Hitachi’s G-Technology hard drives take their design inspiration from Apple’s Mac Pro computer range. With a high-quality matt metal finish, it has to be one of the best-made external drives out there.

As it’s a RAID drive, the G-RAID utilises two 7200 RPM SATA II drives in a RAID O configuration – data is split evenly across both drives for increased performance. The two drives can be configured to RAID 1, with data mirrored on them for added security should one fail, though the capacity drops by half.
It is equipped with FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0 and eSATA 3GB interfaces, with a Thunderbolt model also available.

Transfer times are quick – a multi-layered 16 bit TIFF file at 900MB from a Nikon D800 took just under 30 seconds to open in Photoshop from Bridge, while writing 7GB of data from the desktop to the drive took 2mins 52secs.

While the G-RAID is a costly option compared to normal single 2TB drives, the performance and flexibility, not to mention the overall finish, make it an excellent proposition for those who work with a lot of files and data regularly.