G-Technology announced a new wrinkle in a product category that's become a critical part of digital production toolkits. For the first time, the company is making its external drives for Macs available in solid-state formats. The company said customers would find the new drives capable of withstanding "extreme shock" (up to 1500 Gs) and able to operate reliably at higher altitudes, vibration and temperatures than hard disks.
"These are not your daddy's drives," cracked G-Technology VP Roger Mabon in a prepared statement, admitting that the new units serve a "very niche market.
In all, G-Tech announced four new drives. The G-Drive mini SSD is available in 120 GB ($599) and 250 GB ($1299) versions and sports FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connectivity. Data transfer speed is more than 60 MB/sec writing and 75 MB/sec reading via FireWire 800. The drives weigh 8.5 ounces and suck power via USB or FireWire, meaning no power cables need be packed.
Moving up the ladder, the two-drive G-RAID mini SSD delivers up to 195 MB/sec via eSATA, FireWire800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 as a RAID 0 device. Via eSATA, the system supports playback of five simultaneous ProRes 422 HQ streams and a single stream of uncompressed HD, the company said. The FireWire-powered drives can also be configured for RAID 1 data-mirroring, targeting users of cameras like the Red One, Panasonics P2 and Sony's SxS. The drive is available in 250 GB ($999) and 500 GB ($2199) versions. The larger drive can hold more than 5.5 hours of ProRes 422 footage.
Comments (12) for "G-Tech Launches External Solid-State Drive Line-up"
1.
Looks and sounds good to me..... BUT...... why are you not offering this product so that I can use same on a notebook configured with WIN XP 64?? Am I missing something here??
Posted by Spencer M. Schulman on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 @ 05:12 PM
2.
Like LaCie, G-Tech drives are pre-formatted for Mac systems. These drives are compatible with ANY computer (Mac, PC, Linux...); it just requires a re-format before using. All Mac users know this well; we have to re-format most off the shelf drives that have been formatted for PC.
Posted by Mathew Medeiros on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 @ 08:33 PM
3.
I think you're missing a Mac ... LOL ... But I bet these will work with a PC too. It might take some initialization/formating on a Mac to begin with, but then you could use them on a PC ...
Posted by Walker Evans on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 @ 10:05 PM
4.
The real question is why one would need a solid state drive in this form factor.
For most uses a regular hard drive will work just as well for about a tenth of the price.
On the other hand, a SSD in a much smaller form factor enclosure connected directly to a camera via FireWire? No worries about shock or drive crashes - a big win there.
Posted by Bill on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 @ 02:35 AM
5.
will you be able to connect these drives to the hvx200 and record straight to the drives?
Posted by Sam on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 @ 12:03 PM
6.
Regular hard drives have moving parts which can fail or break. SSD's will prove to be a much safer choice if you're interested and having less data loss incidents with your valuable footage. If you've experienced just one drive failure and loss of data you will not have a problem with paying more money to secure that footage.
Posted by Jeff Marsten on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 @ 12:07 PM
7.
If I am understanding correctly, the mini SSD dual raid should be able to work with my Canon xl-h1 as a live-drive, via the firewire output at 1440x1080 progressive. If this is so, would the drive be powered from the camera's battery source. And would the "takes" be recorded by file names? And if so, would there be some kind of SDI input solution. All in all, if these drives would work like I'm hoping, I want one now! Thanks, Edmond Stevens
Posted by Edmond Stevens on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 @ 11:51 PM
8.
Cool product. I killed a portable drive in the field because I snagged the Firewire cable while the drive was writing (ouch!) so I can see the value of an SSD. But the data rates don't seem to add up to me. If one drive can write 60 MB/sec then two of the drives RAIDed shouldn't be able to do 195 MB/sec. One of those numbers has to be wrong.
Posted by Jeff Beaumont on Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 02:58 PM
9.
I shoot extreme action & high vibration, impact situations. I'm still trying to find a low cost, stable recording dvr, be it a
hard drive or SD card recorder, small enough to be worn or mounted, that will accept helmutcam & other camera situations. I am open for any suggestions.
Posted by Peter Jordan on Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 10:21 PM
10.
$1299 for 250GB? Is this a joke? Why even bother using a solid state drive with a firewire bus, talk about big bottle neck. And who needs to withstand extreme shock up to 1500Gs, endure higher altitudes, vibration, temperatures. If you do then you might as well just hand over your money. I have never seen anything so ridiculous.
Posted by Lucy Brown on Monday, February 2, 2009 @ 06:13 PM
11.
It's cheap at twice the price. I have a 100 gig drive that ONLY cost me $1,000 that hangs on the back end of my HD video camera. Yes, I'm serious, and yes, that is cheap. So a firewire/SATA drive that has (with SATA) 3x the bandwidth and virtually no error problems I can edit in the field on ANY HD format with a PC/Mac and be rocking? You bet! I kill drives yearly, especially in the summer. For HD video editing this is something to think about. You CAN run with a cheap single drive in a USB2 or Firewire with HDV, but honestly you are pushing the limits of the drive in real world with 2 layers of video. If you are using DVCPRO-HD (100 mbs) and similar formats, and you are basically looking at expensive drives like this or probably more $$$$.
Posted by alex humphrey on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 @ 09:00 PM
12.
This is simply a solid state firewire/esata drive. This is NOT a DVR. Tho it would be pretty cool if it was.. and more expensive.
Posted by Joony on Friday, March 20, 2009 @ 08:52 AM
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