When it comes to high-speed hard drives for stills and video editing, we usually recommend with internal SSDs for your computer. But when you want to have an external hard drive as well, G-Technology makes some of the highest-performing external hard drives in the market.
In this episode of Rapid Gear Review, we take a look at the diminutive G-RAID mini USB 3.0 2TB Professional Portable Dual Hard Drive System. Yes, that’s the official name for the hard drive. Thankfully, the hard drive takes up less space and looks sexier than its name. The hard-drive itself is not only handsome, but it is well-designed and reliable. More importantly, it really does live up to its advertised specs of 200 MB/second transfer rate!
The G-Raid mini Rapid Gear Review Video
To see how we tested the G-RAID mini hard drive against several other hard drives, check out this video below.
The Specs
- Available storage: 1TB and 2TB
- Price: $249.95 for 1TB and $445.42 for 2TB
- 7200RPM hard drive
- RAID 0/1
- USB 3.0
- Firewire
The Pros
We tested the G-RAID mini hard drive against three other hard drives, the Silicon Power Rugged Armor A80 hard drive, the Western Digital My Passport 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive, and the Western Digital My Book 3TB USB 3.0 external plugged-in hard drive. The test consisted of measuring the transfer rate for transferring a single 5GB file.
Compared to the other hard drives we tested, the G-RAID mini crushes the competition. When using USB 3.0 and the RAID 0 configuration, the G-RAID mini clocks in at blistering speed of 197.35 MB/sec, which almost 50% faster than the second fastest competitor, the Western Digital My Book plugged-in hard drive at 132.9 MB/sec. The G-RAID also blew away the slow-RPM portable drives such as the Silicon Power Rugged Armor A80 drive which clocked in at a measly 58.9 MB/sec and the Western Digital My Passport drive which clocked in at 71 MB/sec.
The Cons
When using USB 3.0, the G-RAID mini requires a separate power source, which means that you have to plug in the drive with the supplied power cable and resulting in a less portable hard drive. Firewire users do no have to worry about this since Firewire is bus-powered and can supply the necessary power to run the G-RAID mini.
The drive is also Mac-formatted, so Window users will need to hop online G-Technology’s website to check out the Windows drive preparation instructions.
Finally, the price point sets the drive as a premium external hard drive compared to its competitors. The 1TB version currently sells for $249 on Amazon while the 2TB unit sells for nearly $450.
Conclusion
Despite the premium price, we give the G-RAID mini USB 3.0 2TB Professional Portable Dual Hard Drive System a highly-recommended 5 out of 5 stars because it delivers the promised performance and crushes the competition. If you need a serious performing external hard drive for your stills and video editing work, the G-RAID mini is worth the extra cost.
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