G-Technology G-Drive Mobile Pro SSD 500GB External Drive Review

G-Technology's G-Drive mobile Pro SSD comes in a stout box with a good clear image of the drive on the front. To the top right of the image is a sticker indicating the drive's capacity. Under the image are three icons that show that the drive is part of G-Technology's rugged R-series, the fact it has a Thunderbolt 3 interface and that it comes with a 5-year warranty.

The rear of the box has an illustration of the drives speed. Under this are three icons showing that the drive has an aluminium heatsink, supports 4K, 8K and VR workflows and that it's shock resistant. Under these icons are multilingual descriptions of these three features.

One side of the box carries a capacity sticker at the top along with logos for Thunderbolt3, Mac ready capability and another reminder of the 5-year warranty. The other side has yet more icons displaying box contents, compatibility and specifications.

The box bundle with the drive simply comprises a 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 cable, quick start guide, information card on how the drive is formatted and warranty info booklet.

As befits a drive labelled rugged, the G-Drive mobile Pro SSD comes housed in a protective case that has a rubberised feel. The case has slots cut into it to help dissipate the heat from the large aluminium heatsink that G-technology uses to help keep the SSD cool. This works well as even when we were pushing the drive under testing, it never got more than warm to the touch.

The CrystalDiskMark Info app recognises the SSD drive as a 500GB SanDisk Extreme Pro drive. The SanDisk Extreme Pro uses the same hardware as WD's Black NVMe drive; SanDisk 64-layer 3D TLC NAND combined with an in-house designed 8-channel controller.

The drive is powered via the Thunderbolt 3 connection and is only compatible with Thunderbolt 3 ports, it doesn't work when connected to a USB Type-C port. The end plate at the other end of the drive holds a white drive activity LED.

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