Hi guys,

Welcome back to the blog and another episode of My workflow with G-Technology.

This time I’m going to talk about the importance of speed vs. capacity, and the different mobile drives I use personally. Since G-Technology offers a wide range of portable storage solutions with different features, I thought it’d make sense to highlight each of them and explain how I use them in different parts of my process. Hopefully, this gives you guys a better understanding of what would fit your very own creative workflow best.

Speed vs. Capacity

We creators live in a complex world, dealing with all kinds of different media types and tools to get the job done. The imaging technology industry proceeds very fast and every year or so, we see big leaps in sensor development and resolution. This means, that files sizes not only get bigger and bigger, we also need to keep up with the processing power of our overall environment, in order to deal with the ever-growing content. So when it comes to investing into new gear, especially the one on which we process and store our content, each decision has to be made very carefully.

G-Technology’s portable solutions

There’re a couple of factors to take into consideration, when dealing with mobile storage solutions.

One of them is the environment in which you plan to use these drives. Depending on your type of photography for example, you’ll find yourself in very demanding conditions, dealing with rain, snow or lots of sand. So the reliability of your drives under these conditions should be your highest priority. And while regular hard drives have moving parts built-in, which could fail in very rough conditions or when you drop them, SSDs on the other side come without this weak point.

Another big factor to consider is the type of digital media you have to deal with. You might be a regular photographer, dealing with medium sized files of a 30MP camera, but you might also be dealing with high resolution 4k RAW footage from a Canon C300 while being out in the field for weeks, capturing once-in-a-lifetime moments. For the latter, you obviously would need much more capacity to offload and backup your content in-between the shoots. Additionally, if you need to edit some of your images or footage on location to deliver it to a client asap, you obviously would need to take speed into consideration as well.

You see, it’s a pretty tough topic and not an easy decision to make at all. And while SSDs tend to offer more and more capacity these days, they come at a pretty high price point while not reaching near the sizes available by their traditional siblings.

Ruggedized and blazingly fast: G-DRIVE mobile SSD & mobile Pro SSD

Let’s start right off the bat with some of the fastest and most reliable solutions available on the market. You need a ridiculously fast and insanely tough portable drive, which will never let you down? Look no further and get yourself a G-DRIVE mobile SSD or it’s even faster, slightly bigger brother, the G-DRIVE mobile Pro SSD.

G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile Pro SSD

The G-DRIVE mobile SSD features transfer speeds up to 560MB/s and a backwards compatible USB-C port, to keep it ready for a variety of laptop generations. It offers an IP67 rating, which makes it water and dust resistant. The G-DRIVE mobile SSD will also survive drops from a 3 meters height and pressures up to 1000 lb. It’s available up to 2TB in size and its small footprint makes it the perfect choice when travelling in tough environments. Editing native 4K footage from this drive is as easy as plugging it in and getting started.

The G-DRIVE mobile Pro SSD on the other hand brings it to a whole new level in terms of speed. The drive clocks in at a tremendous transfer rate of up to 2800MB/s. It offers the same drop and crush protection like its smaller brother, the mobile SSD and only lacks the IP67 rating. But if pure speed is what you need, this is what you should get. And all this fits in the palm of your hand. The G-DRIVE mobile Pro SSD offers Thunderbolt 3 technology and its transfer rates let you you edit multi-stream 8K footage at full frame rate and transfer as much as a terabyte of content in seven minutes or less wherever you are.

G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile Pro SSD during a speed test

Both of these drives are my first choice when I have to travel light and still don’t want to compromise in performance and durability. They almost don’t add any weight to my overall luggage, yet they’re as fast as it gets with nowadays SSDs available on the market. I mainly use these drives to quickly edit new projects or batch edit a stack of high resolution images, whenever time matters or the type of content demands this type of performance.

Believe me, once you tried one of these bad boys there’s no way back to a regular hard drive for editing content or quickly backing up large files during a trip, especially so in tough environments.

No-Compromise flexibility: G-DRIVE ev RaW & RaW SSD

You guys know how much I love a well-structured and thought-out workflow. From being at a location and shooting these unique moments to being back in the office and finishing projects, before delivering them to a client. Not only do I require reliable and flexible solutions, which can adapt to my ever-changing conditions, but I also need as much performance and capacity as possible at the same time.

I’ve dealt with a bunch of different approaches and solutions from all kinds of manufactures. And while most of them promise a lot, they usually can only convince in either the speed or the capacity department. Also, when mixing up different technologies, you have to deal with incompatibility, different cables and ports and in case of issues with different manufactures and their support as well. Being a professional, this can cost you not only a lot of time but also a lot of money. Especially when dealing with client projects and tough deadlines.

Thankfully, there is a solution to get rid of all these problems: The G-Technology Evolution Series.

G-Technology G-DRIVE ev RaW & ev RaW SSD

The Evolution Series is a highly flexible, reliable and cross-functional set of integrated solutions to support each creative workflow end-to-end. Talking about mobile drives, G-Technology offers the G-DRIVE ev RaW and a faster version, the G-DRIVE ev RaW SSD. I talked about these drives in my prior posts already, but let me highlight a couple things again.

Both drives are built from a super lightweight enclosure, featuring a custom polycarbonate construction. They’re protected by a rubber bumper and can survive drops from 1.5 meters. The regular ev RaW drive features capacities of up to 4TB and rates of up to Up to 136MB/s. The SSD version comes with a 425MB/s transfer rate and offers sizes up to 2TB. Both drives are Evolution Series compatible and can be used as either a stand-alone solution or plugged into a G-SPEED Shuttle with ev Series Bay Adapters to offload and synchronize more complex projects.

G-Technology G-DRIVE ev RaW & ev RaW SSD

I use both of these drives on a regular and the whole Evolution Series system simplified my workflow to where I feel having more time being outside and creating rather than spending hours dealing with backups and bottlenecks of other approaches. While I use the regular G-DRIVE ev RaW drives to store and backup finished projects and bringing them along during my trips, I really enjoy the faster SSDs to quickly backup and edit content while being on location. I don’t need to wait until I’m back home and can start right away with the same performance I’m used to when working with big RAID solutions. Both drives look and feel the same, and the integration with the high-performance G-Technology Shuttle solutions make them the perfect combination between speed and capacity for working professionals of all kinds.

As tough as it gets: The ArmorATD

Last but not least, let’s talk about something brand new: The G-Technology ArmorATD

G-Technology invited me to a special launch event in Munich a couple days ago, where they officially introduced their newest member to the lineup of portable drives, the ArmorATD. And let me tell you right away, this drive not only sits nicely between their already existing products, it’s also looking damn sexy.

G-Technology ArmorATD

The ArmorATD is a rugged, all-terrain portable hard drive that is relentless under pressure of up to 1000lb and is shock, rain, dust and crush resistant to protect your content from out in the field to back in the studio. The USB-C connectivity offers support for Thunderbolt 3, and an USB‑C to USB-A adapter for USB 3.0 compatibility is included as well. The drive offers transfer rates of up to 140MB/s and capacities of up to 4TB, which is plenty of room to backup your valuable data when being out in the wild. The drives come formatted for Windows and Mac right out of the box and are covered by a 3 years warranty from G-Technology directly.

G-Technology ArmorATD with accessories

I can’t wait to put this drive to test during the next months. Especially when travelling to some of the more tropical regions, dealing with very high humidity and dusty environments, the ArmorATD will be my preferred option for bringing along my existing projects and also for backing up the content I’ll create during my trips.

You may ask yourself why not using one of the G-DRIVE ev RaW or G-DRIVE mobile SSD drives instead? Well, while the G-DRIVE ev RaW drives are somewhat protected against drops, they definitely don’t offer any protection against outside influences like water, snow, dust and high pressure. The G-DRIVE mobile SSD drives on the other hand offer the same level of protection as the ArmorATD, but are limited in terms of capacity, only going up to 2TB. Also, they come in at a much higher cost. They’re my first choice for editing big sized content and projects, where the speed they offer is required. The ArmorATD though is the perfect choice for backing up and bringing along a variety of already existing content during my trips to harsh environments. So I can always be sure my valuable data is as safe as it gets and all of this is available at a very attractive price point.

Conclusion

There you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed reading along. Picking the right type of storage solution is a complex decision to make. It mainly depends on your personal needs and the types of media you deal with.

G-Technology’s portable solutions

In a world where we creators constantly push the boundaries of whats possible, we have to fully rely on our tools to get the job done. Like with gear in general, there isn’t a single solution for your overall content workflow. In fact, it’s about the right combination of tools to perfectly support your creative vision. In my humble opinion, G-Technology offers the perfect lineup of reliable storage solutions to get any of your jobs done. I truly trust their products in any situation and I’m happy that I finally can concentrate on what I do best: Being creative.

So which one is for you?

In case you have additional questions, feel free to reach out to me at any time.

Thanks for reading and following along!

Talk soon,

Chris

@chrismartinscholl

Check out the full article HERE

LaCie Rugged Secure 2TB Encrypted and Portable HDD Review

When you’re looking for something that is secure against physical as well as digital threats, then you need something special. LaCie‘s Rugged Secure (product link) is just such a thing, and today I’m taking a closer look at this drive. The Rugged Secure combines all the awesome features of the Rugged series with AES 256-bit hardware encryption. Rain, dust, bumps, and spying eyes, it has protection against it all.

LaCie Rugged Series

The Rugged series by LaCie is well-known by most. Its design and features are legendary, and it’s most likely the go-to device for a lot of active people. The actual size of the Rugged drives may vary a bit, depending on the model, but the overall design stays the same. It was created by the industrial product designer Neil Poulton, and it’s been a trademark for the series since the beginning. His designs have won countless awards, including the prestigious IF Design Award and the Red Dot Design Award on multiple occasions. Neil Poulton specialises in the design of ‘deceptively simple-looking mass-produced objects’, and LaCie’s Rugged series is no different….read more

The G-Drive R-Series Mobile SSD from G Technology is a performance beast in tiny little package. G Technology is going for a few things here, so let’s break it down in 2 minutes…

Rugged, fast and portable

Rated R For Rugged – Built using hand-picked components to withstand tough conditions in the field, the G-Technology R-Series line provides rugged storage you can trust. And with the G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series, you get IP67 water and dust resistance, 3-meter drop protection, and a 1000lb crushproof rating.
High Speed To Edit Faster – Featuring transfer speeds up to 560MB/s2, the G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series is among the fastest external SSDs available so you can quickly edit and save large video and photo source files.

USB-C Connector – The G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series is ready for newer Mac computers and other laptops through a reversible USB-C port with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, and comes with a USB 3.0/2.0 cable adapter for backwards compatibility.

5-Year Limited Warranty – Offering an industry-leading 5-year limited warranty, the G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series is ready to provide high-performance storage for years to come.

Shock And Vibration Resistant – Solid state drives don’t utilize moving parts, so the G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series is able to endure accidental bumps or drops to help protect against data loss and system failures.

Think Big. Travel Light. – Available in capacities up to 2TB3, the G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series provides light, pocket-sized storage to keep your 4K footage, RAW photos, and media libraries to edit and save, wherever, whenever.

From digitalphotopro.com

At some point in the relatively-near future, the traditional hard drive-comprised of spinning platters of magnetic material will disappear from the marketplace. The fragility of conventional drives is offset by the low cost of production, but as solid-state memory drops in price, the cost benefits of sticking with a large, delicate recording device in computers will disappear and Solid State Drive (SSD) hard drives will become the norm. The G|Drive mobile SSD is an indication of the shape (and size) of things to come.

Already, computers like the iMac Pro have ditched the hard drive in favor of the SSD, using the extra space gained in the swap to add more high-power processing. Laptops are almost universally SSD-driven, and the primary remaining use of traditional drives is in high-capacity storage where fast speeds aren’t necessary, and the price is a primary concern.

The benefits of SSD drives are twofold; the chip-based storage offers both high speed, and small size. The G-Technology G|Drive mobile SSD is a perfect example of how this storage transition will change how photographers and videographers work.

G|Drive mobile SSD

The G|Drive mobile SSD is smaller than the Apple mouse I’m using while writing this review, smaller in every dimension. I can put the G|Drive mobile SSD in my pocket, and it feels less cumbersome than my wallet….[continue reading]

Piet Van den Eynde is a Belgian photographer and an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Certified Expert. He also gives workshops on using on- and off-camera flash and postprocessing with Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and plug-ins such as Nik Software. Recently he took two LaCie drives with him on a trip to India: a Thunderbolt SSD 1TB and a Rugged RAID 4TB.\

How To Edit, Sync and Manage Photos Across All Devices with Lightroom and LaCie Rugged.

Like most photographers, I have two computers: a laptop and a desktop. Alternately working on both is complicated, since it is not possible to put your Lightroom catalog on a network-attached storage (NAS). If your catalog is stored on your desktop but you want to edit on your laptop, one possible solution is to use Lightroom’s “Import and Export as Catalog” tool. But be aware: this is neither quick nor easy.

This implies exporting your photos as a catalog to an external hard drive, connecting this hard drive to your laptop, opening the exported catalog on the laptop, editing the photos, and then importing the modified catalog back into the main catalog on your desktop. If this sounds complicated, that is because it is. Decidedly something for more advanced users and not something you want to do a few times a day.

Another solution, although again not a favorable one: store your catalog on one or more external drives and connect these to the device you want to work on at that moment. Downside: lugging along a large external drive is not always convenient.

Smart Previews to the rescue!

Smart Previews, introduced in Lightroom 5, provides a solution. It allows you to — once and for all — transfer your Catalog folder (the one with Catalog, Previews and Smart Previews) to a fast-paced external hard drive.

Make sure this drive is as fast as possible — preferably a fast 7,200 RPM hard drive, or a Solid State Drive (SSD) such as the LaCie Thunderbolt SSD I discuss in this article — and that it has a fast interface: USB 3, Thunderbolt or USB-C…[continue reading]

“…The best part about the new Wireless SSD? You won’t be needing your laptop to backup your photos and/or videos. Weighing in at only 1 lb, you probably won’t even feel the storage device in your camera bag. If you’re a landscape photographer like me, this could be extremely useful. Especially while spending a few days in the backcountry hiking and taking pictures, I sometimes find myself becoming more cautious about protecting my images. I’ve had my camera ruined on a mountaintop before, causing me to lose my images from the day. It certainly would’ve been nice to backup the photos in order to preserve those precious moments, and potentially have a product to sell to my audience.

If you decide this is something you might buy, it’d be wise to compare the My Passport Wireless SSD to similar products, such as the Gnarbox. The backup device was released a few months before the Passport Wireless, but has a few differences. For starters, the Gnarbox’s batter life ranges only from 4-6 hours. However, the Gnarbox is also shock resistant, and you won’t need third-party apps to edit imported content. With two sizes: 128GB + 64GB microSD ($299.00) and the 256GB + 64 GB microSD ($399.00), the Gnarbox is a bit pricier than the My Passport Wireless SSD, but also provides smaller storage sizes….” [continue reading]

At this year’s CES, Western Digital have updated their previous My Passport Wireless Pro lineup of portable external storage devices to new SSD-equipped models. While WD My Passport Wireless SSD might be a slightly tongue-twisting name, the product itself seems to be very capable!

SSD is becoming mainstream in both ways: capacity and pricepoint. While conventional HDDs are still around of course, their more rugged and more lightweight solid state counterparts are becoming more and more affordable while continuously gaining capacity.

WD My Passport Wireless SSD

If you’re a on-the-go shooter, a fast SSD is a good companion for offloading your valuable footage in the field. If that SSD happen to be a My Passport Wireless SSD you get some extra value in a compact package:

• 250GB – 2TB Storage Capacity / durable, shock-resistant SSD
• SD Card Slot (USB 2.0) with one-touch copy button
• Built-In 802.11ac Wi-Fi Connectivity
• Up to 10 Hour Battery Life, can be used as a powerbank
• Up to 2.4A Power Output
• USB 3.0 interface (for external disks)
• Wirelessly stream 4K videos and view photos

…This SSD is quite similar to the kickstarter-fueled GNARBOX…

[continue reading]

The world’s population is going mobile, according to the number of portable drives by different companies announced at CES 2018: Sandisk, Seagate, Patriot, Dell and Western Digital are some of the names involved.

…We pick some of the SSD and HDD solutions announced at CES 2018 or close to the event, for this 2018 guide.

One note before we continue: this guide does not intend to be a complete guide to what the market offers. It is based on a series of new products announced at CES this year and is a good starting point to explore – some of – what is available or will be available in 2018. We included some HDD solutions that may interest readers, but SSDs, as prices come down and speed goes up, seem to be the way forward…

• LaCie Rugged Secure
• Seagate Fast SSD
• G-Technology 2TB G-DRIVE R-Series SSD (featuring a versatile USB-C port with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, so the device is ready for laptops both old and new.)
• Patriot EVLVR Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD
• Dell Portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD
• Toshiba XS700
• Plugable Thunderbolt 3 SSD
• Transcend StoreJet 25M3
• Seagate Joy Drive

….[continue reading full article]

LaCie’s rugged portable drives, distinguished by their bright orange padding, are popular with photographers and videographers who need to backup footage and photos while away from the safety of their desks. Taking that idea one step further, LaCie’s new DJI Copilot drive can ingest and back up your media all by itself, letting you leave your laptop at work.

Ditching the orange foam jacket for a gray padded wrapper that I assume is designed to better match DJI’s drones, the Copilot also distinguishes itself from past entries in LaCie’s rugged line with more ports, and a large LCD display on top. In addition to a USB-C connection, the DJI Copilot includes an older USB port that allows you to connect and copy photos and videos directly from a camera. Or, you can pop out a memory card and insert it into the Copilot’s SD slot so you can backup footage and photos while still actually using your shooter….[continue reading]