Securing your rushes in a rush with G-Technologys G-DOCK

Mark Stopher

Author: Mark Stopher

Published 1st September 2013

by Mark Stopher
Issue 80 - August 2013
I was recently charged with the task of backing up files from a 9 day web series shoot. The sci-fi series is called Hunger Ford and is being produced by Wild Seed Studios (wildseedstudios.com). We began day four by throwing a postman through a breakaway table covered in sugar glass items. After such effort went into getting that perfect shot - backing it up had to be done right. We all know too well that feeling of loosing a file, and I did not want to be the one sheepishly telling the director that his masterpiece had been lost.
G-Technology had the perfect product for me. The G-DOCK ev with Thunderbolt connection is an expandable storage solution that comes with two removable 1TB hard drives. So, on set I could copy files across to a hard drive using its USB 3.0 connection. The ease of use was just phenomenal - no external power cables were left dangling to trip me up and files skipped across the cable at speeds of 136 MB/s. When youre in a rush to pack up lots of kit, something simple and efficient is definitely best.

Once my G-DRIVE was full of clips, I could take it back to the G-DOCK at home where a second drive was waiting, already plugged into the dock by SATA connection. The files could then be backed up to this second drive through the G-DOCKs ultra-fast Thunderbolt transfer. They are hot-swappable so no unplugging and powering down every time you want to change the drives.

Setup was a doddle. The box contains a plethora of cables and everything you need to get started. The price of £589 gets you the G-DOCK and 2 1TB drives to go with it. You can then buy additional G-DRIVEs for £149.99, or... wait until the end of September when the G-DRIVE PLUS will be released. Slightly bigger, but still compatible with the dock, these drives will have a transfer rate of up to 250 MB/s. If you plugged two of these into a dock with a RAID 0 configuration, you could reach up to 500 MB/s - thats 15 minutes of uncompressed 2K transferred in 7 minutes. The units themselves are really slick.
They look at home next to a mac - with aluminum casing and simple design. Initially, this worried me about their durability. However, they can survive a 1 meter drop and have a 3 year limited warranty. The smart cooling fan keeps them transferring happily whilst remaining almost silent. A Kensington Security Slot will stop any accidents happening to the dock too.
The fact that the setup is completely configurable opens up lots of possibilities. The drives ship in JBOD format but are RAID configurable if you so choose. You could have several G-DRIVEs all with different projects on, and just plug them into the dock when needed. Admittedly, a display screen on the drive would be a welcome addition - then you could easily configure the text shown to associate it with a project. The low-tech solution of sticky labels comes into play as the unit ships with several stickers to place in the grooves of the drive.
The G-DOCK is only currently available for Mac. Perhaps well see a way for it to work with Windows further down the line. For now, it is a completely customisable setup that keeps my postman clips safe and allows me time to go out and shoot more.

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