122 MacDirectory
COMPANY PROFILE
G-TECHNOLOGY > PROVIDING PROTECTION AND PERFECTION
FOR YOUR APPLE COMPUTER
WORDS BY JONE DEVLIN
Since its inception, G-Technology
has been focused
on creating high-performance storage
solutions for content creation. In the early
days of digital video production there was
a big problem with external hard drives
that were being used for editing – they
were burning up!
G-Tech's first product, the G-RAID, was
designed specifically to withstand the
heavy load this type of computing placed
on the hard drive. According to marketing
director Pete Schlatter, "we used only the
best components including an all-
aluminum chassis, high-end electronics
and Hitachi hard drives. But the most
important piece was adding a quiet,
efficient cooling fan. It also didn't hurt
that the product looked really cool."
The G-RAID, which has been upgraded
many times since its inception, is still a
strong seller for the company – and the
"quiet, efficient" fan is still a huge selling
point. In fact, G-Tech believes that keeping
hard drives cool is so important that to
this day every product, from the smallest
to the largest, includes some kind of
cooling technology. And the best part is
every G-Tech product is carefully designed
to operate quietly — something that is key
in professional editing environments.
This is not surprising though, because the
one thing that came through in my
conversation with Schlatter was that G-
Technology takes pride in all of their
products, every one of which are designed
for use with Apple computers and
equipment. G-Technology feels their
relationship with Apple is so important, in
fact, that they design their products
specifically to "look great sitting on top of
an Apple computer."
Besides the G-RAID, G-Technology offers
everything from portable, single-disk drives
to multi-disk arrays that hold from four to
16 disks. They also offer products with
RAID protection, an important feature in
this day and age as more and more people
store more and more critical and personal
information on their hard drives.
It is this feature in particular that Schlatter
feels most strongly about, telling
MacDirectory, "I'd like to put an
exclamation point on the whole issue of
RAID protected storage. I don't think most
people understand the difference
between a backup and a copy. A lot of
people will buy an external drive, put their
files on it, and then delete them from
their computer and think everything's
okay. What they don't understand is that
any hard drive is at risk of failing, which
means any data on that drive can be lost.
A redundant storage solution, like our
G-SAFE or G-SPEED eS can protect your
data from loss due to a hard disk failure –
and this is so important these days when
people have so much of their lives saved
on hard disks."
Another thing that Schlatter is passionate
about is that the company, which was just
acquired by Hitachi, recently announced a
new 2TB drive. "We recently announced a
2-terabyte, 7200RPM hard drive…that's an
insane amount of high-performance
storage on a single disk!"
As for the future, it couldn't be brighter
for this company who has recently begun
to enjoy the perks of Hitachi's global
network, as well as the ability to get the
most up-to-date Hitachi hard drives first.
But G-Technology is also still heavily
focused on what they do best, building
quality products made to last; as was
demonstrated when one of their hard
drives was, literally, hit by a truck.
Laughed Schlatter, "Our drives are solid
aluminum, not plastic. True story…we
have an enclosure here that was run over
by a FedEx truck. It was crushed, but when
our customer plugged it in it still worked."
So whether you are looking for general
storage, high-performance RAID protected
solutions, or just a hard drive that can
survive a FedEx truck, G-Technology is the
first and best one-stop solution for all of
your needs.
