Western Digital Upgrades Suite of Storage Drives With Thunderbolt 3, Optimized Speeds, and More

[MacRumors]

After revealing the G-Drive USB-C a few weeks ago, Western Digital today announced the launch of a trio of upgrades coming to a few of its G-Technology product lines, including the G-Drive with Thunderbolt 3, G-Raid with Thunderbolt 3, and G-Speed Shuttle XL. The performance upgrades mainly account for optimized speeds that will help creative professionals who capture and transfer heavy loads of high-resolution content.

The new G-Drive with Thunderbolt 3 includes dual TB3 ports, a USB-C port, and supports USB 3.1, allowing users to daisy chain as many as five additional devices at once so multiple drives can remain connected, enabling complex workflows through a single connection. The G-Drive with Thunderbolt 3 includes a HGST-brand Ultrastar 7200RPM Enterprise-class hard drive, transfer rates up to 245 Mb/s, and includes the G-Drive line's usual Time Machine plug-and-play set-up.

The G-Drive with Thunderbolt 3​

Users interested can pre-order the G-Drive with Thunderbolt 3 now, and it's available with four optional storage capacities: 4TB ($399.95), 6TB ($499.95), 8TB ($599.95), and 10TB ($699.95). An additional 12TB version will debut sometime "next quarter" at $799.95.

"G-Technology recognizes the need for a complete workflow solution that takes advantage of the power of Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C," said Sven Rathjen, vice president of marketing, Client Solutions, Western Digital. "The result is a substantial upgrade across several product lines that delivers reliable, fast, and easy-to-use storage solutions to fit the current and future needs of our customers."

Western Digital is also updating its line of high-performance, removable dual-hard drives with the G-Raid with Thunderbolt 3, which features two TB3 ports, one USB-C port, and one HDMI port that is out-of-the-box ready for video running at 60fps in 4K as well as HDR content. The G-Raid has dual removable 7200RPM hard drives, can daisy chain up to five additional devices, and has a transfer rate of up to 500 Mb/s.

The G-Raid with Thunderbolt 3​

Storage tiers for the G-Raid with Thunderbolt 3 start at 8TB ($749.95), and increase to 12TB ($849.95), 16TB ($1,099.95), 20TB ($1,549.95), and 24TB ($1,999.95). The first four tiers will launch this June, while the 24TB model is set to launch next quarter.

The last of Western Digital's updates centers on the company's high-performance, transportable 8-bay RAID solution -- which now comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports -- called the G-Speed Shuttle XL. The new unit offers hardware RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and 50 configurations and comes equipped with G-Technology's usual Ultrastar 7200RPM Enterprise-class hard drives, and boasts transfer rates up to 2000 MB/s.

The G-Speed Shuttle Xl​

The G-Speed Shuttle XL will be available to buy in the following storage tiers: 32TB ($4,099.95), 48TB ($5,399.95), 64TB ($6,999.95), 80TB ($8,599.95), and 96TB ($10,199.95). Similar to the previous G-Technology products announced today, the first four tiers will debut ahead of time in June, while the highest-capacity model will see a launch sometime after.

All of Western Digital's G-Technology devices come pre-formatted for Macs, enabling easy set-up and storage drive compatibility with Time Machine. More information about G-Technology's new Thunderbolt 3 family of products -- including new ev Series bay adapters -- can be found on the company's website.

Article Link: Western Digital Upgrades Suite of Storage Drives With Thunderbolt 3, Optimized Speeds, and More

 

[cBraunDesign]

What's the point of including TB3 and USB-C? Doesn't the TB port act as a USB port if the accessing device doesn't have TB?

 

[macduke]

Only 96TB? Where are the petabyte options? How am I supposed to dump 16K footage in 16-bit HDR on drives this small and slow?

More importantly, what am I doing in 2017? At least you guys still have Macs.

 

[dukeblue219]

What's the point of including TB3 and USB-C? Doesn't the TB port act as a USB port if the accessing device doesn't have TB?

The article's wording is poor because it states the device has 1 USB-C and 2 TB3 ports. It has 3 USB-C ports as far as I can see. One of them is apparently USB 3.0/3.1 only, while the other are TB3. This whole business of TB3 using the USB-C connector is convenient but really messy from a naming standpoint.

Maybe they should have called it something other than USB-C. NEXTGENPORT or whatever, which is compatible with USB 3.1, TB3, Displayport, and so on.

 

[Xgm541]

The article's wording is poor because it states the device has 1 USB-C and 2 TB3 ports. It has 3 USB-C ports as far as I can see. One of them is apparently USB 3.0/3.1 only, while the other are TB3. This whole business of TB3 using the USB-C connector is convenient but really messy from a naming standpoint.

Maybe they should have called it something other than USB-C. NEXTGENPORT or whatever, which is compatible with USB 3.1, TB3, Displayport, and so on.

So if I get a monitor with 3 NEXTGENPORTs what am I getting? 1 USB, 1 TB and 1 DP? Or 3 USB 0 TB 0 DP? Maybe 3 DP?

You can't just lump all newer technology under one umbrella term and call it a day.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

and includes the G-Drive line's usual Time Machine plug-and-play set-up.

Seems like total overkill for a Time Machine backup drive.

 

[dukeblue219]

So if I get a monitor with 3 NEXTGENPORTs what am I getting? 1 USB, 1 TB and 1 DP? Or 3 USB 0 TB 0 DP? Maybe 3 DP?

You can't just lump all newer technology under one umbrella term and call it a day.

Well I'm not an expert on this (because it IS confusing), but on my Dell the single USB-C port is either USB 3.1, TB3, or Displayport depending on what is attached to it. If the monitor has a bunch of USB-C ports, and some are only USB 3.0/3.1, then those need to be identified as such, and NOT as "USB-C" ports. USB-C is not a communications standard, only a connector.

My point was that calling the connector style USB anything is a little confusing because it's not always clear that USB-C is a way to connect a cable carrying USB 3.1 data. It's also a way to connect a cable carrying TB3 data or HDMI.

 

[flat five]

What's the point of including TB3 and USB-C? Doesn't the TB port act as a USB port if the accessing device doesn't have TB?

USB-C is the plug.
TB3 is the data protocol.

USB-C is not the same as USB3.1 etc.
it's similar to USB-A or USB-B which are also styles of plugs-- not the type of data being transmitted through them.

 

[Corrode]

But...but how will those who opted to buy the 2015 MBP over the 2016 use these??

USB-C adoption seems to be happening quite quickly. I imagine it won't be long until the majority of users want C ports over A.

 

[WinstonRumfoord]

Seems like total overkill for a Time Machine backup drive.

"I am looking for a drive for time machine backup, will G Speed Shuttle XL in 96TB be good for this?"

 

[guzhogi]

Slightly off-topic, but something I wonder about (I apologize for my ignorance): why aren't there any 3.5" SSDs? I've seen a bunch of 2.5" & PCIe SSDs, but never 3.5" SSDs. Obviously, they'd be expensive, but I wonder how much more storage 3.5" SSDs could hold.

 

[otternonsense]

Aren't the r/w speeds squandered on 7200rpm drives?

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Aren't the r/w speeds squandered on 7200rpm drives?

Yes. They'd be far better with SSD but for mass storage which these are made for, 7200rpm drives are the way to go.
[doublepost=1493058701][/doublepost]

Slightly off-topic, but something I wonder about (I apologize for my ignorance): why aren't there any 3.5" SSDs? I've seen a bunch of 2.5" & PCIe SSDs, but never 3.5" SSDs. Obviously, they'd be expensive, but I wonder how much more storage 3.5" SSDs could hold.

2.5" fits in both laptops and desktops. Saves the need to spend a lot of extra money producing 3.5". Even more so, SSD is still fairly expensive. 1TB models are spendy. There isn't a huge push for larger sizes right now as most wouldn't buy them anyways.

Generally there isn't a need for huge SSD storage. Consumers don't need to store TBs of data on super fast SSD. They can use SSD for their OS and files that need the faster speeds and store photo archives, music, and video on cheaper (and more reliable) traditional storage.

Larger isn't what's looked for in enterprise environments either. They'll get better speeds out of a bunch of 256GB SSD drives than a single 4TB one for example.

So really, there's no demand for a 3.5" SSD.

 

[guzhogi]

2.5" fits in both laptops and desktops. Saves the need to spend a lot of extra money producing 3.5". Even more so, SSD is still fairly expensive. 1TB models are spendy. There isn't a huge push for larger sizes right now as most wouldn't buy them anyways.

Generally there isn't a need for huge SSD storage. Consumers don't need to store TBs of data on super fast SSD. They can use SSD for their OS and files that need the faster speeds and store photo archives, music, and video on cheaper (and more reliable) traditional storage.

Larger isn't what's looked for in enterprise environments either. They'll get better speeds out of a bunch of 256GB SSD drives than a single 4TB one for example.

So really, there's no demand for a 3.5" SSD.

I can understand the price & consumer aspect of that, but all the enterprise-level storage RAIDs are still for 3.5" drives. I admit, I don't know too much about SSDs & RAID. I'm kind of curious how much a 3.5" SSD could store, especially compared to 3.5" HDDs. I've seen 10TB HDDs. The SSD would be faster, obviously. I'm also curious why there aren't more 2.5" RAIDs. Then again, I'm not really in the market for this stuff anyways, so I wouldn't really know to look. Just like to wonder, you know?

 

[kwikdeth]

I really hope they meant megaBYTES (MB) and not megaBITS (Mb) because 245 megaBITS is pretty obnoxiously slow, even on a fast external connection. But then again I wouldn't put it past the snake oil salesmen who like to sell substandard product w a thunderbolt connector and mark up the price to a ridiculous extent.

 

[now i see it]

Has anyone had good experiences with G-Drives? Maybe mine were duds. I certainly wouldn't buy another one.

 

[Marx55]

Bring SSD. Mechanical disks are obsolete. Once you try SSD, you never go back!

 

[Michael Scrip]

But... but how will those who opted to buy the 2015 MBP over the 2016 use these??

Answer: Choose the correct cable

If the device has USB-C and the host has USB-A.... you use a USB-C to USB-A cable

If both the device and the host have USB-C... you use a USB-C to USB-C cable

And the same is true for different types of Thunderbolt. You just make sure you have the correct plugs or adapters or cables or whatever.

It's not that difficult. It's all electrons transmitting over a wire. Just get the proper ends on the cable.

USB-C adoption seems to be happening quite quickly. I imagine it won't be long until the majority of users want C ports over A.

I'm glad.

USB-C is a much better plug than USB-A

If they had come up with USB-C way back 20 years ago... we wouldn't be going through this awkward transition now.

But hey... I'm glad it's happening.

It's funny though. For something called "Universal Serial Bus" they sure made a lot of different plugs.

For years we had USB-A on the host end... but the device end could be any number of incompatible plugs:

USB-B
USB-Mini-B
USB-Micro-B
USB 3.0-Micro-B

At least now BOTH ends of the cable could be the same plug. Finally. Universal!

 

[macs4nw]

Bring SSD. Mechanical disks are obsolete. Once you try SSD, you never go back!

An SSD drive is unrivalled for quick access to software and files, and thus great as your main drive.

For backing up files and archival storage however, HDDs are more than adequate speed-wise, while at the same time much, much more economical. Additionally, RAID configurations with HDDs could give you Data redundancy if desired, and more speed if necessary, while still being less expensive overall than an SSD back-up solution.

Edit: One caveat with SSDs, they are best suited for mostly 'reads'. Frequent and repeated 'writes', even with Trim and wear-leveling enabled, tend to slow them down over time, or even lead to premature drive failure, one reason macOS won't allow you to erase an SSD by overwriting, or zeroing-out, as you would an HDD.

 

[theluggage]

So if I get a monitor with 3 NEXTGENPORTs what am I getting? 1 USB, 1 TB and 1 DP? Or 3 USB 0 TB 0 DP? Maybe 3 DP?

...but the same problem already exists: a "USB-C" port could support any permutation of USB 2, USB 3.1g1, USB 3.1g2, DisplayPort-alt-mode, HDMI alt-mode, Thunderbolt 3 and various capacities of power supply. Something like "NextGenPort" would have been a better name for the connector & protocol negotiation standard, avoiding the current confusion between "USB-C" and "USB 2/3.1g1/3.1g2".

Actual usage seems to be that "Thunderbolt 3 port" = "USB-C port that supports TB3 protocol plus all, some or fewer of the other USB-C-related protocols".

Slightly off-topic, but something I wonder about (I apologize for my ignorance): why aren't there any 3.5" SSDs?

(1) The capacity of 2.5" SSDs seems to be limited by the cost of the memory, not the physical space (there's a lot of air in those drives) - and you can easily fit 2x2.5" SSDs in a 3.5" bay anyway.

(2) The whole point of a 2.5" (or 3.5") SSD is that it is a convenient, drop-in replacement for a HD - hence it needs a SATA interface. Using an interface and protocol designed for spinning rust is a major bottleneck for modern SSDs. If you care enough about speed to pay 10x over the cost-per-GB of HD for a multi-GB storage setup, you're not gonna want to knobble it with a slow interface. Hence, serious, server-grade SSDs tend to go for PCIe cards instead. At the very least you'd RAID multiple 2.5" drives to combine the bandwidth. The solution for modern Macs would be a TB3 enclosure with a bunch of M.2 slots (or you could get a PCIe enclosure and plug in a PCIe drive).

 

[BornAgainMac]

Bring SSD. Mechanical disks are obsolete. Once you try SSD, you never go back!

Not for backup storage, archive, or iTunes video storage.

 

[kylelerner]

Why incorporate the TB3 standard in the 7200rpm single drive offering that will never come close to utilizing the bandwidth offered by TB3? It would be no faster than the same drive in a TB1 or TB2 offering.

I guess the only benefit would be the speed of anything daisy-chained.

Hm.

 

[Average Pro]

It's time to purchase new drives and I'm debating whether to pursue TB3 capable systems. The 2013 MacPro is still humming, but I'm considering buying TB3 systems in preparation for the next MacPro.

So, will the 2013 MP support/operate a TB3 external enclosure (such as the G-Tech Speed Shuttle)? I read several articles and forums, but I could not find a direct example where someone confirmed that it worked.

Thanks

 

[theluggage]

Doesn't the TB port act as a USB port if the accessing device doesn't have TB?

No - it doesn't work that way around. A TB3 port can usually act as a USB host because the Intel chipset includes a USB controller, but it can't (necessarily*) act as a USB-C peripheral device.

I.e. you can always use a TB3 port to connect a USB drive/keyboard/printer/whatever but you can't use it to connect a TB peripheral to a non-TB3 computer.

If you look around, you'll find that all drives that offer TB3 and USB 3 have both 1 or 2 TB3 ports and a separate USB-C/3.1 port (if you think you've found one, look carefully to make sure that it isn't just a USB-C/3.1 device

USB-C is the plug.

That's the problem - "just the plug" shouldn't have USB in the name. This wasn't a problem with USB-A and USB-B because (at least initially, until MHL came along) they were only used for the USB1/2/3 protocols (ISTR that Thunderbolt 1 was going to use a USB-A backward-compatible connector but the USB consortium objected).

The other problem is that there is no convenient name for a "USB-C port with USB 3.1 and DisplayPort but no Thunderbolt". Pedantry aside, I'd tend to assume that's what someone means by "USB-C".

I'd be more impressed with USB-C/TB3 if they'd managed to produce a universal cable to go with it - instead we have charge+USB2.0 only cables, USB 3.1 cables (the spec even allows for 3.1g1-only and 3.1g2 cables), passive Thunderbolt cables and active Thunderbolt cables all in both 60W and 100W flavours - all superficially identical. Instead of it being bleeding obvious that your eSATA plug won't fit into a DisplayPort socket, now you can plug it in and it just won't work. If you think that's progress then you have obviously never done your time on the dreaded Help Desk

Trouble with USB-C is that its a classic XKCD 927 solution: there's no real point having a universal connector without a universal protocol (so you can plug anything into anything and have it work optimally), and its only clear benefit is on mobile devices which only have room for a single port - the very devices which, a few short years down the line, will probably be hermetically-sealed slabs with no wired connections.

At least now BOTH ends of the cable could be the same plug.

...which was never an issue with USB before, because you could only connect host-to-peripheral so it actually made sense to have different plugs. Now, as a replacement for the (horrible) mini/micro/3.0 'B' connectors, USB-C would be great...

 

[Michael Scrip]

Now, as a replacement for the (horrible) mini/micro/3.0 'B' connectors, USB-C would be great...

Yep... it'll be nice when everything is USB-C on the host-end and the device-end.

I still have devices that use Mini-B on them... the oldest of the device-side plugs.

And plenty of Micro-B. And my external pocket hard drives use the wider USB 3.0 Micro-B.

So I'll be using these various cables for a while... since I currently have ZERO USB-C ports or devices.