G-Technology™ Delivers Solid State Drive-Like Sustained Performance In A Compact External Hard Drive Solution

Bringing Professional Tools to the Masses, G-Technology's New G-DRIVE™ PRO with Thunderbolt® Portable External Hard Drive Enables 2K and 4K Digital Cinema, 2K DLSR/ Photography and Other Digital Content Creation Workflows

G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the creative professional market, announced today its new G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt, a compact, desktop external hard drive that delivers hard drive capacity with SSD-like performance, taking full advantage of the speed and power of Thunderbolt. Leveraging G-Technology's well-known G-DRIVE design, the new G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt delivers sustained data transfer rates of up to 480MB/s, which is up to three times faster than standard 3.5-inch desktop external hard drives. The broader creative professional market now has access to an extremely high-performance, high-capacity and portable editing solution for maintaining 2K and 4K¹ workflows.

Storage Evolved
New high-resolution media formats and related files sizes require massive storage and faster data transfer rates to efficiently edit and distribute content throughout the workflow. For example, an uncompressed 2K digital video format consumes more than one terabyte (1TB) per hour and requires approximately 305 megabytes per second (MB/s) sustained throughput for smooth editing with no dropped frames. These high-resolution video formats, along with the rising popularity of higher megapixel DSLR cameras that shoot professional 2K video, has created a need for a new high-performance storage solution designed to meet the needs of today's digital content creators.

Previously, most storage solutions able to support 2K and 4K were either bulky multi-bay solutions, or were extremely expensive and sacrificed needed capacity for the performance of SSDs. By bringing the cost of entry down for those making the jump to richer media formats such as 2K and 4K, G-Technology is empowering today's independent professionals and other small production studios with more cost-effective, efficient workflows.

Introducing the New G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt
No external storage solution using a single 3.5-inch hard drive form factor has taken advantage of the performance of Thunderbolt – until now. Delivering sustained data transfer rates of up to 480MB/s, the new G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt is a performance leader in the desktop, external hard drive category. Optimal for Thunderbolt-enabled Mac® systems, the G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt is easily transportable for editing in the field or in the studio. Based on G-Technology's high-quality G-DRIVE design, it provides dual Thunderbolt ports for future external storage expansion and to daisy chain with other Thunderbolt-based devices. It easily supports compressed 4K and multiple streams of 2K, HDV, DVCPro HD, XDCAM HD, ProRes 4444 and uncompressed SD workflows. With up to 4TB capacity, the G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt is Mac-formatted and is Apple® Time Machine® ready.

"We work closely with many high-profile studios and independent professionals, so we understand the rigorous requirements of production workflows. With our latest product release, we continue to deliver high-performance and reliable external storage solutions that our customers have come to expect from G-Technology," said Mike Williams , vice president and general manager, G-Technology/HGST Branded Business. "In a class of its own, the G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt combines outstanding performance, innovative patent-pending technology, reliability and ample capacity so digital content creators can focus on their creativity, not their gear."

The G-DRIVE Pro with Thunderbolt will be available this summer through G-Technology and its Premier Channel Partners. The MSRP for the 4TB G-DRIVE with Thunderbolt will be $849.95. A 2TB G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt solution will be available for $699.95.