Review: G-Tech’s G-Speed Shuttle XL with EV Series Adapters, Thunderbolt 3
By Jim Bask
As video recording file sizes continue to creep up, so do our hard drive storage size, RAID and bandwidth needs. These days we are seeing a huge amount of recorded media needing to be offloaded, edited and color graded in the field. G-Technology has stepped up to bat with its 24TB G-Speed Shuttle XL with EV Series adapters, Thunderbolt 3 edition — a portable, durable, adaptable and hardware-RAID powered storage solution.
In terms of physical appearance, the G-Speed Shuttle XL is just shy of 10x7x16-inches and weighs in at around 25 pounds. It’s not exactly lightweight, but with spinning hard drives it’s what I would expect. To get a lighter RAID you would need SSD drives, but those would most likely triple the price. The case itself is actually pretty rugged; it seems like it could withstand a minimal amount of production abuse, but again without being an SSD RAID you have some risks since spinning disk drives are more volatile.
The exterior is made out of a hard plastic, and it would have been nice to have the rubberized feel on at least the handle of the Shuttle XL — similar to G-Tech’s Rugged line of drives — but it still feels solid. To open the Shuttle XL, there is an easy-to-access switch on the front. There is a lock switch that took me a few wiggles to work correctly, but I would loved to have seen a key lock that would to add a little more security since this RAID will most likely house important data. When closing the front door, the slide lock wouldn’t fully close unless I pushed hard a second time. If I didn’t do that the door would open by itself. On the back are the two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a power cable plug and a Kensington Lock slot. On the inside of this particular Shuttle XL are six 4TB 7200 RPM Enterprise Class HGST (Western Digital) drives configured to a RAID-5 by default and two EV Series Bay adapters….[continue reading]