G-Technology G-SPEED Solutions Offer Up to 16TB with Four-hot Swappable 7,200RPM 4TB HGST Ultrastar™ Hard Drives, Delivering Enterprise-Class Performance, Quality and Reliability at an Affordable Price for the Audio/Video and Content Creation Community

LONDON, 11 December 2012 - With a continued focus on delivering the industry's most trusted, high-performance and reliable solutions for content creators, G-Technology today announced that its G-SPEED[1] RAID external storage solutions now come equipped with the industry's highest capacity and most reliable enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs), the 4TB HGST Ultrastar drives. With 7,200 RPM performance, 64MB cache, the highest 2.0 million hour mean-time-between-failure[2] (MTBF) HDD specification, and unique enterprise-class features, the G-Technology G-SPEED family continues to deliver uncompromised performance, quality and reliability for the escalating demands of today's post-production workflows.

Capacity and Performance Requirements Explode
With video resolutions and frame rates increasing, and 3D projects multiplying, high-capacity high-performance storage requirements are exploding. For example, a short film or commercial shot in 2K resolution requires up to 20TB+ of storage capacity and up to 1,000MB per second (MBps) sustained data rates for editing and post production to ensure data integrity, no dropped frames and a quick workflow. However, to keep up with capacity demands, scaling storage requirements can be challenging especially with limited or shrinking budgets, tempting some to buy cheaper RAID solutions with desktop-class hard drives. But the pros know, when your digital content is your livelihood, it is important to properly balance system requirements with RAID storage features that match the rigors of the post-production environment.

Just like data centers that use enterprise-class solutions, creative studios and post production houses are constantly churning and streaming business critical data in RAID environments, and demand 24/7 reliability and performance. By combining high capacity, high performance and enterprise-class features, G-Technology's G-SPEED solutions set a new bar in meeting the rigorous demands of professional content creation applications, spanning all levels of audio, video, image and post-production.

Why Enterprise-class HDDs Matter
The 4TB HGST enterprise-class drives are the only SATA HDDs rated at 2.0 million hours mean time between failure (MTBF), and receive additional manufacturing and testing at extended temperature ranges to ensure a target of less than one non-recoverable bit error per 1015 bits read (i.e. no dropped frames). They also utilize enterprise-specific firmware to minimize the performance impact of rotational vibration interference (RVI) found in rack-mounted servers and multi-drive storage arrays, and feature special error recovery and detection features that help maximize performance and improve data integrity. All these attributes make them the workhorse inside G-Technology's high-quality, high-performance G-SPEED solutions.

Integrating enterprise-class HDDs since 2011, G-Technology is the only external storage vendor in the world with a complete line of enterprise-class 7,200 RPM drive-based, RAID external storage solutions specifically designed for the A/V market. All G-SPEED solutions feature an all-aluminium enclosure with four hot-swappable drives, and a "smart" cooling fan that ensures a quiet, reliable operation. The G-SPEED family includes:

• G-SPEED Q - An affordable, high-performance RAID storage solution for creative professionals. It comes equipped with 3Gbit eSATA, FireWire® 800, FireWire 400 (via cable) and USB 2.0 interfaces for maximum flexibility. With capacities up to 16TB and speeds reaching in excess of 200MBps using eSATA, the G-SPEED Q solution easily supports SD and HD Final Cut Pro® and Adobe Premiere® compressed workflows. With its built-in RAID controller, the G-SPEED Q solution is not tied to a single workstation and can be easily transported and used on a laptop or desktop in the edit bay or on the road. Formatted for Macs, the compact and quiet G-SPEED Q solution can be configured in RAID 0 or 5. Now available, the G-SPEED Q comes in 8TB (£974.99 MSRP), 12TB (£1,349.99) and 16TB (£1,719.99).

• G-SPEED eS - A compact four-bay eSATA solution that gives professional content creators outstanding performance, high storage capacity and fail-safe operation at an unprecedented low cost per gigabyte. When used with the G-Technology PCIe x4 RAID controller (sold separately), a single G-SPEED eS supports up to four simultaneous streams of ProRes422 HQ or one stream of uncompressed 1080/60i. As many as four G-SPEED eS enclosures can be attached to a single workstation, providing up to 64TB of high-performance RAID protected storage. The G-Technology PCIe x4 RAID controller supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD, and is configured and monitored using a full-featured web interface. The G-SPEED eS external storage solutions are now available and come in 8TB (£1,049.99 MSRP), 12TB (£1,424.99) and 16TB (£1,799.99).

• G-SPEED eS PRO - A blazing-fast solution for uncompressed HD and 2K workflows with mini Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) connectivity that provides Fibre Channel-like performance at a fraction of the cost. When used with an ATTO® R680 PCIe RAID controller (sold separately), a single G-SPEED eS PRO enclosure supports real-time playback of 10-bit uncompressed 1080/60i with more than 400MBps sustained performance. When two G-SPEED eS PROs are connected to an ATTO R680 card in RAID 5 it delivers speeds close to 1,000MBps, easily supporting two simultaneous streams of uncompressed 10-bit HD or a single 2K DPX sequence. The G-SPEED eS PRO with the ATTO eight-lane PCIe RAID controller supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 6, and can scale up to 32TB, making it the most cost-effective desktop RAID storage solution designed specifically for high-end post. The G-SPEED eS PRO solution is now available in 8TB (£1,424.99 MSRP), 12TB (£1,799.99) and 16TB (£2,169.99).

"We are in a high def revolution, and professionals in performance-intensive environments cannot afford dropped frames, latency issues or compromised reliability as their livelihood depends on the content they create," said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager of HGST's Branded Business. "Because of their stringent requirements and our commitment to their profession, G-Technology continues to optimize its G-SPEED family to offer the best RAID solutions in terms of quality, value and performance for the professional content creation market."

All G-SPEED products with enterprise-class drives feature a three-year standard factory warranty. Please visit http://www.g-technology.eu/ for more information.

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About HGST
HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise‐class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world's most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high‐value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company's website at http://www.hgst.com.

[1]The G-SPEED Q, G-SPEED eS and G-SPEED eS PRO models are not supported by Windows® XP or older 32-bit operating systems, which limit maximum volume size to 2.2TB. All G-SPEED solutions are compatible with Mac® OS X, Windows Vista® or other 64-bit operating systems.

[2]This MTBF rating is based on a sample population and is estimated by statistical measurements and acceleration algorithms under nominal operating conditions. MTBF ratings are not intended to predict an individual drive's reliability. MTBF does not constitute a warranty.

G-Technology external hard drives serve as an element of an overall backup strategy. It is recommended that users keep two or more copies of their most important files backed up or stored on separate devices or online services.

G-Technology, G-SPEED and Ultrastar are trademarks of HGST, a Western Digital company. Western Digital, WD, and the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

For more information contact:
Caroline Sumners
HGST
Office: +44 2392459719
caroline.sumners@hgst.com

Keira Anderson
Porter Novelli
Office: +44 020 7853 2289
keira.anderson@porternovelli.com