G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB 500GB review

G-Technology has a reputation for producing high-end, fast Mac-centric hard drives. The company also has a reputation for making similarly designed bulky aluminum drives that are about as aesthetically appealing as cinder blocks. With the G-Drive Mobile USB 500GB, G-Technology is changing its reputation by finally combining a consumer-friendly design with high-end performance. The Mobile USB portable drive is blazingly fast for its class, offering users a viable alternative to Iomega�s eGo () and LaCie�s Rikiki ().

The G-Drive Mobile USB features a small, white case that can easily fit into your pants or jacket pocket. Its distinctive look is remarkably different than the usual bulky, heavy gunmetal steel drives G-Technology usually produces. Perhaps Hitachi�s purchase of the company has begun to reap rewards for the company. One of our editors even complimented the drive on its new �G� logo emblazoned on the white drive�comparing it to a superhero logo.

The drive is preformatted for the Mac and comes Time Machine ready right out of the box. Simply set the drive as your target for backups and you�re good to go.

The 5400-rpm G-Drive Mobile USB may have proved worthy of the �super� designation in our lab tests. Equipped with a Hitachi Serial ATA drive and a 8MB cache, we were quite impressed with the G-Drive Mobile USB�s record setting scores. On our 1GB copy test, the G-Drive finished the test in 37 seconds. This score is on par with the 7200-rpm Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex (), one of the faster portable USB-only drives we�ve tested.

In the duplication test, the G-Drive Mobile USB began to separate itself from the pack. The test requires the hard drive to duplicate a 1GB folder and the G-Drive finished in 56seconds, more than 10 seconds faster than the LaCie Rikiki and a full 4 seconds faster than the FreeAgent GoFlex. These scores alone put the G-Drive in our upper tier of USB-only portable drives, but the low-memory Photoshop tests were also quite impressive.

The G-Drive Mobile USB finished our regime of tests in 4 minutes and 20 seconds. That�s 6 seconds faster than the LaCie Rikiki and only slightly behind the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex.

When active, the drive feels slightly warm to the touch and you can hear a faint hum when the G-Drive is particularly taxed, but by no means were either of these factors huge issues. At $150, the 500GB G-Drive USB has a price per gigabyte of $.30. That�s high for a portable drive and is regrettably one of the few downsides of a strong-hard drive.
Macworld�s buying advice

The G-Drive Mobile USB 500GB is a fast USB-only drive with a Mac-focus. With a three-year warranty, record-setting copy and duplication times, and a strong performance in our Photoshop tests, the G-Drive is the most impressive drive we�ve seen from G-Technology in the portable market.

[Chris Holt is a Macworld associate editor.] [macworld.com]

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