With the G-Drive slim has G Technology adapted its small 2,5 inch hard drive to the current state of the art. As the name suggests, this portable hard drive is very flat with a height of 10 millimeters. The sleek and flat external hard drive comes with a USB 3.0 interface, as well as a 7.200 rpm hard disk with 500 GB therefore. The 7.200 rpm promise quite a bit of speed, as a rule 2,5 inch hard drives are equipped with 5.400 rpm. We take a closer look at the test device provided to us by G-Technology.
- High transfer rate of up to 140 MB/s from your computer to the...
- Did you use the external hard drive 1 TB all your data quickly...
- password protection and Encryption is the G-Drive Mobile USB-C...
What's in the box
- G drive slim
- USB data cable (USB 3.0)
- quick start Guide
processing / design
As with the other test devices that were made available to us by G-Technology, the G-Drive slim has a very high quality finish. A Housing made of aluminium, which is held on the outside by a black plastic coating. The whole thing is kept so simple that no screw can be seen. Only the USB input has a small white status light on the front, which signals the operation of the hard drive. The manufacturer's distinctive "G" is embedded on the upper side. This simple appearance allows it to work perfectly with a Mac, which is what the manufacturer is after - which is also noticeable in the formatting - more on that later.
Hardware
As already mentioned, the hard drive is a 2,5 inch hard drive with 7.200 rpm and a 32 MB cache. In combination with the USB 3.0 standard, write/read speeds of just over 130 MB/s are achieved - that's decent! The hard disk runs very quietly and also reacts very quickly.
Specifications
- High transfer rate of up to 140 MB/s from your computer to the...
- Have all your data quickly accessible with the 1 TB external hard drive.
- Password protection and encryption are features of the G-Drive Mobile USB-C...
| Format | 2,5 inch |
| Color | Silver |
| Storage | 2 TB |
| Speed | RPM 7200 |
| cache | 32 MB |
| Tender | 130,4MB/s |
| Read | 131,2MB/s |
| Connection | USB 3.0 |
| cable length | 50 cm |
| Power Supplies? | No |
Attention Windows users: The G-Drive slim is factory formatted with HFS+ and journaling. The advantage for Mac users: it is formatted directly for Time Machine. In order to use the hard drive with a Windows device, it must be reformatted. How to format a hard drive is described here: Format external hard disk
We used a 2013 MacBook Pro without Retina to test the G-Drive slim. Speeds were tested using Blackmagicdesign's Disk Speed Test app and the appropriate USB 3.0 port on the MacBook.
In order to keep the test as transparent as possible, we decided to format the hard disk to FAT32 so that it can also run on the Windows device. Formatting was only possible on the Mac. The Windows 7 device gave an error when trying to format the unrecognized hard drive - not so nice. On the MacBook, however, this was not a problem, and a subsequent speed test was also carried out on the Mac. The write speeds that the hard drive achieved under HFS+ could no longer be reached at 122 MB/s. The read speed, on the other hand, remained the same at 131,2 MB/s. Such transmission speeds could no longer be achieved on the Windows PC either. Reading speeds of 3.0 MB/s were only achieved on the USB 137 port!
Benchmark test results
USB 3.0 HFS+ (MacBook)
Write Speed: 130,4MB/s
Read Speed: 131,2MB/s
USB 3.0 FAT32 (MacBook)
Write Speed: 122MB/s
Read Speed: 131,2MB/s
USB3.0 FAT32 (Windows 7)
Write Speed: 102,46MB/s
Read Speed: 137MB/s
USB2.0 FAT32 (Windows 7)
Write Speed: 22,76MB/s
Read Speed: 30,48MB/s
Conclusion
We were more than satisfied with the G-Drive slim. It is very well made and has reached write and read speeds of just over 130 MB/s on the Mac. The extremely flat and simple hard drive complements a MacBook perfectly and is state-of-the-art with its 7.200 rpm and a cache of 32 MB with USB 3.0 standard. The G-Drive slim is priced at around 80 euros, which is a very reasonable and not too high price for such a device 500 GB memory size is. If you use a Windows operating system, you should note that we did not manage to format the hard disk for such a Windows PC. It wasn't until we started using the Mac that we were able to use the hard drive on Windows 7 as well.
Nevertheless we speak one absolute purchase recommendation for this 2,5 inch hard drive from G-Technology. We are excited.
- High transfer rate of up to 140 MB/s from your computer to the...
- Have all your data quickly accessible with the 1 TB external hard drive.
- Password protection and encryption are features of the G-Drive Mobile USB-C...
