Question 1

compatible with El Capitan?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it works fine with El Capitan.

Question 2

How easy is this to open for drive swap?

Accepted Answer

Never had to, but if you remove the feet...the screws are right there.

Question 3

Can the HDD be replaced with a SSD?

Accepted Answer

Great question!  I'm not sure about the answer, as it depends on the power demands for your proposed new SSD drive, and how much power the Thunderbolt bus-power hub provides.  You'll have to do more research to get this information about the technical specs.

This is an awesome drive!

Unfortunately, my G-Drive disk has died due to a "fatal" fall and is now not working.  :-(

Question 4

Does anyone know if I could replace the internal drive with an SSD ?

Accepted Answer

You could, but if the drive died...you can send it back and get another

Question 5

Does it come with a Thunderbolt (and USB3) cable(s) in the package?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it comes with both cables.

Question 6

The product description lists "Transfer rates up to 136MB/s." Is this not slow for a thunderbolt device?  I was under the impression firewire 800 is 800mb/s and thunderbolt should be 10gb/s.  Thanks for the clarification

Accepted Answer

The interface for Thunderbolt is indeed 10GB/s. However, you need to consider the specifications of the drive inside the case, which most likely has a much slower throughput. SATA 3 only has a max throughput of 6gb/s, and that is at burst, not sustained transfer. The traditional platter approach which most hard disks use makes it impossible to achieve a sustained read or write at that maximum speed. I suggest you research the standard of SATA and it's different iterations for more background information. There isn't really any way of knowing exactly what the internal components for this device are without taking it apart and voiding the warranty. As for firewire 800, that is also a max burst speed. The two can't really be compared purely on expected speeds because they transfer information using different protocols. FW800 transfers at max 800 Megabits (not bytes) which is much closer to about 90MegaBytes/s. This is by no means a thorough explanation. head over to the nearsest *pedia and have a read up on the standards for Firewire, Thunderbolt and SATA.

Questions & Answers