Earlier this year, Western Digital (WD) acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), and with it G-Technology. With HGST now operating as a wholly owned WD subsidiary, one of the first products hitting the shelves after the acquisition was the recently released G-RAID with Thunderbolt, which claims the title of the world’s highest capacity, RAID 0, Thunderbolt external storage drive.
The latest G-RAID drive is essentially identical to the G-RAID drive first shown at IBC 2011, but with the addition of Thunderbolt connectivity. The G-RAID with Thunderbolt drive is available in 4, 6 and 8 TB capacities, with two 7200 RPM Deskstar HDDs housed within the drive’s all-aluminum case, which features two Thunderbolt ports on the rear that allow for daisy chaining of up to six Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals.
Aimed primarily at audio and video professionals working on Macs, the G-RAID with Thunderbolt delivers sustained throughput of 280 MB/sec to handle multi-stream compressed HD workflows, including REDCODE, DVCPro HD, XDCAM HD and ProRes 422. The company boasts the drive can transfer a full-length, high-definition, internet-ready H.264 movie in less than a minute. And although it comes pre-formatted for Mac OS X systems, support for Windows systems is just a reformat away.
The G-RAID with Thunderbolt drive ranges in price from US$699.99 for the 4 TB model, $849.99 for the 6 TB model, and $999.99 for the 8 TB capacity unit.
