G-Technology G Speed studio User manual

g-technology.com
High-Performance 4 Bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID Solutions for HD 2K/4K Production
PRODUCT MANUAL

p. 2
Table of Contents
Safety & General Use
Safety Precautions .................................................................................5
Backup Your Data...................................................................................6
About Your G-SPEED Studio R
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 R
G-Technology Assistant.....................................................................17
Recommended Installation..............................................................17
G-SPEED Studio R Utility ................................................................... 18
Power Modes on G-SPEED Studio R ............................................. 22
Shutting Down G-SPEED Studio R Units..................................... 22
Daisy Chaining Multiple G-SPEED Studio R Units.................... 23
Displaying Multiple G-SPEED Studio R Units ............................ 25
Manage the Enclosure with G-SPEED Studio R Utility ........... 25
Accessing the G-SPEED Studio R Utility ...................................... 26
Unlocking the UI.................................................................................. 28
G-SPEED Studio R 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 Enclosure........................................................ 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

p. 3
Table of Contents
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
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
To Create a Disk Array and Logical Drive.................................... 66
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 Drive .......................................................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 .............................8
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 R Software With Default Settings................. 95
G-SPEED Studio R Utility With Custom Settings ...................... 96
Disk Utility.............................................................................................. 97
Spare Drives .......................................................................................... 98
Running a Transition .......................................................................... 99
Maintenance for Your Drive
Replace a Failed Disk Drive ...........................................................102
Initialize Drive for Mac ....................................................................104
Restore the Drive Icon .....................................................................107
Reformat With Partitions................................................................109
Appendix
RAID Levels Explained .................................................................... 114
Support & Warranty
Technical Support............................................................................. 116
Limited Warranty................................................................................117
Copyright ............................................................................................. 119

Safety and General Use
•Safety Precautions ........................................ p. 5
• Backup Your Data ......................................... p. 6

p. 5
Safety & General Use
Safety Precautions
Your G-SPEED Studio R’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.

p. 6
Safety & General Use
Backup Your Data
The disk drive contained in your G-SPEED Studio R 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, 5, or (protected modes),
G-SPEED Studio R will safeguard your data from individual hard drive failure. However, if any
file system corruption occurs, the data contained on G-SPEED Studio R may be affected.
For critical data, G-Technology recommends keeping one copy on your G-SPEED Studio R
and at least one additional copy on another storage device.

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

p. 8
About Your G-SPEED Studio R
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing the G-Technology G-SPEED Studio, featuring
20 Gb/s Thunderbolt 2 interface technology.
Specifically designed for professional content creation applications,
the G-SPEED Studio R storage system provides RAID 0, 1, 5 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 supports the industry’s most demanding
professional content creation applications, including Final Cut Pro®,
Adobe Premiere® and Avid™ Media Composer.

p. 9
About Your G-SPEED Studio R
What’s in the Box
The following items are included in the box:
• G-SPEED Studio R storage solution
• Four 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 R manual and utilities at:
www.g-technology.com/support/gspeed_studio_r
System Requirements
G-SPEED Studio R 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.

p. 10
About Your G-SPEED Studio R
Overview of the Drive
G-SPEED Studio R ships from the factory preconfigured in RAID 5. The RAID controller
also supports RAID and JBOD configurations. 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.
Temperature / Fan
Warning red LED light
“Smart” Cooling Fans
Alarm Mute Button
Thunderbolt Port
On/Off Switch
Drive Lock Hatch
(4) Removable Disk Drives
Drive Module Power/
Activity LED
Power LED
AC Input
Kensington Slot

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

p. 12
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
Drive Activity LED
Under normal operation, each G-SPEED Studio R 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

p. 13
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
Warning LED and Alarms
The G-SPEED Studio R 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 R as shown below.
In addition to the audible alarm, the LED located on the front G-SPEED Studio R
will illuminate red.
If there is an issue with G-SPEED Studio R drive module, the LED on the
module will glow red indicating a drive or RAID issue. Please launch the
G-SPEED Studio R Utility to determine if any user action is required or contact
our support team for further troubleshooting.
Alarm Mute button
If you hear an audible alarm and see the red warning LED on G-SPEED Studio R front,
stop using the enclosure and contact G-Technology support.
Drive Module LED (red)
indicating an issue
Alarm Mute Button

p. 14
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
Disconnect the Drive
A great feature of Thunderbolt technology and G-SPEED Studio R 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 R 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 R simply unplug the Thunderbolt cable. If no background
activities are in progress, the unit will automatically go into standby.

Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
• G-Technology Assistant...................................................................17
• Recommended Installation............................................................17
• G-SPEED Studio R Utility................................................................. 18
• Power Modes on G-SPEED Studio R........................................... 22
• Shutting Down G-SPEED Studio R Units................................... 22
• Daisy Chaining Multiple G-SPEED Studio R Units ................. 23
• Displaying Multiple G-SPEED Studio R Units.......................... 25
• Manage the Enclosure with G-SPEED Studio R Utility......... 25
• Accessing the G-SPEED Studio R Utility.................................... 26
• Unlocking the UI ............................................................................... 27
• G-SPEED Studio R 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 Enclosure ..................................................... 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................................................. 57
• Viewing Physical Drive SMART Log Information................... 58
• Locating a Physical Drive ............................................................... 58
• 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

Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
• 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
• To Create a Disk Array and Logical Drive.................................. 66
• Creating a Disk Array and Logical Drive With the Wizard.. 67
• Choosing Automatic Conguration........................................... 68
• Choosing Express Conguration ................................................ 69
• Choosing Advanced Conguration ........................................... 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 Drive..................................................... 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 R Software With Default Settings .............. 95
• G-SPEED Studio R Utility With Custom Settings.................... 96
• Disk Utility............................................................................................ 97
• Spare Drives........................................................................................ 98
• Running a Transition........................................................................ 99

p. 17
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
G-Technology Assistant
To enhance your experience with G-SPEED Studio R we have developed the G-Technology
Assistant (GTA) utility. The utility provides notifications and details on G-SPEED Studio R
as well as a link to the configuration and management utility known as the G-SPEED
Studio R 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 R you will want to install the G-Technology Assistant
on your computer along with the G-SPEED Studio R 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 R.

p. 18
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
G-SPEED Studio R Utility
G-SPEED Studio R 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 R 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 R 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 R utility.
1. Visit www.g-technology.com/support to download the G-SPEED Studio R 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.

p. 19
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
3. Double-click on the G-SPEED_Studio_R_Utility.pkg* file to begin the installation.
* 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.
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.

p. 20
Conguring G-SPEED Studio R
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.