MacDirectory Magazine

Summer-Fall 2008 (#38)

MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.

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138 MacDirectory PROFILE G-TECHNOLOGY > KEEPING COMPUTING QUICK AND COOL G-Technology Inc. manufactures external disk storage solutions for digital photo- graphers and videography enthusiasts all over the world. "We understand video from both the production side and the storage side. There are people in the company who have worked in the video editing field for over 15 years and we combine that expertise with strong knowledge of external disk storage devices." said Pete Schlatter, director of marketing of G- Technology. "Our products are designed for the heavy use found in a professional production environment and you can find our products in post production facilities all over the world. The home user really benefits from this heavy-duty, industrial design." External disk storage systems are perfect for backing up important files on your system. Also, by using an external disk storage system for saving data such as pictures or movies, users can actually increase performance by relieving the strain on the internal system drive. All G- Tech external disk drives feature some type of cooling technology which can significantly increase hard drive life. Also many G-Tech products also feature RAID protection that safeguards data from drive failure. "Performance, reliability, and style is our mission here at G-Tech. We want the end user experience to be the best," Schlatter said. "The performance must be superior to any other products on the market and our reliability has to be outstanding. We only buy Hitachi disk drives because we've found that they are the most dependable. And of course, our industrial design speaks for itself." With the mission statement in mind, G- Technology will release three new products to the market this fall. eSATA interface technology is a main feature of the new G-Technology external storage drives. Initially SATA was designed as an internal or inside-the-box interface technology, bringing improved performance and new features to internally mounted consumer storage. eSATA, or "external" SATA brings these features to external storage, including significantly increased performance over FireWire and USB interfaces. SATA is now out of the box as an external standard, with specifically defined cables, connectors, and signal requirements released as new standard in mid-2004. The G-RAID3 family of drives is an upgrade to the hugely popular G-RAID2. The G-RAID3 features (2) internal 7200RPM Hitachi disk drives, onboard RAID controller, quad interface including eSATA, FW800, FW400 and USB 2.0, and a new larger, quieter fan. The RAID controller features the new 936 chipset from Oxford Semiconductor with software selectable RAID 0 or RAID 1 operation. RAID 0 or "fast" mode configures the controller for maximum performance – up to 120MB/sec over eSATA. RAID 1 or "protected" mode sets up the controller for data redundancy. If a hard disk fails while in RAID 1 mode, you will not lose your data. In this age of digital photos and video, this feature is becoming very important. Next on the list is an update to the G- RAID mini, a portable bus-powered version of the G-RAID3 that shares the same new features. Bus-powered means the drive gets its power from the FW connection, eliminating the need for a dedicated power supply. This makes it perfect for photographers and videographers out in the field working with laptops. Like the G-RAID 3, in RAID 1 "protected" mode, data is copied to both internal 2.5" drives at the same time -- so you don't have to worry about disaster striking due to hard drive failure. Last, but not least, is the G-RAID Pro, a very cool looking 4 drive external solution featuring removable drives, onboard RAID controller, integrated 200W power supply and eSATA, FW800 and USB 2.0 interface. The RAID controller can be configured as RAID 0 or RAID 5, giving you very high performance (over 200MB/sec) and failsafe operation. In RAID 5 mode if any one of the 4 drives fail, you don't lose any data —and you can even keep on using the unit! G-Tech has a comprehensive line of high performance, reliable and stylish products. Go to to learn more. WORDS BY MARY ROSENTHOL G-RAID3 G-RAID MINI G-RAID PRO

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