T
hunderbolt 3 storage devices
are gradually making their
way on to the market with an
increasing number that are small
enough to be carried in a backpack
(or your jeans back pocket). The
G-Drive mobile Pro stands out from
the crowd by combining blazing
speed – thanks to an NVMe drive
- with the sturdy appearance you’d
expect from an all-terrain vehicle.
Available in capacities of 500GB
(£256.99/$229.95), 1TB (£501.95/
$449.95) and 2TB (£1,015.07/
$1,099.95), this is one of the few
external drives – let alone a
Thunderbolt 3 model – that
comes with a five-year warranty.
Design
The G-Drive mobile Pro is the
bigger brother of the G-Drive
mobile SSD. It is, in a nutshell, a
larger version of the latter, having
to accommodate for – one might
argue – more components or a
bigger circuit board.
Like its nimbler sibling, the
G-Drive mobile Pro SSD has an
aluminium core that enhances its
sturdiness, whilst keeping it cool
and light. A black rubber shell
protects it from scratches and the
device has slits through which you
can see the heatsink that covers
the NAND chips (or so we believe).
G-Technology says the design
enables the drive to withstand a
three-metre drop and a downward
force of 4,450 Newtons. Other than
the silver ‘G’ and Thunderbolt logos
on the front, though, there’s hardly
anything in the way of distracting
visuals. The Thunderbolt 3
connector can be found on end,
and a status light on the other.
G-Technology doesn’t bundle any
software with its drive, but includes
a 50cm Thunderbolt 3 cable.
Four screws secure the device
which is chunky with a weight of
more than 200g. Its dimensions,
112x80x17mm, make it as big as a
traditional 2.5-inch internal drive.That’s not a bad thing per se, just
don’t expect it to be as pocketable
as a USB drive like the Samsung T5
(www.samsung.com).Performance
Curiously, the drive is identified
as the SanDisk Extreme Pro by
CrystalDiskInfo, although that
shouldn’t really matter given that
they are both part of the same
holding company: Western Digital
Corporation (www.wdc.com).
It is likely the components used
in the G-Drive mobile Pro are the
same as the Western Digital PC
SN720, an NVMe drive that has a
five-year warranty and read speeds
of up to 3.4Gbps. Not surprisingly,
the SN720 is also available in 512GB
and 1TB versions (although not 2TB,
oddly). As to G-Technology’s claim
that the G-Drive mobile Pro SSD
can hit a data transfer speed of
2.8Gbps, we found it to be true,
since CrystalDiskMark recorded
2,830Mbps during our tests.G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro
Thunderbolt 3 SSD 500GB
£256.99 | $229.95 http://www.g-technology.com/
It’s bigger and faster, but is this drive better than its non-Pro sibling?
Image credits : G-Technology/Western Digital Corporation82 |^ |^ June 2019