G-Teching Storage to another level


Phil Vinter TV-Bay Magazine
Read ezine online Download PDF
Download PDF

That heart-dropping, cold-sweat evoking moment your external hard drive fails to connect to the computer and you realise the precious project you’ve been working on for weeks is lost for good (unless you want to spank hundreds on a recovery service that may or may not retrieve some of the mangled data!)

Ah, the fun of video storage - it may not be the sexiest of the filmmaking disciplines, but it’s a critical part of the workflow. With file sizes getting ever bigger - to store 4K, 5K and, wait for it, 8K resolution footage, the demand for speed, space, and reliability is greater than ever.

Californian based G-Technology is one of the major players in the industry trying to ensure that the back end up keeps apace with seismic capture changes happening at the front end.

As part of the Western Digital group, which also includes SanDisk, the company boasts a broad skills and research base and pulls from different areas of the business to drive the development of it’s pro-end drives.

G-Technology recently unveiled its latest line of drives at a launch event at Jigsaw 24’s London offices. The triumvirate of new drives provide some impressive read and write speeds that would leave even the most data heavy motion graphics artists salivating.

The new storage systems are not cheap, but G-Tech’s sales pitch is ‘more time saved at the office leaves more time to tell stories’ - so spending a bit extra on super fast drives could be a long-term money saver.

And when I say super fast, I mean staggeringly fast. Each model in the new range of drives comes with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity and the top-specced G-Speed Shuttle SSD can transfer 1 terabyte of data roughly 4 hours of 4K footage - in just seven minutes now that’s fast!

The Speed Shuttle SSD has up to 8 SATA SSDs in a portable RAID unit and it can shovel data at rate of 2,800 MB/s for both reads and writes. Team it up with the right graphics card and computer and it has enough oomph to edit multiple streams of Apple’s new Pro-Res raw footage significantly reducing the pain of having to wait for hours as it churns your beautiful high-res footage into grainy proxies.

Judging by the direction of travel for the industry, this type of souped up system might become the norm sooner rather than later as VR and higher resolutions become ever more main stream.

The Speed Shuttle is also future-proofed, to a certain extent, as it comes with the ability to switch the SSDs for higher capacity units that might become available down the track.
Its relatively small stature and weight means it can be stored away in a Peli case and carried on location. It comes in both 8TB and 16TB flavours with punchy price points of £4,399.95 and £6,569.95 respectively, plus additional £259.95 if you want to splash out on the bespoke Peli-case.

The second new product is the Mobile Pro SSD, which is small and compact but still exceedingly zippy. It’s drop proof from up to 3 metres and can allegedly be run over by a car, which any busy videographer will tell you is reassuring to know.
It’s available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB sizes and its light weight, slimline design is good for editing on the run. Again it’s not cheap coming in at £569.95 for the 500GB variety and £899.95 for the 1TB size. Bearing in mind you can purchase a 5TB drive (all be it a considerably slow one) for just over £100, there’s a serious choice to be made.

That said, if you can afford it, what price for being able to copy across your footage in super quick time at the end of a very long shoot?

The new G-Drive Pro SSD, which looks similar to the traditional G-Drives with the cheese grater front, based on Mac designs.

It’s designed for video editors who are working their machines 24/7 editing and exporting during the day, ingesting and uploading over night (or vice versa!).

Featuring two Thunderbolt 3 ports, to provide the option of daisy chaining, it also offers read and write speeds of well over 2000MB/S.

The price is £1,199 for a 1TB, £1,799.95 for a 2TB, £3,549.95 for a 4TB and £6,569.95 for an 8TB.

I haven’t had an opportunity to put these drives through their paces yet, but there’s no doubt that on paper the speed and reliability stats really stack up.

Tags: iss132 | gtechnology | western digital | san disk | speed shuttle ssd | mobile pro ssd | g-drive pro ssd | Phil Vinter
Contributing Author Phil Vinter

Read this article in the tv-bay digital magazine
Download PDF
Article Copyright tv-bay limited. All trademarks recognised.
Reproduction of the content strictly prohibited without written consent.
Articles
TVFutures - Learning Editing Platforms
Connor Eves Long before I even started University, I knew I wanted to be a video editor. I used to spend large amounts of my time editing together my own YouTube videos (In fact, I still do- occasionally) My name is Connor Eves, and I’m now just a few months away from attempting to enter the post-production realm at a professional level, a thought that is on my mind near enough everyday.
Tags: iss141 | portsmouth university | ccitv | premiere pro | blackmagic | davinci | avid | fcp | final cut pro | Connor Eves
Contributing Author Connor Eves Click to read
Gearing up for The Americas with Simon Reeve
Jonathan Joung For several years, it has been my honour to collaborate as director of photography with Simon Reeve, the well-known British author, adventurer, and TV presenter. Our latest partnership, the popular BBC Two program “The Americas With Simon Reeve,” is our most ambitious project yet, tracing Simon’s journey from the top to the toe of two continents. Series 1 of “The Americas,” covering North and Central America, has just finished airing on BBC Two. Currently in production, Series 2 will continue the story down through South America and will air in 2020.
Tags: iss141 | litepanels | vitec | pxw x500 | a7s dslr | dionic xt | flowtech | smallhd 702 | Jonathan Joung
Contributing Author Jonathan Joung Click to read
Creating Broadcast Quality Live Streams for Social
Alex Pettitt

We go behind the scenes of YouTube Premiere League Football Show, “The Kick Off”

Now in its third season, live streamed roundtable “The Kick Off” is the perfect weekly companion show for football fans looking to discuss the latest Premiere league match. Featuring YouTube sensation, True Geordie, and including the option to chat interactively with the show hosts as standard, it’s no surprise that “The Kick Off” now regularly attracts around 1.7 million views.
Tags: iss141 | kickoff | blackmagic design | atem | youtube | ursa mini pro | grabyo | super chat | adsense | Alex Pettitt
Contributing Author Alex Pettitt Click to read
CLASS - Software Workflows
Bruce Devlin - new NAB is approaching. Apart from deciding on whether to come for a bike ride with myself and the KitPlus Team, you should also be thinking about what information you want to get from the vendors and the thought leaders that will stay relevant long enough be deployed.
Tags: iss141 | class | dpp | dpp tech leader | cots | smpte | nab2020 | Bruce Devlin - new
Contributing Author Bruce Devlin - new Click to read
CVP Helps Productions Choose the Right Lens for the Job
Sam Measure CVP Technical Specialist, Sam Measure, on how the company’s free online Lens Coverage and Camera Comparison tool is giving something back to the filmmaking community.
Tags: iss141 | cvp | lens tool | arri | fuji | red | alexa lf | venuce | monstro | full frame | super 35 | hawks | vantage | david fincher | Sam Measure
Contributing Author Sam Measure Click to read
Total Articles: 1928 [1-50] 51-100 101-150 151-200 201-250 251-300 301-350 > >>
Magewell Pro Convert
Phabrix QX Series
Photon Beard Highlight LED Softlight
Broadcast Solutions Used OB
Grass Valley Switchers
Signiant - Big Files, Big Challenges
3D Storm NDI - HDMI