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If you?re looking for mammoth amounts of fast storage, here?s a FireWire 800 (1394b) disk that fills the bill nicely. The G-RAID FireWire array by G-Tech, Inc. is a gleaming stainless steel external disk enclosure that?s available in four different sizes, 160GB ($300), 320GB ($400), 500GB ($600) and 800GB ($1200). Even though it looks like a Mac G5, it?s equally at home on both the PC and Mac platforms. We tested the G-RAID 800GB model, and not only was it the fastest FireWire 800 disk ever to grace our Midwest Test Facility, it was the most beautiful as well.
Before we make our aesthetic and usability judgments, let?s get right to the benchmark test scores. The G-RAID proved itself to be indeed the fastest external disk we?ve ever tested, but it didn?t win by a landslide. Take a look at the table below, and you?ll see that it just edged out our previous champion FireWire 800 disk, the LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme, a 1.6TB monstrosity that slam-dunked our FireWire benchmarks a couple of months ago.
| Benchmark scores | FireWire 400 | FireWire 800 |
| G-RAID 800GB | ||
| Read (MB/sec.) | 26 | 79 |
| Write (MB/Sec.) | 22 | 51 |
| LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme 1.6TB | ||
| Read (MB/sec.) | 26 | 76 |
| Write (MB/Sec.) | 21 | 51 |
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| The G-RAID was designed with the Mac G5 in mind. |
When we first plugged in the G-RAID to our FireWire 400 ports and fired up our StormTest sustained read and write disk benchmarking software, its read speed exactly matched that of the LaCie disk, both reading at 26 MB per second. Its write speed was slightly faster, at 22MB per second. Stepping up to FireWire 800, the G-RAID beat out the LaCie disk by 3MB per second, reading at a sustained 79 MB per second. It was a dead heat between the two discs when he came to write speed, with both performing a sustained write at 51MB per second.
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| My, my, that's a purty disk, ain't it? Here it is gracing one of our desks here at the Midwest Test Facility. |
Especially because of its good looks, the G-RAID aims to be a good citizen on the desktop. Take a look at this lovely product and you can?t help but think it was designed by those with a highly developed aesthetic sense. Taking its design cues from the Mac G5, its stainless steel finish and gleaming grillwork will serve as a superb desktop ornament. But you?ll only want it sitting on your desktop if you don?t mind fan noise, because unlike its competitor the LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme, this unit has a cooling fan inside that?s not exactly quiet. The makers of G-RAID, G-Tech Inc., see their products? cooling fans as a virtue, decrying the lack of such in their competitors? models.
G-Tech asserts that those fan-less disks won?t last as long as theirs will without proper cooling. But through extensive testing over a few months so far, we haven?t noticed failures with those disks not including fans inside. It?s too bad such a beautiful disk as this makes such a noise, because its splendor can?t be fully appreciated deep in our server closet to which all cacophonous machines are banished. Granted, it doesn?t sound like a vacuum cleaner, but it?s not something you would want sitting right next to you all day long, either. To this statement I must add a caveat: In these parts we are extraordinarily noise-sensitive, and have all of our computers out of earshot from our work areas in a central computer room. This way, we can edit video at our desks, peacefully contemplate the affairs of the day, and even create audio mixes and voiceovers in serene quietude. Soon, all work areas will be designed this way.
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