G-Technology Presents: On Location with Documentary Filmmaker Graham Sheldon

G-Technology goes on location with Award-winning Filmmaker Graham Sheldon while shooting his film documentary, Cornerstone: Switzerland. On-location data management for RED Cinema Cameras in no small feat, so Graham relies on the speed and durability of the G-Speed Shuttle XL and Pelican Cases to centralize and protect all his precious footage on location back to the studio.

G-Technology goes on location with Award-winning Filmmaker Graham Sheldon while shooting his film documentary, Cornerstone: Switzerland. On-location data management for RED Cinema Cameras in no small feat, so Graham relies on the speed and durability of the G-Speed Shuttle XL and Pelican Cases to centralize and protect all his precious footage on location back to the studio. Click here for all G-Technology.

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The traditional choice is to pick an external hard drive, but even the best portable hard drives are pretty slow for bulk image transfers and video editing, and while regular desktop hard drives are faster, even these have their limits. Another option is to invest in SSD (solid state storage) instead, but while this is super-fast, it’s also super-expensive. There is a third option – a desktop RAID system like the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle. So just how does this compare to the other external storage options?

• G-Technology G-SPEED Shuttle 4Bay Thunderbolt 3 16TB

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. A RAID drive gets a series of disk drives working together to offer more capacity, higher speeds and data ‘redundancy’ to allow for disk failures. There are different types of RAID setup – the G-Speed Shuttle uses RAID 5, which means your data is safe if one of its four drives fails.

Not surprisingly, RAID systems come in pretty big boxes. These not only have to hold all the disk drives but the power supply and various other data control hardware. The G-Speed Shuttle also needed a driver download for use on our test computer, but that was straightforward.

The G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle comes with drives already installed, so you just need to choose the capacity, which starts at 16TB and goes up to 48TB. If you need more, there’s a larger G-Speed Shuttle XL model with eight drive bays, even faster transfer speeds and capacities from 24TB to 72TB. 

Be aware that the data redundancy built into RAID systems means that the system storage and the usable capacity are different. The G-Speed Shuttle 16TB model has 4 x 4TB drives, but a usable capacity of 12TB, not 16TB. Click here for the full article.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

Description: Director, Cinematographer, and G-TEAM member Michael Coleman shares how the Atomos Shogun Inferno and Evolution Series keep his workflow future-ready.

The workflow is super-simple: Create a new library on the drive, import all media from the cards to it, and then when back in the studio, transfer it to the NAS for backup.

With a transfer rate up to 425 MB/s, Final Cut Pro renders as normal running off the drive (and so does Lightroom, and a Capture One Pro session), and it connects to a USB 3.0 port. I don’t use that feature, but larger studios dock the drive into a supported RAID to edit, share and back up. In their extensive product line, G-Technology also offers a more rugged and slimmer version, but I want the SSD speed, which is about 4X that of a hard drive….[continue reading]

The G-Dock EV is a dual-slot drive caddy that can serve many different purposes depending on your production. When first released two years ago, many reviewers were frustrated by the slow speeds offered by using traditional hard drives for the system. Now that SSD prices have come down significantly amount, we took another look at the G-Dock EV as an option for filmmakers who want to spend less of their work day waiting on downloads.

Design
The G-Dock EV has the same silver design that G-Tech has been using nearly a decade, matching the look and feel of the old Mac Pros. It’s aged remarkably well, and still feels acceptably modern despite the age.

The SSD disks use the newer design language of G-Tech, black and blues but with similar milling for vent holes, and they match together well. The build quality is strong and seems likely to survive frequent on-set use in a variety of situations. The built-in fan is a nice bonus, and the buttons for ejecting drives are large and clear. They are occasionally a bit hard to push to get the drive to eject, but that seems safer than having them eject too easily. When you do get the drive out, it comes out smoothly. The rear button is a power toggle, not a switch, and it’s easy to forget about. More than once in our testing, we pushed in a drive and assumed it would automatically mount, but of course you have to turn the unit on as well.

Click here to read the full article on No Film School

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

In this Product Spotlight segment, Dave chats with Ken Higgins from G-Technology who joins us to show off some of their latest offerings in storage drives, including high-capacity SSDs.

A word about my memory cards: I always record my pictures in-camera to two Lexar cards, the SD card and the Compact Flash card. That way, if a card gets corrupted, I still have all my files. Did I ever have a corrupted card? Yes, once. It was corrupted as I was removing the card from the camera while the camera was powering up after I accidentally touched the shutter release button, which turns on the camera. That will never happen again, as I always turn off my camera before removing my cards. Still, recording to two cards covers you.

The next step is backing up (manually dragging) my files onto my G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE ev ATC with Thunderbolt drive – which is powered by my computer . . . so no additional power source is required. Sure, this process takes some time, but having my images in two places, on my laptop and on my accessory drive, helps me sleep better.

Once my images, like this photograph of several king penguins on South Georgia Island, are backed up on my drive (now my images are in two places), I format my memory cards in-camera (as opposed to formatting them from my computer) and reuse them.

My portable drive often never leaves my sight. I sometimes even take it to dinner. I simply cannot lose those photographs.

On the way home from a trip, I keep the drive in my carry-on bag with all my cameras. I never put any camera or computer gear though luggage – expect for my tripod. I even keep my tripod ballhead with me in my carry on.

Back home, I back up the images on my portable drive to my desktop drive, a G-Technology 2TB G-Drive Pro with Thunderbolt. Next I back up my files to another identical drive. I keep one drive in my office and one in my house. I also keep my files on the portable drive I used on site, and store them by year in my office. So all my files are in three places. Hey! I told you I was a nut about backing up my files.

Click here to read the full article from Rick Sammon

Download the Windows G-RAID configurator from the Downloads section. Once downloaded, run the file to install the G-RAID Studio Configurator. Please refer to the steps below on how to install and change the RAID setting. Keep in mind that changing the RAID setting will delete all the data on the drive.

1.  Double click on the file downloaded. the End User License Agreement will appear like on the screen below. Click on the box to check and agree to the license terms and conditions. Then click on Install to continue .

2.  The G-RAID Studio Configurator will install on the computer.

3.  Once installed, the following screen will show. Click on Close to finish the installation.

4.  Once the software has been installed, click on the G-RAID Studio Configurator Icon located in the desktop. Once done, the screen below will appear. To change the RAID setting, verify that is says G-RAID Studio Thunderbolt as the device and click on Configure.

5.  The RAID setting can now be choosen. Choose the desired RAID setting and click on Configure. (Make sure the G-Raid Studio is the only external storage device attached at this time.)

6.  A warning message will appear stating that configuring the RAID will delete all the data. Click on Continue to continue.

7.  Another warning message will pop up stating that this process will delete all the data. Click on OK to continue.

8.  The G-RAID Studio Configurator will now be configuring the G-RAID Studio to the selected RAID setting.

9.  Once completed, the screen below will appear. Now the G-RAID Studio will need to be formatted. How to format your drive for NTFS for Windows

Downloads for Windows Software to make installing your G-RAID STUDIO easier.

G-RAID Studio – RAID Configurator

G-Technology Windows Format Wizard

G-Technology Assistant Windows

Thunderbolt Windows Driver