G-Technology G Drive Pro User manual

g-technology.com
Thunderbolt Storage System with Transfer Rates up to 480MB/s
PRODUCT MANUAL
Welcome to G-DRIVE PRO TB

p.2
Table of Contents
Welcome to G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt
Table of Contents
Safety & General Use
Safety Precautions................................................... 4
Backup Your Data .................................................... 5
About Your Drive
Introduction .............................................................. 7
What’s in the Box .................................................... 8
System Requirements............................................ 8
Overview of the Drive ........................................... 9
Using G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt
Easy Installation .....................................................11
Disconnect the Drive ...........................................12
Maintenance for Your Drive
Initialize Drive for Mac® ......................................14
Restore the Drive Icon .........................................17
Reformat with Partitions.....................................19
Support & Warranty
Technical Support .................................................24
Limited Warranty ...................................................25
Copyright..................................................................27
Table of Contents

Safety & General Use
• Safety Precautions ..................................... p.4
• Backup Your Data ..................................... p.5

p.4
Safety & General Use
Safety Precautions
G-DRIVE® PRO with Thunderbolt™ warranty may be void as a result of the failure to respect the
precautions listed here. If you detect a problem with your drive, please contact our Technical
Support department.
If the product is returned with damage caused by improper handling, the warranty will be void and
liability will rest with the user. Please read our Limited Warranty.
• Servicing: Your drive contains no user-serviceable parts. If it appears to be malfunctioning,
have it inspected by a qualied Technical Support representative.
• Moisture: Place the device away from moisture or liquids. To reduce the risk of damage, do
not expose this drive to rain or moisture. Do not use it in damp or wet conditions. Never place
objects containing liquids on the drive as they may spill into its openings.
• Ventilation: Place the device in a vented area. The drive should never be placed near or over
a radiator or heat source.
• Temperature: Do not expose this drive to temperatures outside the range of 5°C to 35°C (41°F
to 95°F); or to operational humidity beyond 5-80%, non-condensing, or non-operating humid-
ity beyond 10-90%, non-condensing. Avoid placing your drive near a source of heat, or expos-
ing it to sunlight (even through a window), or in an environment that is too cold or humid.
• Physical Damage: Do not place heavy objects on the drive. Never use excessive force
on your drive.

p.5
Safety & General Use
Backup Your Data
The disk drive contained in your G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt (G-DRIVE PRO TB) device is a
delicate electronic instrument and is susceptible to damage due to excessive physical shock.
Under no circumstances will G-Technology be held liable for the recovery or restoration of
lost data. Any loss, corruption or destruction of data while using a G-Technology drive is the
sole responsibility of the user.
Make Two Backups
To help prevent the loss of your data, we highly recommend that you keep TWO copies of
your data in separate storage locations. Keep one copy on your G-Technology drive. Keep a
second copy on your internal hard drive, another G-Technology drive, or a form of removable
storage media.

About Your Drive
• Introduction .................................................... p.7
• What’s in the Box ......................................... p.8
• System Requirements ................................ p.8
• Overview of the Drive .............................. p.9

p.7
About Your Drive
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing the G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt (G-DRIVE
PRO TB) from G-Technology.
Since 2004, G-Technology has provided storage for content creation
professionals around the globe, and now G-DRIVE PRO TB redenes high-
performance storage for content creation. Performance that was once
only possible on MacPro desktop computers is now available on laptops
and iMac systems thanks to Thunderbolt and G-DRIVE PRO TB.
Thunderbolt technology enables blazing fast transfers over an interface
that is capable of sustaining two data streams at over 1000MB/sec each!
This opens up incredible possibilities for mobile applications as well as
simplifying high performance connectivity.
G-DRIVE PRO TB incorporates many of the same features of the standard
G-DRIVE, including a thermo regulated smart fan, all-aluminum enclo-
sure, and soft touch electronic power switch. The drive supports the
most demaning professional content creation applications like Final Cut
Pro,® Avid™ and Adobe Premiere®.

p.8
About Your Drive
What’s in the Box
The following items are included in the box:
• G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt External Hard Drive
• (1) Thunderbolt cable
• Power cable
• AC power adapter
• Quick Start Guide
• 3-Year limited warranty
If any items are missing, please contact G-Technology at [e-mail]
System Requirements
G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt supports the following Operating Systems. The drive is set
up at the factory for use with Mac OS systems, and formatted as HFS+ with Journaling.
• Mac OS® 10.7 +
• Windows 8, 7 and Vista (via reformat)
• Thunderbolt port

p.9
About Your Drive
Overview of the Drive
The images below highlight some of the features of your G-DRIVE PRO TB. There is a
Power & Activity LED on the front of the unit that will glow when the unit is powered
on, and will ash brighter as data is transferred to or from the hard drives.
On the rear of the unit is a Kensington® Security Slot, two high speed Thunderbolt
ports, DC Power In and Soft-touch On/O switch.

Using G-DRIVE PRO with Thunderbolt
• Easy Installation ......................................... p.11
• Disconnect the Drive .............................. p.12

p.11
Using Your Drive
Easy Installation
G-DRIVE PRO TB attaches to your laptop with the included Thunderbolt cable. Simply
plug one end into the Thunderbolt connector on your laptop, and the other end into
either port on the rear of G-DRIVE PRO TB.
One of the great features of Thunderbolt technology is the ability to daisy-chain up
to six Thunderbolt-enabled devices.
Connect the power cord to the unit and plug the other end into a surge protector
or wall outlet. Press and hold the power button until the unit turns on. The drive will
automatically mount on the desktop.

p.12
Using Your Drive
Disconnect the Drive
A great feature of Thunderbolt technology and G-DRIVE PRO TB is the ability to connect
and disconnect the drive while your computer is running. To prevent failures and/or data
loss, it is important to follow the steps below when disconnecting or ‘unmounting’ the
drive from your computer.
1. Before powering down and disconnecting the drive, unmount the system
by simply dragging the G-DRIVE PRO TB icon to the trash located in the dock.
Keyboard shortcut: Select the drive icon and hit Command+E.
2. It is safe to remove the drive from your system when the drive icon is no
longer present on your desktop.
3. To power o G-DRIVE PRO TB, press and hold the On/O power button until the unit
shuts down.

Maintenance for Your Drive
• Initialize Drive for Mac .............................. p.14
• Restore the Drive Icon ............................... p.17
• Reformat with Partitions ......................... p.19

p.14
Maintenance for Your Drive
Initialize Drive for Mac
G-DRIVE PRO TB was factory-formatted for use or ‘initialized’ for Mac OS. You can
reinitialize if you would like to quickly erase the contents of the drive. Here are
the steps.
1. First, open the Disk Utility program. This application is located on your hard drive
under Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. The window below will appear. Your
G-DRIVE DRIVE PRO TB will be displayed in the left-hand column.
2. Select the G-DRIVE PRO TB by clicking its drive icon in the left-side column. Informa-
tion about the drive willl be displayed at the bottom of the window.
3. Select the Erase tab to view the formatting options. By default, the Format pop-up
menu is set to the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) option.

p.15
Maintenance for Your Drive
4. Choose the Format option that you prefer.
• Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Use this format if you intend to use the drive for Time
Machine or to create a separate bootable installation of OS.
• Mac OS Extended: Use this format for best performance and media storage. To select,
click the Format pop-up and its option to Mac OS Extended.
5. Click the Erase button in the lower right corner of the window. A dialog box will appear
asking if you want to erase the G-DRIVE PRO TB partition.

p.16
Maintenance for Your Drive
WARNING: THIS NEXT STEP WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE.
6. Click on the Erase button to continue. A progress bar in the lower right corner of
the window will show the progress of the disk’s reformatting.
7. After the drive is reinitialized, you should automatically see the Time Machine
dialog box.
• Click the Use as Backup Disk button if you want to use the drive with
Time Machine.
• Click the Don’t Use or Decide Later button if you do not want to use
Time Machine at this point.
8. Quit the Disk Utility program. After reinitializing the drive, the custom icon for
G-DRIVE PRO TB has been erased. You can optionally restore this icon with the steps
on the next page.

p.17
Maintenance for Your Drive
Restore the Drive Icon
If the G-DRIVE PRO TB drive icon was erased during the conguration process (see the
previous section), you can restore the icon with the following easy steps.
NOTE: This process is not required for the operation of the G-DRIVE PRO TB. However,
it will make your drive’s appearance on the computer desktop look nicer and more
accurate.
1. To get the G-Technology icon package, go to www.g-technology.com/support and
navigate to your product. There will be a link to download the icons.
2. Once downloaded, it should automatically open the G-Technology Icons folder as
shown below. If not, double-click the Zip le to open. Next, double-click the DMG
le to open the G-Tech Icons package.
3. Click to select the drive icon for G-DRIVE PRO TB in the package window. Press
Command+C to copy the icon. (below)

p.18
Maintenance for Your Drive
4. Select the default G-DRIVE PRO TB drive icon on your desktop and press
Command+I. This opens the Get Info window. (below left)
5. Select the default icon in the Get Info window. (below left)
6. Press Command+V to paste the custom G-DRIVE PRO TB icon into the Get Info
window. (below right)
The icon for your G-DRIVE PRO TB has been restored and you can close the
Get Info window. Your drive is now ready for use!

p.19
Maintenance for Your Drive
Reformat with Partitions
‘Partitioning’ a hard drive is the process of dividing a hard drive into separate,
discrete sections called ‘volumes’. Each volume works like a separate disk. You can
create up to 16 dierent partitions on a hard drive in Mac OS and each partition can
be a dierent size and format.
With hard drives getting bigger, it is useful to partition your hard drive so sections
of its space can be used for dierent purposes. For instance, segment user data from
backup data, set up a multi-boot environment with dierent Operating Systems or
create a dedicated capture scratch disk for programs like Final Cut Pro.
The following steps will guide you through this simple process of partitioning your
drive. In this example, we will partition a 1TB G-DRIVE mobile with Thunderbolt.
The steps will be identical for your drive, only the name may be dierent.
1. First, open the Disk Utility program. This application is located on your hard drive
under Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. The window below will appear. Your
G-Technology drive will be displayed in the left-hand column.

p.20
Maintenance for Your Drive
2. Select the FireWire or USB icon – not the G-Technology
drive icon – by clicking it in the left-side column.
3. Click on the Partition button in the main window.
4. Select the number of partitions you would like from the Volume Scheme menu.
Below, we have selected ‘2 Partitions’to create two partitions.