Heavy Metal Machine
If you are scratching your head because the name G Technology might not be familiar to you, you are not alone. G Technology’s website does not say much, but the company is in fact a spin-off from HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technology), which in turn is a subsidiary of storage giant Western Digital.
Targeted at Mac users, the G RAID with Thunderbolt comes with a matching aluminum case and is pretty handsome to behold.
To put simply, the G RAID with Thunderbolt is an external desktop hard drive with two 7200rpm mechanical hard disks and a Thunderbolt interface. By default, the drive comes configured in RAID 0 (striping) but it can be configured to run in RAID 1 (mirroring) as well. For those unfamiliar with these two RAID configurations:
Source: Wikipedia
- RAID 0 - Data is split across two hard disks with no redundancy, this is done usually to improve performance or to create a larger logical disk out of two or more hard disks. However, if one drive fails, the entire array goes down and you may potentially lose your data.
- RAID 1 - In this configuration, drives in the array are exact copies of each other. This is used by users have critical data that that needs to be duplicated at all times.
The G RAID with Thunderbolt was designed specially for Mac users and features a stylish all aluminum construction that is in keeping with the latest Mac and MacBook designs. However, since it houses two 3.5-inch hard disks, it is pretty hefty and bulky too, weighing in at a considerable 2.5kg and is sized like a huge brick. Suffice to say, this is meant to be a desktop based direct-attached-storage (DAS) unit.
There’s white LED indicator on the front panel that lights up when the drive is turned on, and interestingly, the G RAID with Thunderbolt’s power status is independent of your system’s. This means that the drive will not switch itself off even if you turn off your system. Likewise, if powered down, it will not turn itself on when you switch on your system; you have to manually switch the drive on/off via a button at the back. Considering this, we would rather the power button be relocated to the front for easy access.
Behind the drive, apart from the power button, you will find two Thunderbolt ports. This means you can use the drive to form a daisy-chain of Thunderbolt-enabled devices. This is also useful if you have an older system that has only a lone Thunderbolt port and you can sue the G RAID unit as your hub of sorts. For more information pertaining to the Thunderbolt interface and capabilities, you can refer to these reading materials.
The drive only comes with a power adapter and power cable. The Thunderbolt cable is not provided, which is a huge oversight in our books since the interface is rather new at this point of time. Also, the drive is targeted at Mac users and so comes formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Here’s a closer look at the drive.
Since it has two 3.5-inch form factor 7200rpm drives inside, the G RAID with Thunderbolt takes up considerable desktop real estate. Here it is juxtaposed with a G Drive portable external hard disk placed in front of it.
There's fan at the rear to keep the drives inside cool under heavy operation. Beneath it, from right to left, the power button, DC-in jack and two Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining. There's also a Kensington lock to keep the device secured in place.
Test Setup
The G RAID with Thunderbolt was tested using our new storage testbed which has the following specifications:
- Intel Core i5-2500K (3.3GHz)
- ASUS P8Z77-V Thunderbolt (Intel Z77 chipset)
- 2 x 2GB DDR3-1600 memory
- MSI GeForce 8600 GTS
- Windows 7 64-bit
Since the drive is targeted at Mac users, it comes formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which our Windows 7 storage testbed cannot read nor write. Therefore, we had to change the file structure to NTFS and recreate the RAID 0 array. This was pretty cumbersome as Windows was not capable of recognizing the drive at all and we had to use a Mac to first change the file structure to ExFAT and then change it to NTFS.
Additionally, testing the G RAID with Thunderbolt proved to be tricky because our usual suites of benchmarks would not recognize the drive’s RAID 0 array as a single logical disk. However, on the benchmarks that did recognize the RAID 0 array properly, the gains in performance is obvious, as you will later see.
For comparison, we have included results from the recently reviewed Transcend ESD200 portable SSD and Seagate Backup Plus. To iterate, the G RAID unit comes with dual 7200rpm hard disk drives and as such, we chose to compare it with other similar external storage drives to get an idea where it stands. Of course with a Thunderbolt interface, it would make more sense if it was equipped with dual SSD drives, but that would ratchet up the costs significantly with reduced storage space.
The list of drives tested:
- G RAID with Thunderbolt
- Transcend ESD200 portable SSD
- Seagate Backup Plus
List of benchmarks tested:
- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
- AS SSD
- File Transfer Timing Test
File Transfer Timing
In our file transfer timing test which involves copying a 1.72GB large movie file, the G RAID with Thunderbolt recorded a respectable time of 27.1 seconds, which was only three-hundredths of a second off the really handy Transcend ESD200 portable SSD. It would seem that the Thunderbolt interface has little advantage in this test, given that the Segate Backup Plus drive is hardly any slower.
AS SSD Results
AS SSD is a popular hard disk benchmarking software because it uses non-compressible and completely random data. Here, we noticed that the G RAID with Thunderbolt recorded the fastest copy times in the Copy Benchmark. This benchmark simulates copying different types of data - ISO, program and game.
The G RAID with Thunderbolt also recorded very impressive sequential read and write speeds, over 300MB/s when reading and nearly 250MB/s when writing. This is over 50% quicker than the Transcend ESD200. However, performance dipped considerably when it came to handling smaller data blocks of 4k and also on the intensive 4k, 64 threads workloads. Although the G RAID with Thunderbolt was still significantly quicker than the Seagate Backup Plus, it was no match for the Transcend ESD200 and its internal flash drive.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 Results
On CrystalDiskMark, the G RAID with Thunderbolt impressed once again its stunning sequential read and write speeds, easily outperforming the very fast Transcend ESD200 by 50% to 100%. The Seagate Backup Plus was simply no match and it just goes to show the gulf in performance between a regular portable external hard disk and an enthusiast-grade desktop external hard disk in RAID 0.
Performance on the 512k workload took a significant dip, but its write performance was still good enough to outclass the Transcend ESD200 by over 50%. On the most intensive 4k, 32 queue depth workload, the G RAID with Thunderbolt was completely outclassed by the Transcend ESD200, even if its performance was still many times better than the Seagate Backup Plus. It goes to show that mechanical hard disks, no matter how fast, are simply no match for flash drives when it comes to random access performance and handling small data blocks.
Fast But Not for Everyone
First things first, the G RAID with Thunderbolt is not a drive for everyone. While it offers considerably more performance than your regular external hard drives, its performance is not going to be appreciable if you are going to use it for mainstream tasks such as backups and additional storage.
To really get the best out of the G RAID with Thunderbolt, users would have to consider daisy-chaining the drive with additional units. Only then will it fully maximize the high bandwidth of the Thunderbolt interface. However, such a setup only makes sense of a niche group of users, such as video professionals and content producers - people who require tons of storage and performance.
Furthermore, we would not recommend using the G RAID with Thunderbolt in RAID 0 just as it is, because in RAID 0, you lose all your data should just one of the two drives fail. You could sacrifice performance and configure the G RAID with Thunderbolt in RAID 1, but the most ideal setup would be to have a separate drive to backup your G RAID. Speaking of drive failures, you should also note that the drives are not meant to be user serviceable. Fortunately, the G RAID with Thunderbolt does come with a three-year warranty.
The G RAID with Thunderbolt is most suited for professionals who demand both storage and performance.
As you can see, not only would such a setup be slightly complicated, but it is also excessive for regular users who just need additional storage for their media content. Not to mention that it will also be extremely costly. The 8TB G RAID with Thunderbolt that is reviewed here comes in at S$1,069 (the smaller 6TB variant costs S$799). Considering you need an additional 8TB for backup purposes, the total costs of such a setup would be in excess of S$2000 (or you could go crazy with two 8TB units in RAID 0 and an additional two units for backup for a whopping S$4276!). If all you want is just additional storage space, that kind of money can easily get you seven regular 4TB external hard disks for a whopping 28TB of storage, and with change to spare.
One thing that we were annoyed with the G RAID with Thunderbolt is that it does not come with Thunderbolt cables. Understandably, this is to reduce costs, but at this price, we fully expect to find Thunderbolt cables in the box and considering that the interface isn't prevalent yet.
To sum up, the G RAID with Thunderbolt is really a device for professionals who demand large storage and decent performance. For regular users, it is much more prudent to get mainstream external hard disks; or if you value performance, external hard disks with SSDs like the Transcend ESD200 or Kingston HyperX Max 3.0.
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