USB 3 Hard Disks Can Be Docked in a Thunderbolt Chassis for Serious Speed Advantages

G-Technology announced the Evolution Series of storage products, which takes a highly modular approach to external hard drives and docks. Striped in a RAID 0 configuration, two drives can deliver up to 500 MB/sec of throughput when docked.

The new G-Drive ev is a 2.5-inch 7200 rpm hard disk cartridge that fits into one of two bays on the new, Thunderbolt-enabled G-Dock ev. Each drive offers sustained transfers of up to 136 MB/sec, but in a RAID 0 configuration transfers can hit 250 MB/sec. Transfers get faster with the G-Drive ev Plus, which is rated for up to 250 MB/sec of sustained transfer speed. Two of those drives in the dock will deliver up to 500 MB/sec, the company said.  

What's more, the individual G-Drives have USB 3 connectivity, so they still function as capable external hard drives even when undocked.

G-Tech VP of sales Ian Andes noted that, because the drives have dual Thunderbolt jacks, up to six of them can be daisy-chained. That means a master cartridge could be used to simultaneously make up to six individual copies — at 250 MB/sec — that can be ejected and passed around to team members who can simply use them as USB hard disks.

The G-Dock is scheduled to ship next month at an MSRP of $749.95 — including two 1 TB G-Drive ev modules. The G-Drive ev comes in 500 GB ($149.95) and 1 TB ($199.95) versions, while the G-Drive ev Plus is available only in a 1 TB edition ($349.95), starting this summer.

G-Technology also announced two new G-Drive Pro units, in 4 TB ($849.95) and 2 TB ($699.95) versions. Andes said two of those drives striped together could saturate the Thunderbolt bus, happily proclaiming a desire to offer SSD-style performance at spinning disk-style prices. Those drives are expected to show up this summer.