G-Technology UK recently sent me their latest portable, rugged little SSD drive to use for a few weeks and review and in this post and video I’ll give you my reasons why I love this drive and some quirks I am not too fussed about. For those of you not familiar, the G-Drive mobile SSD R-series (official name) comes in either 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB capacities and boasts rugged, aluminium build with IP67 dust and water protection, capable of blazing fast speeds of up to 560 MB/s.
In the box, you get 2 cables – one USB-C to USB-C, and one USB 3.1/3.0 Type A to USB-C for those users of older Macbook Pro’s and other Mac or PC based laptops and computers.
The G-Drive mobile SSD R-series, which I shall refer to as simply – “the rugged mobile SSD” or something of sorts for brevity’s sake has a single USB-C connector with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 bus. In my tests, which I performed with the only computer available to me at the time – my trusty old, but fully spec-ed, 15-inch 2015 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, but only equipped with a USB 3.0 connectivity, which hampered the speed tests significantly.
I don’t have a Thunderbolt 2 to USB-C cable (no idea if one exists), so I used the USB 3.0 connection on my Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Dock hooked up to my 2015 Macbook Pro (via T2); as well as a 2nd test going directly into the USB 3.0 port of the Macbook Pro. Nevertheless, I managed to get some decent Write speeds between 322 MB/s and 330 MB/s, which I consider plentiful for my ageing machine.
via Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Dock
via USB 3.0 directly plugged to MBP 2015
Other tests I performed, which you can see in the video below, are a couple of drop tests from about 1 meter height onto a wooden table, as well as few water spray tests. Not surprisingly, the drive functioned as advertised afterwards, which felt good as I had some footage I needed on the drive, and needed to copy it to my laptop; I would have hated for it to have died because of a few drops of water, but it appears that the IP67 certification is solid.
I did not test the 1000 lbs crush-proof claim, but the drive did absorb quite a few knocks in my camera bag over the last three weeks on various shoots. Copying a 22.5GB folder with 4K footage took a bit over 1 minute to transfer to my Macbook Pro, which I find excellent.
The only thing I didn’t find that awesome on this drive is the very short cable. Both cables are about 10cm in length and for those of us who want to use this drive to transfer footage to a laptop sitting on a stand a slightly longer cable would have prevented the G-tech Rugged mobile SSD from just dangling on the side.
I get why the cable is so short – it is meant to be a compact package to use in the field, where you’d tuck the Drive next to your laptop, but in the real world, I have found from experience that 20cm+ long USB cables are way more useful.
Other than that, I love this rugged little SSD! It’s fantastic as it is so compact and can be easily packed in your backpack or camera bag. Pricing starts at around $169 in the US for the 500GB capacity. It’s simple, fast, and built to last. I highly recommend the G-Drive mobile SSD from G-Tech to anyone looking for a very compact SSD to edit on location or just use to copy or backup footage before transferring to a RAID or other backup in the studio.
If you are in the US you can order from B&H or alternatively UK folks can use the Amazon link here.
To read full specs and get more info head over to G-technology’s website here.
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate partner and participant in B&H and Adorama Affiliate programmes, we earn a small comission from each purchase made through the affiliate links listed above at no additional cost to you.
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