G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE from my local (Kingston-upon-Thames) Apple Store three years ago, and it has done what it said on the tin (well, the cardboard box) ever since.
It is getting close to capacity, and this could be a good time to add some extra annual backups then lock it away in a fire safe somewhere. So I have decided to upgrade to a slightly bigger model of G-DRIVE, leaving the current one as a permanent backup.
This was first used with Apple's "Time Machine" backup system .
As of :
Available: 196.69 GB (196,694,163,456 bytes) Capacity: 999.86 GB (999,860,166,656 bytes)
Because this device is powered by its USB cable, power consumption is limited to ~5W. In practice measurements agree. I unplug the drive from the USB when not actively backing up, to save energy and for added security.
By comparison, a previous mains-powered Iomega drive used ~8W in use, ~3W when put to sleep. So the G-DRIVE is 3W less all the time! I bought my new G-Technology 2TB G-DRIVE from my local (Kingston-upon-Thames) Apple Store today , for £89.95, no fuss. On the box: USB 3.0/2.0, macOS and Windows, 3 year warranty. Label: 0G05450, G-DRIVE mobile USB 3.0, 2000GB Black WW v2. Still rated 5V at ~900mA, ie ~5W. Volume capacity: 2,000,054,960,128 bytes. The 2TB device is twice the thickness of, and heavier than, the 1TB device, which is reasonable. Though we do get spoiled by tech toys getting smaller and lighter and cheaper all the time. I still tell anyone who will listen that when I arrived at Edinburgh University in 1986 its entire computer storage was at about the 1.5GB mark. So I should not begrudge a little more heft from something three orders of magnitude bigger! (Official dimensions of this 2.5" drive: 129mm x 82mm x 20mm.) Shifting my Time Machine backup to the new device is easy. But when the backup then started automatically, I was confronted with "Backing up XX GB of 500.92 GB, About 5 hours remaining," as of 18:30! Whoops! I should have planned ahead. In the end the backup finished after just over three hours. The double-thickness matt-black twin of the 1TB slab: shades of 2001 and Arthur C Clarke. Still small, quiet, cheap, plugs straight into my MacBook Air USB port (without needing an external power supply). Have swapped it for its 1TB brother in Time Machine effortlessly, and it's claiming that it will back up at 100GB/h the initial 500GB image. Subjectively seems faster than the 1TB drive. Failed after just over two years for a few minutes' use per day and indeed only half filled, so rating reduced from 5 to 4, though this may have been macOS silently failing to fsck. : apparently failed/corrupt before this morning's backup; Disk Utility complains that In desperation I tried to erase and backup fresh, though clearly at risk while that happened, and the underlying hardware might now not be trustworthy. A first (non-secure) erase attempt failed. A second (next-level up secure) erase attempt failed. A third attempt failed, each time attempting to unmount the disk. Note that the OS had just taken a supplemental upgrade to macOS Mojave 10.14.6. As replacement for the relatively short life I expect my current aged MacBook Air to have left (a year or so maybe), I have bought a Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive (3 year warranty) HDTB410MK3AA. I spent £42 in Curry's in Kingston. I may try and claim the remaining 1 year value on the failed drive's warranty. Review: G-DRIVE mobile USB 2TB
Product: G-Drive 2TB
Review summary
fsck_hfs -fy -x /dev/rdisk2s2
... exit code is
when I attempt to run First Aid on the partition. The overall disc mounts fine.