G-Technology Announces G-SPEED SAS Expansion Solution for High-performing, Low-cost RAID
Mon 20 April, 2009

New G-SPEED eS PRO XL Brings Blazing Performance, Huge Capacity and Low Cost to High-End HD and 2K Film Production; Sweepstakes Celebrate “G-Fans” with Commemorative G-DRIVE mini Giveaway

NAB (Booth # SL8511), Las Vegas, April 20, 2009 – G-Technology by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its new G-SPEED eS PRO XL, a rack-mount, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expansion solution, with mini-SAS connectivity, providing high-performance, low-cost RAID for professional content creation applications. The new G-Technology® G-SPEED™ eS PRO XL comes in a 2U 12-drive, or 3U 16-drive rack-mount enclosure, with hot swappable SATA 3Gb/s hard drives for high-performance, high-capacity, expandable direct-attached storage for small film studios and production houses.

Supporting the real-world performance needs of multi-stream uncompressed HD and 2K workflows, the G-SPEED eS PRO XL in a 3U RAID 5 delivers sustained read/write speeds of more than 650 megabytes per second (MB/sec), making it ideal for real-time video editing and digital intermediate (DI) film applications. A simple-to-use, web-based control panel allows users to easily manage, configure and monitor the system.

The G-SPEED eS PRO XL ships with a two-port mini-SAS RAID controller card and a locking, two-meter mini-SAS cable, allowing users to easily and affordably scale from an entry-level 12 TB 2U solution up to an incredible 192 TB. The PCIe x8 RAID controller supports JBOD and RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5 and 6. Up to eight G-SPEED eS PRO XL units can be connected to one RAID controller card, allowing an enormous amount of data-intensive video, graphic material and audio files to be centrally stored and managed.

"Compared to Fibre Channel solutions, our new G-SPEED eS PRO XL with mini SAS instantly changes the economics of deploying a rack-mount solution in a small studio or high end production house,” said Roger Mabon, vice president of G-Technology by Hitachi GST. “The value of the G-SPEED eS PRO XL enables a new class of customers to benefit from the performance, reliability and scalability without breaking their IT budgets."
Mac OS X and Windows compatible, the G-Technology G-SPEED eS PRO XL will ship in May 2009. It comes with a three-year standard warranty with pricing starting at $6,999 MSRP for 12 TB in a 2U rack-mount enclosure.

Limited-Edition, G-Technology G-DRIVE® mini Sweepstakes!

As a tribute to loyal content creators and A/V professionals, G-Technology is giving away 42, commemorative, limited-edition, G-Technology G-DRIVE mini external drives, skinned by Infectious, a company that creates consumer art products in collaboration with an online community of global artists. Just like G-Technology’s family of external storage solutions, the rules are simple. Simply sign up to become a fan on the G-Technology page on Facebook® and you’re automatically entered into the drawing. Starting today through May 3, three fans per day will be randomly chosen to win a G-DRIVE mini. Each drive will be “skinned” with one of three exclusive designs by Paul Burgess, Dalek, or Shadow Chen, all renowned artists contributing to the Infectious community. Visit our G-Technology page on Facebook for more details.

The G-Technology G-DRIVE minis are ultra sleek, portable drives designed for the Mac market. With capacities up to 500 GB, the G-DRIVE mini features a FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interface, giving A/V professionals and multimedia enthusiasts fast, high-capacity portable storage. Compact and light weight – around 10 oz – the G-DRIVE mini easliy slips into a computer, camera or camcorder bag, holding more than 45 hours of high definition video, 200,000 5 Mpixel JPEG photos, or 125,000 MP3 files. Because the device is bus-powered, no bulky AC adaptor is required. Visit www.G-Technology.com for more product information.

About G-Technology
G-Technology by Hitachi GST manufactures the industry's most comprehensive line of external storage solutions designed for professional content creation applications. The company’s USB, FireWire, eSATA, SCSI and Fibre Channel systems support all levels of audio/video production. G-Technology’s focus on technology, quality and design has resulted in storage solutions with unmatched performance, reliability and style. http://www.g-technology.com.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, and 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, Hitachi GST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics, and Personal Storage. Hitachi GST was established in 2003 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachigst.com.

Hitachi GST trademarks are authorized for use in countries and jurisdictions in which Hitachi GST has the right to market the brands. Hitachi GST is not liable for third parties’ unauthorized use of Hitachi GST trademarks. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. For purposes of measuring storage capacity, one gigabyte (GB) represents one billion bytes and one terabyte (TB) represents one trillion bytes.

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