INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Well lucky for all consumers it seems that the prices of both internal and external storage media (HDDs and SSDs) are still taking a plunge something which i guess explains the sudden spike in sales surrounding such products around the globe. Personally i think that's a good move from all the manufacturers out there not only because it means we will get to see 5TB drives sooner rather than later but also because there's no real excuse for anyone to not purchase extra storage now with such low prices (at least the ones that really need the extra space). Still we also have to do our part and so as promised we are focusing on storage media related reviews lately in an effort to showcase/test most of the currently available solutions in the market and to that end today we are taking a look at the G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive by G-Technology.

 

   G-Technology storage solutions are engineered specifically to meet the needs of the content creation and Apple Mac communities, including heavy users of multimedia content, Final Cut Pro® and Adobe® Premiere® Pro audio/video specialists, and other pre/post production professionals. From portable drives to ultra-fast, multi-drive RAID storage, G-Technology’s USB, FireWire, eSATA, SAS and wireless storage solutions support virtually all levels of A/V production and can be found in post-production facilities worldwide.    HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hgst.com.

  

   The G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB by G-Technology is a high quality USB 3.0 based PHD featuring an aluminum alloy enclosure which houses an HGST Travelstar 5K1000 2.5" HDD (5400RPM/500GB platters/SATA III/8MB) pre-formatted for use with MAC OS (and Time Machine) right out of the box. Now as some of you know (and through our reviews) G-Technology is amongst the leading manufacturers of very high quality external HDDs aimed towards professionals who only want both the best in terms of reliability and of course performance. However unlike its larger brothers due to obvious size limitations the enclosure of the G-Drive Mobile USB doesn't really have anything special to show and so there's pretty much only one thing we can check and that's just how well it performs when going up against similar PHDs.

 

  

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G-Technology ships the G-Drive Mobile USB inside a white/blue box with a product image at the front along with their logo drive connectivity and capacity.

 

 

On both sides there are two pictures showcasing the real thickness of the drive.

 

 

The product features are listed at the rear in 9 languages.

 

 

The front also opens like a book to reveal the actual product behind a clear plastic window.

 

 

A quick install guide, user’s manual, USB 3.0 cable and the G-Drive Mobile USB are placed inside the box.

 

  

THE G-DRIVE MOBILE USB 1TB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The G-Drive Mobile USB features an aluminum enclosure and measures just 129mm in length, 83mm in width and 13mm in height with a weight of 162g.

 

 

Although quite smaller than other similar solutions the G-Drive Mobile USB can't really compete with the somewhat tiny STOR.E Slim by Toshiba.

 

 

The silver G-Technology logo is placed at the top of the drive.

 

 

Both the white activity LED and the USB 3.0 port are placed at the front.

 

 

At the base of the enclosure we see two stickers with the serial number, barcode, electrical requirements and drive capacity.

 

 

As mentioned earlier the G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB uses an HGST Travelstar 5K1000 2.5" SATA III HDD featuring a rotational speed of 5400RPM, two 500GB platters and 8MB cache.

 

  

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

 

   Keeping things simple so even people new in the field of computers can understand will always be our way so once again our testing procedure is almost exactly the same as the one we use with 2.5/3.5" external docking stations. This time however we will be comparing the product at hand with a wide range of 2.5" portable drives and standalone 2.5" enclosures all of which were benched using a HGST 7K750 SATA II hard disk drive. Our standard selection of benchmark suites is used here as well including the famous HD Tach RW (Long Bench 32mb Zones), HD Tune Pro (read/write -when possible- speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read/Write - also when possible- speeds), AIDA64 (Linear Read/Random Read), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB/1000MB read/write speeds) and finally the quite outdated yet highly reliable ATTO 2.47 (Max Read/Max Write speeds). Every test was repeated for a total of 6 times and after that the average (not peak) numbers were recorded into our charts. As always every test was performed in a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1 with every update installed up to March 20th 2013.

 

  

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

TEST RESULTS - TEMPERATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   I've been working on G-Technology solutions for quite a few years now so when i received the G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB USB 3.0 portable hard drive i really expected it to shine with excellent performance results all across the board. However as clearly shown from our charts that is not the case and so the G-Drive Mobile USB had a somewhat hard time keeping up with the other USB 3.0 based solutions we tested in the past in some of the tests. Of course performance-wise it's still 3+ times over than USB 2.0 so we can't really call it bad/slow and in its defense G-Technology did release it a long time ago compared to most of the competition in our charts but in the end it is what it is. That being said the quite small aluminum enclosure looks great and it's not like G-Technology can't release a revision of the G-Drive Mobile USB with an upgraded controller/HDD combo in the near future (if they do we will be taking it for a ride).

 

   Much like with the entire product line by G-Technology the G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB USB 3.0 PHD is priced somewhat high with a current price tag of USD127.40 inside the USA (Amazon) and at around 130Euros inside the EU. Normally i don't really have a problem with the pricing of products by G-Technology but that's only because they offer top notch build quality with excellent performance (so bottom line you get what you pay for) and although the G-Drive Mobile USB is a high quality portable hard drive it doesn't excel in terms of performance so i really hope that G-Technology either drops its price tag a bit or upgrades it with a more powerful HDD (or a faster controller if that's the issue). Regardless however if you are looking for a high quality portable hard drive up to 1TB in capacity and you care not about the price then the G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB USB 3.0 PHD is most definitely worth checking out.

 

 

PROS

- Build Quality (Aluminum Enclosure)
- Good Performance
- Size
- MAC OS/Time Machine Compatible
- 3 Years Warranty 

 

 

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Performance (Compared To Similar PHDs)