Dedicated to serving the Apple Mac and professional audio/video (A/V) markets, G-Technology by Hitachi is demoing its first 4TB hard drives at IBC 2011 in its two-drive, RAID 0, G-RAID solution. The new G-RAID systems are incorporating Hitachi's 4TB 7,200 RPM drives. They also feature a Thunderbolt interface, offering data transfer rates up to 10 Gbps for sustained throughput when handling multi-stream compressed HD workflows including REDCODE, DVCPro HD, XDCAM HD and ProRes 422. In a two-drive configuration, the two-drive, RAID 0 external storage device offers a capacity of 8TB.

All G-RAID drives come pre-configured in a RAID-0 for maximum throughput and are specifically designed for video editing with efficient cooling and air flow. Its all-aluminum enclosure acts as a heat sink, keeping the drives nice and cool, while a quiet smart fan makes it a perfect fit in any audio or video post production environment. For easy set up, the G-RAID solution is ready right out of the box for use with Mac OS X systems and appears to the system as a single, big disk drive. The G-RAID solution also supports Windows systems with a simple reformat. Howevr, the G-RAID 4TB, 6TB and 8TB models are not supported by Windows XP or older 32-bit operating systems, which limit maximum volume size to 2.2TB. G-RAID 4TB, 6TB and 8TB models are compatible with Mac OS X, Windows Vista or other 64-bit operating systems.

G-Technology will begin shipping its 4TB-based G-RAID and single-drive G-DRIVE solutions with eSATA, FireWire 800 (FireWire 400 via cable) and USB 2.0 ports in October. First in a family of solutions, the company's Thunderbolt 4TB-based G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions will ship in Q4.