Slow G Drive

[jordan_ellipsis]

Hello everyone!

I'm using a 1TB G Drive (7200RPM Gen4) with my new MacbookPro (2.66Ghz Intel Core i7 - 8GB RAM, OS X 10.6.4)

When accessing the drive, to browse thru folders etc, it takes a very long time to open folders and display files. This is extremely frustrating when I am trying to recall old files to copy to my new machine.

The transfer time is still rapid, e.g. i just moved my university folder which is over 10GB from the G Drive to my machine in 3/4 mins.

Does anyone know why this may be happening?

Thanks!

Jordan

 

[chscag]

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

How is the drive attached to your MBP? USB, Firewire, or networked? And what format is it using? Just for info: The fastest access R\W is going to be using firewire 800 with the drive formatted to HFS+.

 

[jordan_ellipsis]

Hello,

deary me, it's taken me weeks to recover my login details!! So sorry for the delay.

Thanks for the welcome - i feel i'll be using this place a lot from now on!

The drive is attached by firewire 800, but is formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Would you recommend changing the format to HFS+ then? If so, how and where is the best place to do this? (disk utility?)

Many thanks for your help,

Jordan

 

[Randy B. Singer]

The drive is attached by firewire 800, but is formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Would you recommend changing the format to HFS+ then? If so, how and where is the best place to do this? (disk utility?)

HFS+ and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) are the same thing. You have your drive properly formatted.

There are about 20 reviews of the drive that you have on the Amazon site:
Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: G-Technology G-DRIVE Q 1TB External Hard Drive w/ eSATA, USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 Interfaces 0G00199
The reviews are fascinating. They are about equally split between
users who loved the drive, and users who hated it. Apparently there
was a widespread problem with controller boards that may or may not
have been remedied at some point.

How old is your drive? How full is it? Is it still under warranty?

You might want to run some routine maintenance on your drive to see if it helps. If it doesn't, I'd recommend contacting the manufacturer and soliciting their advice.

___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________

 

[jordan_ellipsis]

I see..

It is less than 1 year old, however i bought it in the states, and now back in the UK. Not sure I could claim the warranty unless I go back over there.

170GB free space.

I think i'll try some maintenance on it, see if that helps at all.

As i've said already, transferring files is working fine, just moved 50GB from the G Drive to my laptop in under 10 mins. It just when i'm looking through the drive from my laptop, folders take a little while to open and display files - up to a minute sometimes. I'm pretty sure this used to be instant.

Interesting reviews, maybe these things are just fundamentally flawed. I bought this over a WD or Seagate because i wanted the stability! That's G's selling point. Pft.

Thanks for your help btw ;-)

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Interesting reviews, maybe these things are just fundamentally flawed. I bought this over a WD or Seagate because i wanted the stability! That's G's selling point. Pft.

It's funny...I first heard of G-drives a few months ago. Some research showed that they are now basically Hitachi's own external drive.
G-TECHNOLOGY, Company Info - External, Portable and Desktop Hard Drives Designed for the Mac!

If you've read my other posts here on Mac-Forums, you know that I really like Hitachi's internal drives. So I naturally assumed that G-drives would be awesome.

But then I started to hear from users who were having problems with their G-drives. Way too many of them.

It's a shame that you can't easily return the drive to the manufacturer for a replacement. I suspect that at this point that they are used to doing it, because clearly they have produced a large batch of defective units. You might want to contact them anyway to see what they have to say:
G-TECHNOLOGY - Help and Product Support

___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________

 

[TrueTone911]

Hello Randy, The G-Drive 500gb is the drive I actually decided to buy. Not sure why I picked that over OWC. Just a gut feeling I guess. Only used it once so my opinion is limited to a first time use. Plugged it in, turned on Time Machine and it worked great, the back up was fast. The unit was quiet and cool throughout the process. I use it on my MacBook and only figure to plug it in once a week or so.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I hope that you are one of the ones that learn to love your G-Drive, rather than one of the ones who learn to loath it. It seems as if the two camps are equally split, with no in-between. See, for instance:

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: G-Technology G-DRIVE Q 1TB External Hard Drive w/ eSATA, USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 Interfaces 0G00199


___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________

 

[TrueTone911]

I did notice the 1TB drives seem to have more problems than say the 500GB or even the 2TB. Since I only have a 320GB drive in my MacBook I thought the 2TB would be a little overkill so I went with the 500GB. Not near as many reviews on the 500 though so I thought it would be a gamble. Not opposed to switching brands if I start having problems.

Don

 

[cwa107]

I'd be willing to bet there's a bad firmware revision out there for the drive's controller. I would definitely follow Randy's advice and contact Hitachi for support. If they're anything like Seagate and WD, they'll likely have a firmware update for you. I don't see why the fact that you don't live in the same country as it was sold in would preclude you from warranty support.