G-DRIVE Mobile

The G-Drive Mobile's design is clearly its greatest attribute. The design is clearly intended to complement the beauty of Apple's range of computers, featuring a metal outer case, topped with shiny black plastic, a formula more than familiar to any Apple fan, or even anyone who has walked into an Apple store in the last two or three years. This is clearly a sensible decision for G-Tech, and one that the company has made many times before, evident in there older products, most of which seem to be simply an extremely small MacPro enclosure containing a hard drive.

Although the G-Drive looks great new, its quality materials let it down. The external enclosure is made of aluminum, clearly a choice influenced by Jon Ives himself, however, in place of using glass for the shiny black top, G-Technology have instead opted for a weak black plastic, something that scratches exceptionally easily, turning the polished design into something far less attractive. However, this let-down in material quality is somewhat made up for by the great build quality. The drive is built like a tank, and the weight and feel gives you a deserved confidence in its strength. The seams and joints are tight and even, giving the drive a great overall look and feel.

The drive comes in two options, Firewire and USB. Both have USB ports while the Firewire also has two Firewire 800 ports. Obviously, the Firewire option does run quicker data transfer wise when running over Firewire, and it also offers the extra Firewire port for daisy chaining (essentially allowing many drives to function through one port). Both drives use high-quality hard drives, allowing them the best possible speeds. Overall, what you would expect from a company like Hitachi.

G-Technology are clearly hoping that their design will allow them to get away with charging quite a large premium on the drive, pricing a 500GB drive at $120, a price more appropriate for something closer to 1.5TB. In some cases design can be of higher priority than price, but for external hard drives, that can simply be hidden behind a desk, it really isn't so. The cost of a hard drive is incredibly low these days, and the price of this hard drive, even considering both its size and design, is far too high to be practical.

Though some die hard Mac fans will adore this little tribute to Apple, for most of us, it is not really an appropriate solution to the data storage problem, being simply too costly a solution.