G-Technology G SPEED STUDIO XL User manual

g-technology.com
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
Hardware RAID 8-Bay Thunderbolt™ 2 Storage Solution
PRODUCT MANUAL

p. 2
Table of Contents
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
Safety & General Use
Safety Precautions .......................................................................................... 5
Backup Your Data ............................................................................................ 6
Make Two Backups.......................................................................................... 6
About Your G-SPEED Studio XL
Introduction...................................................................................................... 8
What’s in the Box ............................................................................................ 9
System Requirements.................................................................................... 9
Overview of the Drive .................................................................................10
Using Your Drive
Drive Activity LED..........................................................................................12
Warning LED and Alarms............................................................................13
Disconnect the Drive ...................................................................................14
Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
G-Technology Assistant...............................................................................17
Recommended Installation ......................................................................17
G-SPEED Studio Software Utility..............................................................18
Power Modes on G-SPEED Studio XL.....................................................22
Shutting Down G-SPEED Studio XL........................................................22
Daisy Chaining Multiple G-SPEED Studio XL Units ...........................23
Displaying Multiple G-SPEED Studio XL Units....................................25
Manage the Enclosure with G-SPEED Studio Software Utility......25
Accessing the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility.................................26
Unlocking the UI............................................................................................28
G-SPEED Studio Software Utility Overview .........................................29
Toolbar Icons...................................................................................................30
Customizing the Toolbar ............................................................................30
Component List .............................................................................................31
Physical Drive Menu.....................................................................................31
Highlight Arrays.............................................................................................32
Managing System Information.................................................................33
Viewing System Information.....................................................................34
Making System Settings .............................................................................34
Clearing Statistics..........................................................................................35
Restoring Factory Default Settings.........................................................35
Saving a Service Report ..............................................................................36
Updating Firmware.......................................................................................36
Managing Enclosures ..................................................................................37
Viewing the Enclosure Information........................................................37
Viewing Temperature Sensor Information...........................................38
Locating an Enclosure .................................................................................39
Managing the RAID Controller.................................................................39
Viewing Controller Information ...............................................................39
Viewing Controller Statistics .....................................................................41
Changing Controller Settings ...................................................................41
Changing Buzzer Settings..........................................................................42
Managing Background Activities ............................................................43
Viewing Current Background Activities ................................................43
Viewing Scheduled Background Activities ..........................................44
Adding a Scheduled Background Activity ...........................................44
Changing Background Activity Schedule ............................................45
Enabling or Disabling a Scheduled Background Activity...............47
Deleting a Scheduled Background Activity.........................................47
Media Patrol ....................................................................................................48
Changing Media Patrol Settings..............................................................48
Redundancy Check.......................................................................................48
Changing Redundancy Check Settings ................................................49
Initialization.....................................................................................................49
Changing Initialization Settings ..............................................................50
Rebuild..............................................................................................................50
Changing Rebuild Settings........................................................................51
Migration..........................................................................................................51
Changing Migration Settings....................................................................52
PDM....................................................................................................................52
Changing PDM Settings..............................................................................53
Transition..........................................................................................................53
Changing Transition Settings....................................................................54
Synchronization.............................................................................................54
Changing Synchronization Settings.......................................................55
Managing Physical Drives ..........................................................................55
Viewing a List of Physical Drives..............................................................56
Viewing Physical Drive Information .......................................................56
Viewing Physical Drive Statistics..............................................................58
Viewing Physical Drive SMART Log Information................................59
Locating a Physical Drive............................................................................59
Changing Global Physical Drive Settings .............................................60
Changing Individual Physical Drive Settings ......................................60
Changing Physical Drive SMART Log Settings....................................61
Clearing a Stale or PFA Condition............................................................62

p. 3
Table of Contents
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
Running Media Patrol on Your Physical Drives...................................63
Managing Disk Arrays................................................................................64
Viewing a List of Disk Arrays......................................................................64
Viewing Disk Array Information...............................................................65
Creating a Disk Array Manually................................................................65
Creating a Disk Array and Logical Drive With the Wizard ...............67
Choosing Automatic Configuration .......................................................68
Choosing Express Configuration .............................................................69
Choosing Advanced Configuration........................................................71
Formatting Your Logical Drives................................................................73
Changing Disk Array Settings...................................................................73
Locating a Disk Array ...................................................................................74
Deleting a Disk Array ...................................................................................75
Preparing a Disk Array for Transport ......................................................76
Rebuilding a Disk Array...............................................................................76
Pausing and Resuming a Rebuild............................................................78
Stopping a Rebuild.......................................................................................78
Managing Logical Drives............................................................................78
Viewing a List of Logical Drives................................................................79
Viewing Logical Drive Information .........................................................79
Viewing Logical Drive Statistics ...............................................................80
Changing Logical Drive Settings .............................................................81
Viewing Logical Drive Check Tables .......................................................82
Creating a Logical Drive Manually ..........................................................82
Formatting Your Logical Drives................................................................84
Locating a Logical Drive..............................................................................84
Deleting a Logical Drive..............................................................................85
Initializing a Logical Drive..........................................................................85
Pausing and Resuming an Initialization................................................86
Stopping an Initialization...........................................................................86
Redundancy Check on a Logical Drive..................................................87
Pausing and Resuming a Redundancy Check ....................................87
Stopping a Redundancy Check................................................................87
Migrating a Logical Drive ...........................................................................88
Running PDM on a Logical Drive.............................................................89
Pausing and Resuming PDM.....................................................................89
Stopping PDM................................................................................................89
Managing Spare Drives...............................................................................90
Viewing a List of Spare Drives...................................................................90
Viewing Spare Drive Information ............................................................90
Creating a Spare Drive Manually .............................................................91
Changing Spare Drive Settings................................................................92
Running Spare Check ..................................................................................93
Deleting a Spare Drive.................................................................................93
Running a Transition on a Spare Drive ..................................................93
Running a Transition ....................................................................................94
Pausing and Resuming a Transition........................................................94
Stopping, Pausing or Resuming a Transition.......................................94
Formatting Logical Drives..........................................................................95
G-SPEED Studio XL Software with Default Settings .........................95
G-SPEED Studio Software Utility with Custom Settings..................96
Disk Utility........................................................................................................97
Spare Drives ....................................................................................................98
Running a Transition ....................................................................................99
Maintenance for Your Drive
Replace a Failed Disk Drive..................................................................... 101
Initialize Drive for Mac®............................................................................ 103
Restore the Drive Icon.............................................................................. 106
Reformat with Partitions.......................................................................... 108
Appendix
RAID Levels Explained .............................................................................. 113
Support & Warranty
Technical Support ...................................................................................... 115
Limited Warranty........................................................................................ 116
Limited Warranty........................................................................................ 116
Copyright ...................................................................................................... 118

Safety & General Use
•Safety Precautions ........................................ p. 5
•Backup Your Data ......................................... p. 6
•MakeTwoBackups .........................................p.6

Safety & General Use
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 5
Safety Precautions
Your G-SPEED Studio XL’s warranty may be voided as a result of failing to respect the precautions listed
below. 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 qualified 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). It should also not be exposed to operational humidity beyond 5% to 80%
(non-condensing) or non-operating humidity beyond 10% to 90% (non-condensing). Avoid
placing your drive near a source of heat, exposing it to sunlight (even through a window),or
setting it 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.

Safety & General Use
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 6
Backup Your Data
The disk drive contained in your G-SPEED Studio XL is a delicate electronic instrument and is
susceptible to damage from 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 keeping TWO copies of your data in
separate storage locations. When configured in RAID 1, 1E, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60; G-SPEED Studio XL will
safeguard your data from individual hard drive failure. However, if any file system corruption occurs,
the data contained on G-SPEED Studio XL may be affected.
For critical data, G-Technology recommends keeping one copy on your G-SPEED Studio XL
and at least one additional copy on another storage device.

About Your G-SPEED Studio XL
•Introduction .................................................... p. 8
•What’s in the Box .......................................... p. 9
•System Requirements ................................. p. 9
•Overview of the Drive ................................. p. 10

About Your G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 8
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing the G-Technology G-SPEED Studio XL, featuring 20 Gb/s Thunderbolt 2
interface technology.
Specifically designed for professional content creation applications, the G-SPEED Studio XL
storage system provides RAID 0, 1, 1E, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 and JBOD functionality for both application
performance and data protection. The drive supports Thunderbolt 2™ technology which enables
blazing fast, concurrent data streams, capable of data transfer rates over 1300 MB/s. This opens up
incredible time-saving and multi-stream possibilities for content creation professionals who use
bandwidth-intensive 2K and 4K media formats.
With two bidirectional ports, a user can easily daisy chain up to six high-speed Thunderbolt peripheral
devices, including external disk drives, video capture devices and external displays. Thunderbolt 2 is
backward compatible with the previous, first-generation version of Thunderbolt.
G-SPEED Studio XL supports the industry’s most
demanding professional content creation applications,
including Final Cut Pro®, Adobe Premiere® and Avid™
Media Composer.

About Your G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 9
What’s in the Box
The following items are included in the box:
• G-SPEED Studio XL storage solution
• Eight removable Enterprise-class drive modules (installed in unit)
• (1) Thunderbolt cable
• Power Cord
• Quick Start Guide
If any items are missing, please contact G-Technology at
www.g-technology.com/contact/contact_support
Download the latest G-SPEED Studio XL manual and utilities at:
www.g-technology.com/support/gspeed_studio_xl
System Requirements
G-SPEED Studio XL supports the following operating systems:
• Mac OS® 10.9.2 or higher
The solution is set up at the factory for use with Mac OS® X systems and is formatted as “HFS+” in a
RAID 5 configuration.

About Your G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 10
Overview of the Drive
G-SPEED Studio XL ships from the factory preconfigured in RAID 5. The RAID controller also supports
Protected RAID modes on XL: RAID 1, 1E, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60. For an explanation of these RAID levels,
please refer to RAID Levels Explained. If you wish to change the RAID mode, please refer to Change
the RAID Mode.
“Smart”
Cooling Fans
On/Off Switch
AC Input
Kensington Slot
Alarm Mute Button
Thunderbolt Port
Drive
Lock
Hatch
(8) Removable
Disk Drives
(8) Drive Module
Power/Activity LED
LED Indicator

Using Your Drive
•Drive Activity LED ..................................... p. 12
•Warning LED and Alarms ....................... p. 13
•Disconnect the Drive .............................. p. 14

Using Your Drive
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 12
Drive Activity LED
Under normal operation, each G-SPEED Studio XL drive module has an LED that glows blue,
indicating a connection to the RAID controller. The LED will flash when the drive is being accessed.
Drive module power/
activity LED

Using Your Drive
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 13
Warning LED and Alarms
The G-SPEED Studio XL enclosure integrates an audible alarm or buzzer that will sound when any of
the following conditions exist:
• Internal temperature exceeds a temperature of 60°C.
• Main cooling fan fails
• Fan slows to a state where the fan can no longer adequately cool the system
• To silence the alarm, push the Alarm Mute button located on the back of G-SPEED Studio XL
as shown at below.
Alarm Mute Button
• In addition to the audible alarm, the LED located on the front G-SPEED Studio XL will
illuminate red.
• If there is an issue with a G-SPEED Studio XL drive module, the LED on the module will
glow red indicating a drive or RAID issue. Please launch the G-SPEED Studio Software
Utility to determine if any user action is required or contact our support team for further
troubleshooting.
Drive Module LED (red)
indicating an issue
Alarm Mute button
If you hear an audible alarm and see the red warning LED on G-SPEED Studio XL front, stop using the
enclosure and contact G-Technology support.

Using Your Drive
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 14
Disconnect the Drive
A great feature of Thunderbolt technology and G-SPEED Studio XL is the ability to connect and
disconnect the system while your computer is running. To prevent drive 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-SPEED Studio XL icon to the trash located in the system dock.
Keyboard shortcut: Select the drive icon and press 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 off G-SPEED Studio XL simply unplug the Thunderbolt cable. If no background
activities are in progress, the unit will automatically go into standby.

Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
• G-Technology Assistant...................................................... p. 17
• Recommended Installation ............................................. p. 17
• G-SPEED Studio Software Utility..................................... p. 18
• Power Modes on G-SPEED Studio XL ............................ p. 22
• Shutting Down G-SPEED Studio XL ............................... p. 22
• Daisy Chaining Multiple
G-SPEED Studio XL Units ................................................... p. 23
• Displaying Multiple G-SPEED Studio XL Units ........... p. 25
• Manage the Enclosure with
G-SPEED Studio Software Utility..................................... p. 25
• Accessing the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility ........ p. 26
• Unlocking the UI ................................................................... p. 28
• G-SPEED Studio Software Utility Overview................. p. 29
• Toolbar Icons.......................................................................... p. 30
• Customizing the Toolbar.................................................... p. 30
• Component List..................................................................... p. 31
• Physical Drive Menu ............................................................ p. 31
• Highlight Arrays .................................................................... p. 32
• Managing System Information........................................ p. 33
• Viewing System Information............................................ p. 34
• Making System Settings..................................................... p. 34
• Clearing Statistics ................................................................. p. 35
• Restoring Factory Default Settings ................................ p. 35
• Saving a Service Report...................................................... p. 36
• Updating Firmware.............................................................. p. 36
• Managing Enclosures.......................................................... p. 37
• Viewing the Enclosure Information ............................... p. 37
• Viewing Temperature Sensor Information .................. p. 38
• Locating an Enclosure......................................................... p. 39
• Managing the RAID Controller ........................................ p. 39
• Viewing Controller Information ...................................... p. 39
• Viewing Controller Statistics............................................. p. 41
• Changing Controller Settings .......................................... p. 41
• Changing Buzzer Settings ................................................. p. 42
• Managing Background Activities.................................... p. 43
• Viewing Current Background Activities........................ p. 43
• Viewing Scheduled Background Activities ................. p. 44
• Adding a Scheduled Background Activity................... p. 44
• Changing Background Activity Schedule.................... p. 45
• Enabling or Disabling a Scheduled
• Background Activity ............................................................ p. 47
• Deleting a Scheduled Background Activity................ p. 47
• Media Patrol............................................................................ p. 48
• Changing Media Patrol Settings ..................................... p. 48
• Redundancy Check.............................................................. p. 48
• Changing Redundancy Check Settings........................ p. 49
• Initialization............................................................................ p. 49
• Changing Initialization Settings...................................... p. 50
• Rebuild ..................................................................................... p. 50
• Changing Rebuild Settings............................................... p. 51
• Migration................................................................................. p. 51
• Changing Migration Settings........................................... p. 52
• PDM........................................................................................... p. 52
• Changing PDM Settings..................................................... p. 53
• Transition................................................................................. p. 53
• Changing Transition Settings........................................... p. 54
• Synchronization .................................................................... p. 54
• Changing Synchronization Settings.............................. p. 55
• Managing Physical Drives.................................................. p. 55
• Viewing a List of Physical Drives ..................................... p. 56
• Viewing Physical Drive Information............................... p. 56
• Viewing Physical Drive Statistics..................................... p. 58
• Viewing Physical Drive SMART Log Information....... p. 59
• Locating a Physical Drive................................................... p. 59
• Changing Global Physical Drive Settings..................... p. 60
• Changing Individual Physical Drive Settings.............. p. 60
• Changing Physical Drive SMART Log Settings........... p. 61
• Clearing a Stale or PFA Condition................................... p. 62
• Running Media Patrol on Your Physical Drives .......... p. 63
• Managing Disk Arrays....................................................... p. 64
• Viewing a List of Disk Arrays............................................. p. 64
• Viewing Disk Array Information ...................................... p. 65
• Creating a Disk Array Manually ....................................... p. 65
• Creating a Disk Array and Logical
Drive With the Wizard ......................................................... p. 67

• Choosing Automatic Configuration............................... p. 68
• Choosing Express Configuration .................................... p. 69
• Choosing Advanced Configuration ............................... p. 71
• Formatting Your Logical Drives ....................................... p. 73
• Changing Disk Array Settings .......................................... p. 73
• Locating a Disk Array........................................................... p. 74
• Deleting a Disk Array........................................................... p. 75
• Preparing a Disk Array for Transport.............................. p. 76
• Rebuilding a Disk Array ...................................................... p. 76
• Pausing and Resuming a Rebuild................................... p. 78
• Stopping a Rebuild .............................................................. p. 78
• Managing Logical Drives ................................................... p. 78
• Viewing a List of Logical Drives ....................................... p. 79
• Viewing Logical Drive Information................................. p. 79
• Viewing Logical Drive Statistics....................................... p. 80
• Changing Logical Drive Settings..................................... p. 81
• Viewing Logical Drive Check Tables............................... p. 82
• Creating a Logical Drive Manually.................................. p. 82
• Formatting Your Logical Drives ....................................... p. 84
• Locating a Logical Drive..................................................... p. 84
• Deleting a Logical Drive..................................................... p. 85
• Initializing a Logical Drive ................................................. p. 85
• Pausing and Resuming an Initialization....................... p. 86
• Stopping an Initialization .................................................. p. 86
• Redundancy Check on a Logical Drive ......................... p. 87
• Pausing and Resuming a Redundancy Check............ p. 87
• Stopping a Redundancy Check....................................... p. 87
• Migrating a Logical Drive................................................... p. 88
• Running PDM on a Logical Drive .................................... p. 89
• Pausing and Resuming PDM ............................................ p. 89
• Stopping PDM ....................................................................... p. 89
• Managing Spare Drives ...................................................... p. 90
• Viewing a List of Spare Drives .......................................... p. 90
• Viewing Spare Drive Information ................................... p. 90
• Creating a Spare Drive Manually..................................... p. 91
• Changing Spare Drive Settings ....................................... p. 92
• Running Spare Check.......................................................... p. 93
• Deleting a Spare Drive........................................................ p. 93
• Running a Transition on a Spare Drive.......................... p. 93
• Running a Transition............................................................ p. 94
• Pausing and Resuming a Transition............................... p. 94
• Stopping, Pausing or Resuming a Transition.............. p. 94
• Formatting Logical Drives ................................................. p. 95
• G-SPEED Studio XL Software with
Default Settings .................................................................... p. 95
• G-SPEED Studio Software Utility with
Custom Settings.................................................................... p. 96
• Disk Utility ............................................................................... p. 97
• Spare Drives............................................................................ p. 98
• Running a Transition............................................................ p. 99
Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL (continued)

Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 17
G-Technology Assistant
To enhance your experience with G-SPEED Studio XL we have developed the G-Technology Assistant
(GTA) utility. The utility provides notifications and details on G-SPEED Studio XL as well as a link to
the configuration and management utility known as the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility.
The G-Technology Assistant is available for download from the G-Technology website at
www.g-technology.com/support. Please visit the site to check for updates as well as helpful tips and tricks.
Recommended Installation
When you first setup G-SPEED Studio XL you will want to install the G-Technology Assistant on your
computer along with the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility.
To install the G-Technology Assistant, follow the simple onscreen instructions. Once you have
successfully completed the installation, you can access the utility from the Mac OS Menu Bar and/or
from the Applications folder.
Please visit the G-Technology Assistant Overview for general functionality and to optimize the
experience with your G-SPEED Studio XL.

Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 18
G-SPEED Studio Software Utility
G-SPEED Studio XL ships preconfigured in RAID 5 and is ready to use out of the box without
configuration. However, G-Technology recommends installing the bundled G-Technology Assistant
utility and the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility even if you do not plan to make any changes to
device configuration. The applications are useful for monitoring the system and getting firmware
updates. Additionally, the utility is necessary if you plan to change the enclosure’s default RAID
configuration (RAID 5) or if you will swap out any of the pre-installed hard drives.
The G-SPEED Studio Software Utility installation package is available on the G-Technology website
and can be easily downloaded. Follow the instructions below to easily install the G-SPEED Studio
Software Utility.
1. Visit www.g-technology.com/support to download the G-SPEED Studio Software Utility.
2. Mount the virtual drive containing the installation software package.*
* The version number of the .dmg file and .pkg file will change as it is updated.
The version number used in this example is for illustration purposes.

Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 19
3. Double-click on the G-SPEED_Studio_Software_Utility.pkg* file to begin the installation.
The introduction window explains that software will be installed on the Mac®. You can review the
software license agreement. Once ready, click the Continue button to proceed.

Conguring G-SPEED Studio XL
G SPEED
STUDIO XL
with Thunderbolt™
p. 20
4. The software license agreement will appear. Please read the statement and click Continue to proceed.
5. Click Agree if you agree to the terms of the license. To read the license, click Read License. Choose
Disagree if you do not agree with the terms. This will terminate the installation procedure.