac, Special Media, storageApple, ces, esata, external storage, lacie, macintosh, storage, ThunderboltAndrew

LaCie Logo Mike Mihalik from LaCie shows off their new Thunderbolt-connected hard drives for the Apple Macs, including the previously announced Little Big Disk and the new 2big, which has two internal 3.5″ drives. Also announced was the eSata Dock, a docking station that connects legacy SATA devices via Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt offers seriously quick data transfer speeds with write speeds of 252 Mb/s and read speeds of 459 Mb/s shown in the video.

The Little Big Disk is available now, but the 2big and eSata Dock units won’t be available until later in the quarter, with pricing to be announced.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast network.

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Buffalo Gets Extreme

October 19, 2011Hard Drive, storage, USBbuffalo, external hard drive, external storage, usb3Andrew

Buffalo Technology has announced the launch of the MiniStation Extreme, a ruggedised USB3 portable hard drive. Conforming to the US Military’s MIL-STD-810F 516.5 Procedure IV, the shock protection on this drive means that it will survive a fall from over 2 m or 6 ft.

Buffalo MiniStation Extreme Portable Hard Drive

And if securing your data against physical damage isn’t enough, the MiniStation Extreme also comes with 256-bit AES whole/full disk encryption to prevent unauthorised access to your data. There’s an integrated USB3 cable which snaps in and out of the Extreme, keeping it all neat and tidy.

Paul Hudson, Sales Director for Northern Europe at Buffalo Technology said, “The MiniStation Extreme is a prime example of Buffalo’s commitment to product innovation. This latest addition to the MiniStation family is ideal for globetrotters who travel with their PCs and portable HDDs and demand a robust, fast and secure high performance portable storage device. The MiniStation Extreme can withstand free-fall drops of up to 2.3m making it the most robust MiniStation ever.”

The MiniStation Extreme is available in 500 GB and 1 TB sizes at £78 and £113 respectively, and comes in piano black, silver and red. No white yet for the iPhiles.

Competition Time – Freecom Mobile Drive CLS

June 30, 2011storagecompetition, external storage, freecom, ukAndrew

Congratulations to Rich Costin for winning last week’s competition for G Data AntiVirus 2012 – his prize will be on its way to him shortly.

Disappointingly, the number of responses to the competition was a bit low, though the quality of the response was high, so we’re going to try to attract a few more UK GNC readers and listeners to respond. This week the competition is to win the Freecom Mobile Drive CLS and Dock that I originally reviewed back in December. It’s an interesting take on removable storage for multiple 2.5″ drives.

Again, simply leave a comment below saying how you think GNC could be more relevant to a British audience, and I’ll draw at random from the responses in a week.

Thanks to Freecom for the prize and remember, postage to UK addresses only. Good luck.