G-Technology Parent Acquired by Western Digital

07 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in G-Technology, storage

Further consolidating Winchester-based storage technologies, Irvine, CA based Western Digital, manufacturer of internal and external hard disk drives and other storage devices, has agreed to acquire San Jose, CA based Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in a deal valued at $4.3 billion, including $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million common shares, which has a current market value of $750 million. The deal gives Hitachi a 10 percent stake in Western Digital.

In addition to traditional hard disk drives and Solid State Drives for PCs and servers, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is the parent company of Fabrik, Inc. a storage device manufacturer that acquired external storage device manufacturer G-Technology in January 2008. Fabrik was then acquired by Hitachi in April 2009. G-Technology is known for its G-RAID, G-Mobile, and G-Speed external hard drives targeted primarily at Apple’s Macintosh creative community. The external solutions are known for their well thought out and Macintosh-inspired industrial design and performance.

The G-technology G-RAID external storage solution for Macintosh

The G-Technology G-RAID external storage solution for Macintosh is now under Western Digital's tutelage.

Said Steve Milligan, president and CEO of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies said in a prepared statement, “This brings together two industry leaders with consistent track records of strong execution and industry outperformance.”

The deal enables Hitachi to focus on its other markets, including rail, healthcare, and biotechnology. Milligan will serve as president of Western Digital and Hitachi will gain two board seats. Four hard drive manufacturers are left to compete for the world’s storage market: Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, and Toshiba.

Other World Computing (OWC) intros Do It Yourself hard drive kits for MacBook Pros

02 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in Apple Macintosh, notebook computers, storage

Other World Computing (OWC) has introduced Do It Yourself hard drive kits for the 13-, 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro notebook computers announced last week, enabling you to place your freshly swapped MacBook Pro hard drive into an OWC external enclosure. OWC is also offering hard drive replacements in varying capacities from Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Samsung. OWC offers SSD drives from Crucial, Intel, and its own house brand starting at $179 for 50GB models to $1579 for a 480GB model.

OWC's Do it yourself hard drive kits

Sample configurations include:

  • OWC 1TB Hard Drive Kit – $122.99.
  • OWC 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive Kit $124.99
  • OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Solid State Drive (SSD) Kits – priced from $114.99 with capacities of up to 480GB.

Hard drives are sold separately. For more information, visit http://www.macsales.com

SanDisk debuts 45MB/sec SDHC UHS-1 memory card

18 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in DSLR, photography, SDHC UHS-1 memory cards, storage

SanDisk debuts 45MB/sec SDHC UHS-1 memory card
SanDisk Corp. today introduced the Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-1 memory card, a card targeted at those who capture high resolution images and full high definition video with their DSLR and video cameras. UHS-1, an acronym for Ultra High Speed technology, is part of the new SD 3.0 specification that enables cards to achieve up to 45 MB/sec read and write performance. SanDisk also uses its proprietary Power Core controller in the cards, claiming the controller distributes data more efficiently, and with better long term reliability.

SanDisk UHS-1 memory card supports up to 45MB/sec read and write speeds

The card is water proof, temperature proof, shock and vibration proof, and x-ray and magnet proof and is backed by a lifetime limited warranty. In order to achieve these speeds, the digital camera in which the card is being used must support UHS-1. The card comes in 8GB and 32GB capacities with prices ranging between $109 and $349.
www.sandisk.com

The Promise of SSDs

19 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in storage Tags:

Will Solid State Disks replace traditional Winchester-based hard drives any time soon?

Traditional Winchester technology has long been the standard storage technology used for not only the personal computer, but for editing systems as well. On the plus side, hard disk drives are the industry standard because they are cheap, fast, and they get the job done. On the minus side, they are prone to failure, wiping out all your data as well as the time you spent editing that data. So, when another technology comes around in an attempt to challenge the leader in storage technology, people can tend to become skeptical. Read On

G-Technology G-Drive mini 250GB portable hard drive for Macintosh

17 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in Apple Macintosh, storage Tags: ,

G-Technology G-Drive mini 250GB portable hard drive for Macintosh

The G-Drive mini has been one of G-Technology’s most popular portable hard drives for many years. Now with the introduction of the G-Drive mobile, you have two choices in mobile storage from the Hitachi owned company. Both have totally different looks and both have nearly the same footprint. They both connect to your Mac via FireWire 800 or USB 2.0. The only real difference, other than storage capacity, is the G-Drive mini has an on/off switch as well as an AC adapter port, though no adapter is necessary to power the drive, as it is FireWire/USB powered.

G-Drive mini 250GB

G-Drive mini 250GB

The G-Drive mini features a built in heat sink on the bottom of the drive to dissipate heat and ships with two FireWire 800 cables and a USB 2.0 cable as well as a leatherette pouch for carrying the drive to offsite locations. The G-Drive mobile is available in one 500GB configuration only, while the G-Drive mini offers several options with your choice of 5400RPM and 7200RPM hard drives.

G-Drive mini 250GB

The G-Drive mini, left, features an all aluminum enclosure, dual FireWire 800 connections and USB 2.0

Performance
To move a 2.2GB file from a 13-inch MacBook Pro (7200 RPM 500GB Seagate Momentus hard drive) to the G-Drive mini 250GB (232GB formatted) using the FireWire 800 connection too 45 seconds, a mere two seconds faster than the G-Drive mobile we tested back in July. Moving the data via USB 2.0 took a bit less than twice as long at 84 seconds.

The G-Drive mini stacked on a G-Drive mobile

The G-Drive mini stacked on a G-Drive mobile

The dual interface G-Drive mini sports two FireWire 800 connections (the second for daisy chaining an second FireWire 800 drive), as well as a USB 2.0 connection. It has an on/off switch and although there is a legacy DC connector, it is not needed as the drive is powered by the host Macintosh. It is built around a Hitachi 5400RPM SATA 2.5-inch hard drive and comes with three interface cables; a FireWire 800 to FireWire 800, FireWire 800 to FireWire 400, and a USB 2.0 cable.

G-Technology has been offering Macintosh based external hard drive solutions for years, supporting a variety of applications ranging from video editing to photo storage. The beauty with its offerings is their industrial design, rugged quality, and look and feel. Other hard drive manufacturers haven’t really been able to match the simplicity of design that G-Technology offers, in spite of hiring fancy design houses or designers to build a cool looking yet functional external storage solution. The G-Drive mini is several years old already, yet retains its classic look very well.

The G-Drive mini 250GB is priced at $89.99 for the 5400RPM model and $119.99 for the 7200RPM model. It ships with a three-year warranty. For more information, visit www.g-technology.com

Halo Master Chief Mimobot USB Flash Drive

31 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment

by John Virata in storage Tags: , ,

For those of you who are fans of Halo, Mimobot has released a collection of  designer USB Flash drives that feature the characters of Halo on them. Actually the entire drive’s outershell is covered in the character likeness.
While the drives are primarily storage devices, Mimobot has included a variety of Halo content as part of your purchase. This content includes videos, Contact Harvest 41 page novel, wallpaper gallery, a video of the midnight release of Halo 3 and a video titled Spartan Life. Also included are Halo icons, screensavers for both Windows and Macintosh, soundbytes for Windows and Macintosh, and wallpaper in various screen resolutions. The drives are available in 2 to 16GB configurations with prices starting at $19.16.

Halo Master Chief Mimobot USB Flash Drive

Halo Master Chief Mimobot USB Flash Drive

Master Chief $34.95
Blue & Red Spartan $23.95
www.mimoco.com

G-Technology G-Drive mobile 500GB for MacBook Pro

06 Jul 2010 1 Comment

by John Virata in Apple Macintosh, storage

G-Technology has a new mobile drive targeted at users of Apple’s MacBook Pro that is built around the FireWire 800 interface and a 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive. Called the G Drive mobile, the portable FireWire drive is formatted for Apple computers and is a Time Machine Ready 500GB drive. The drive features a new piano black top while the sides and bottom are brushed aluminum, in part to match Apple’s line of aluminum MacBook Pro notebook computers.

G-Technology's G-Drive mobile 500GB

G-Technology's G-Drive mobile 500GB matches the unibody aluminum MacBook Pro

G-Technology G-Drive mobile 500GB

G-Technology's G-Drive mobile 500GB

This drive is bus powered, so no AC adapters are needed, and since the device is preformatted for the Macintosh, no drivers are needed. Just plug it in and start using it. In addition to the hard drive, you also get a USB 2.0 cable, a FireWire 800 to FireWire 800 cable, and a FireWire 800 to 6-pin FireWire 400 cable for legacy systems.

The rear of the G Drive mobile features FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections.

G-Technology's G-Drive mobile 500GB features a piano black top

Design
The G-Drive mobile has a different look than that of the G-Drive mini. While the mini uses an all aluminum enclosure complete with a built in heat sink and a drilled look on the front and sides of the drive, the G-Drive mini retains a more MacBook Pro “unibody” look to it and adds a piano black top complete with a big G logo. The bottom features six rubberized feet. There is no heat sink and no other industrial look to it.  In other words, it perfectly matches the look of the aluminum unibody MacBook Pro. Is it a better design than that of the G Drive mini? Personally I like the design of the G-Drive mini, with its drilled sides and built in stackable design.

Performance
To move a 2.2GB file from a 13-inch MacBook Pro  (7200RPM 500GB Seagate Momentus hard drive), to the G-Drive mobile 500GB (465GB formatted) using the FireWire800 connection took 47 seconds. Compare that to a G-Drive mini 500GB circa 2008 which took 1:05 seconds to move the 2.2GB file using FireWire 800.

The dual interface G Drive mobile connects to your Mac via FireWire 800 or USB 2.0. There are no on/off switches on the drive as it is powered by the host Mac. It is formatted (465GB) out of the box for the Macintosh, and is built around a 5400RPM Hitachi SATA drive with 8MB cache. Plug it in and the little white LED on the front of the drive lights up. When transferring data to the drive, the light blinks, then glows solid after the transfer is complete.

In addition to the G-Drive mobile hard drive, you also get a 0.6 meter USB 2.0 cable, a 0.6 meter FireWire 800 to FireWire 800 cable, and a FireWire 800 to six pin FireWire 400 cable.

First Impressions
G-Technology has been making professional hard drive solutions for the Mac for years and has always backed its drives up with generous warranties. The G Drive mobile comes with a three year warranty, has a different look than that of the mini but still looks better than a lot of the external hard drive solutions for the Mac. Its solid aluminum enclosure is accented with the piano black top, but I still like the look of the G-Drive mini. G-Drive mobile 500GB is priced at $149 MSRP. For more information, visit www.g-technology.com

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