The OWC Envoy Pro EX
Thunderbolt 3 (www.macsales.
com) portable SSD comes with
MIL-STD810G drop test certification
and a three-year warranty. Its 1TB
model is also much cheaper than
the G-Drive equivalent at £449.99
($349.99), while being as fast.
However, if ruggedness and the
ability to survive a fall is your top
priority, then the Envoy Pro EX has
a fatal Achilles’ heel, in the form of
a cable that’s permanently
connected to it and can’t be
replaced if damaged.Summary
The G-Technology G-Drive mobile
Pro SSD has succeeded in hitting
the right notes for its target
audience: mobile digital-content
creators. It is rugged, fast, and
while not exactly cheap, it’s less
expensive than its most direct
competitor, the Samsung X5. It has
a long warranty, which will make it
handy for some, although the lack
of capacities bigger than 2TB will
make some cringe.
We’d like this drive to be smaller,
in fact much smaller than the
current model, but is it really
important for the device to be as
small as a matchbox? We’d also
have appreciated G-Technology
bundling a cloud storage solution
for extra peace of mind; Western
Digital has Upthere, a service
described it describes as a ‘home
for all your stuff’. In the case of the
latter, you get 20GB of storage for
free and a 100GB account costs a
mere $24 (for a year).
The G-Drive mobile Pro is a great
choice if you’re looking for peace of
mind as well as durability. It is built
to last and boasts the longest
warranty of any external SSD
storage device on the market.QSmall, sturdy and super-fast,
the G-Drive mobile Pro is one
of favourite external SSDs.Write speeds are understandably
slower at 2.3Gbps with our test
machine, a Lenovo ThinkPad X1
Yoga. AS SSD and Atto benchmarks
reported slower read speeds
(between 2.1 and 2.4Gbps) with
write speeds hovering between
1.8 and 2.1Gbps. A single 100GB file
took 137 seconds to be shuttled
from the host PC’s drive to the
mobile Pro SSD, which is faster
than either the Patriot Evlvr or the
OWC Envoy Pro EX, but slower
than the Samsung X5.
The device gets warm to the
touch when in use, but not to the
level of anything unpleasant. Bear
in mind, though, that you will need
to reformat the drive in order to use
it on Windows 10, and that lower
capacity SSDs tend to perform
worse than bigger models.
Competition
The G-Drive mobile Pro SSD targets
a niche within a niche. It’s aimed at
the videographer on the move who
has to face Mother Nature and
adverse terrains, its small capacity
meaning it can only be a temporary
abode for digital video footage
before it’s transferred elsewhere.
There are no other Thunderbolt 3
storage devices that come with
such a long warranty and have
been tested to a three-metre drop;
if you find any, do let us know.The X5 from Samsung is the
fastest external drive (non-RAID) on
the market and while it might not
be the most rugged looking out
there, it can still withstand drops of
up to two metres – and there’s a
2TB model available. It is more
expensive than the G-Technology’s
G-Drive mobile Pro, although not
by a significant amount.
If price is paramount, ahead of
warranty, ruggedness and speed,
then the Patriot Evlvr (www.info.
patriotmemory.com/evlvr-ssd) is
worth a look at £169.99 ($190) for
the 512GB model. It is slower than
either the Samsung X5 or the
G-Drive, has a two-year warranty,
and while it does look sturdy,
Patriot hasn’t made a big fuss
of this aspect.“The G-Drive mobile Pro SSD is a great choice if
you’re looking for peace of mind and durability
Upgrade
G-Drive mobile Pro SSD
June 2019 | |^83
KEYFEATURES
G-Drive mobile Pro SSD
Transfe r rate Up to 2800MB/s
Connectivity Thunderbolt 3 port
Weight 1.04kg
Size 112x80x17mm