Customer Reviews

G-Technology 913006-01 1.0TB Quad-Interface Storage

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm a video professional and was introduced to these drives a little more than a year ago. They are of incredible quality. The most reliable and fast drives you can buy. They are considerably more money than your regular seagate or western digital, but I feel that they have superior chipsets and hitachi drives - which justifies the cost. We own two of these, a G-Raid, and a G-Speed eS - so we've invested a lot of money in this company and they have not let us down.

Highly recommended.

I've used many external drives over time and this is the only brand that I recommend. It has been solid and dependable, not problems what-so-ever. Speedy drive and small footprint is impressive. Having an on/off switch is a big bonus too.

Works out-of-the-box with mac and Time machine.

After some research, I settled on this G-Tech external drive, namely because of its Quad-interface. Although my Alu iMac (or any Apple computer) does not have an eSATA interface at the time of this writing, I thought that by purchasing this drive, I'd be thinking ahead. The 3-Year Warranty was also a nicety.

The drive works without a hitch. I attached it to my iMac using the Firewire800 interface, and it was basically good-to-go. The case is very sturdy and attractive. My only minor complaint is that, for a "fanless" design, it is a bit loud . . louder than the iMac that it sits next to.

The g-tech q drive so far seems to be a great solution to my storage needs. The 3 1tb drives I purchased were easy to set up using the firewire 800 ports. I grouped two of the drives into a mirrored array and copied my 330gb+ photo library to the new RAID. Everything worked great and a few hours later everything was safely backed up. I am currently doing a system back up with Time Machine and it is going smoothly. The drives do get hot when they are doing a lot of read/write operations but so far no problems. I am hoping the drives live up to g techs reputation for reliability. So far the are quiet and easy to work with.

I bought this unit instead of my usual LaCie drives because so many in the film industry are using G-Techs now. The drive looks great but the connections in the back seem flimsy. The connection for the power cable was particularly loose.

After 2 months, the drive stopped mounting on my Mac and totally died. It made all sorts of unfriendly noises and I lost all my data. I sent it back to G-tech and I must say their customer service is top notch. They sent my drive back to me so quickly that it was beyond the call of duty - the same day they received it! I did not request data recovery, which they also offer for free.

I was told it was a bad controller board. Some drives fail, so the quality of a manufacture's customer service is a deciding factor for me. The people on the telephone there are all friendly and knowledgeable. If the repaired drive stays working - we're golden.

UPDATE:

The drive came back supposedly fixed but was unfortunately actually still broken. It did appear to work at first but quickly went down with terrible noises. I sent it back a second time and again was taken care of promptly with friendly service. The drive came back yet again, worked for three days and is DEAD AGAIN. The drive locks up my Mac, disappears from the desktop and will not remount - even after restarting the computer and the drive. After "resting," turned off overnight, the drive will again mount properly but then fails again the same way after an hour or so, crashing a different Mac, etc., etc., etc.

I'm done trying to get it fixed. I've spent many, many hours trying to get it taken care of and shipping it back to G-Tech twice.

I don't know what's happened to G-Tech but do yourself a favor and stay away from these hard drives. I'm going back to LaCie. I fell for the G-tech hype as being "superior." What a joke - NEVER AGAIN.

As I am editing a previous review, there seems to be no way to reduce my original 3 star rating but let's just say "ZERO STARS."

First some facts and useful info:

1. Brand: G Technology.

2. Model: G-Drive Q Quad interface Hard Drive.

3. Part: 913006-01.

4. Capacity: specified: 1 TB, available: 931 GB.

5. Rotational speed: 7,200 RPM.

6. Interface ports: 1 USB 2.0, 2 FireWire 800, 1 FireWire 400 & 1 eSATA (thus the "quad interface" part of the name).

7. Ratings (at time of purchase): Amazon: 4/5 stars (based on 14 customer reviews), MacWorld: 5/5 mice & Appletell: 5/5 apples.

8. Warranty: 3 years.

Second, what you need to know:

Let me remark that I researched hard drives (HD's) for almost a month before making my purchase of this item. When I buy something I want it to work and I want it to last. I took a long look at almost every brand out there: Drobo, G Tech, Iomega, LaCie, Maxtor, Seagate, SimpleTech, Toshiba, Verbatim, Western Digital, etc... you name it. And out of all the brands out there, G Tech was the one I liked best, and I'll tell you why if you keep reading (I know, I know, the review came out a little longer than expected).

I'll start off by saying that the biggest problem I had when choosing a HD presented itself when I took a look at the customer ratings, I couldn't find one single HD brand with higher customer ratings than 4 out of 5 stars, that is, 80% customer satisfaction. I wanted a full proof HD (my data is very valuable to me as I am sure yours is to you). Every single HD I researched had at least one customer with a horrifying story about loosing all their data, or the drive making grinding noises or some other unbearable problem. I've had the G Tech HD for a little over 5 months now and I have to say I'm 100% satisfied: it looks great (I have a MacBook Pro and looks are important to us Apple owners), it's relatively quiet (because it doesn't have a cooling fan, and it is a HD after all, and all HD's make some noise), the light in front of the unit is not annoyingly bright, with the firewire 800 the HD is SUPER fast, and finally, and most importantly, it does what it's supposed to do: it stores my data.

There are lot's of reason why some people have trouble with external HD's, and in the case of this HD there are three main ones that are the cause of bad reviews: (1) trying to work the HD with a PC, not a Mac (it is possible, just a little bit more complicated. The G Drive Q is primarily intended to work with Mac's, it even comes preformatted to work with Mac's right out of the box), (2) the HD was mishandled (perhaps dropped) during shipping, and (3) remember, some people just don't have a clue of what they're doing! Make sure you read the instructions on how to install and work the HD with your computer and operating system before you try to use it (you can find the installation and technical information online).

So, because (1) I have Mac, (2) there was nothing I could do about the HD being mishandled during shipping and (3) I informed myself about the product, the only thing that was left for me to do was to try and better the odds: first, I picked a HD with an average 4/5 stars customer rating (a lot of HD's are lower) and the only HD (in it's category of course) with a 5/5 mice rating on MacWorld, second, I shortened the travel time by selecting 2 day delivery, and third, I choose the most expensive HD I could afford (there are more expensive ones) so as to assure to some extent better quality in manufacturing. I tell ya, the "gamble" paid off, the HD works flawlessly.

In conclusion, if you care more about quality and performance than you do about a few extra bucks (loosely speaking), get this HD... and ironically, hope for the best.

After trying various 1TB external drives (WD, Iomega, et al.) I was very happily surprised to discover G-Tech. Works very well, works very fast. I quickly bought a second one. Hurrah for Amazon! The first one runs on USB 2.0 and the second one is on Firewire 800. I see little difference in speed between the two, both are fast. (I also tried eSata but the connection to my PC seemed to come and go; not the fault of the G-Tech.) Highly recommended! Excellent for storing C Drive disc images and for backing up video editing files. Solidly built, rugged. Just one complaint: the white LED light on the front is so bright it could be used in a lighthouse on the shore. I have small squares of colored stick-on paper over both to dim them to human scale. Besides the two G-Tech 1TB machines I still use the Iomega Prestige ext. 1 TB HD and the Drobo which holds 4 1TB WD ext. HDs. Remember, kids, backing up and backing up again, and then again is the Golden Rule of PCs. Ever wonder how much Bill Gates backs up? Anyway, G-Tech= GREAT!

-Larry Johnson

The drive I received has worked as advertised. I plugged it into my iMAC and it was immediately recognized. Although some reviews I have read indicate the drive runs hot, my drive runs relatively cool, only turning slightly warm during downloads. I am not using the drive with Time Machine so I'm uncertain if the drive would heat further when in use for an hour or two while backing up extended amounts of data. I would estimate the external case temperature to be no more than 100 degrees F at its warmest (slightly warmer than one's own body temperature). The drive shuts down when not in use, which is a nice feature. Upon shut down, the drive cools down to room temperature. The noise level of the drive is most notable upon spin-up but turns quiet afterward (as some have indicated, it sounds like a miniature jet engine). The light on the front of the drive is noticeable, but in my opinion it is not obtrusive. Overall, I have been very satisfied with this drive and would highly recommend it to a friend.

Easy to connect out of the box and was quickly set up to do automatic backup with Leopard's Time Machine. No problems encountered in first month of use.

Bought this backup in June 2009. It just died - 18 months later. Easy to use until it died. It's under warranty. Instructions are to wipe disk clean before returning. It died. Can't wipe disk clean. Backed up files - gone!