Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/398272
www.postmagazine.com 46 POST OCTOBER 2014 ately it seems that the innova- tion in external hard drives has really taken off again. From the awe- some achievement of packing 64TBs of storage into an eight-bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID that isn't any larger than a stan- dard desktop tower to the lightning-fast external Thunderbolt 2/USB 3.0 SSD drives, one thing that stays consistent is the warranties. With new technology, it's hard to test real-life reliability from years of constant use and punishment, so a good warranty is critical in my mind. Glyph Production Technologies of- fers one of the best warranties in all of external hard drives. Every drive comes with a three-year limited parts and labor warranty, meaning anything that was truly the fault of Glyph will be fixed or replaced. Each drive also has one year of advance replacement and two years of basic data recovery included with the purchase (most companies will refer you to another company for data). The advance replacement program states that within the first year, if you have a problem, they guarantee a 48-hour turnaround for all in-house repairs. What exactly would an "out-of-house" repair look like? Out-of-house repairs are typi- cally related to data recovery that goes beyond their service. So if you really need data recovered from your drive and Glyph deems that it goes beyond the "basic" scope, you may have to send it out of house. Back in 2012, I reviewed the Glyph GPT50, a 2TB 7,200rpm external drive. Since then, I have not had any downtime with the GPT50. In fact, the only issue I have is that it's large: it's a 3.5-inch disk drive, so it takes up some precious desk real estate. Luckily, in the past three years, technology has improved and Glyph has been able to adapt and create some great new (and smaller) external drives. Glyph sent me three drives from their mobile line to take a look at: the 1TB Studio Mini, the 1TB StudioRAID Mini, and the 500GB BlackBox, all of which are constructed with 2.5-inch drives to maintain a small footprint — a feature I've really come to value, as my backpack is bursting with drives. All Glyph drives are tested at their New York office and pre-formatted for OS X. If you need to format for Windows, do a quick Google search and if it seems too difficult, defi- nitely call up a professional. Trust me, I would rather be bothered with "How do I format?" instead of "Hey where do I send my drive for data recovery?" The first drive up is the 1TB Studio Mini. The Studio Mini is a single drive external device that is sold in 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB flavors. The 500GB and 1TB models use a 7,200rpm drive, while the 2TB uses a 5,400rpm drive. It's small and lightweight. The Glyph Mini sits horizon- tal, stacks well, and looks like it belongs in a million-dollar studio. I really put these drives through their paces with over two months of 4K editing, transcoding and VFX rendering in Adobe Premiere, Media Encoder and After Effects. They didn't let me down. I may have also done a couple "drop" tests of three to four feet and all of the drives continued to work perfectly. For the primary testing connection I chose USB 3.0 because of how easily I can jump between OS X and Windows systems while maintaining a single fast, bus-pow- ered connection. The Studio Mini has USB 3.0, and two FireWire 800s, as well as an eSATA connection, so you have options. It can be bus-powered by USB GLYPH PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES' EXTERNAL DRIVES BY BRADY BETZEL EDITOR BUNIM/MURRAY PRODUCTIONS VAN NUYS, CA BRADYBETZEL@GMAIL.COM RELIABLE DRIVES WITH REASSURING WARRANTIES VITAL STATS MANUFACTURER: Glyph Production Technologies PRODUCTS: 1TB Studio Mini: $199.95; 1TB StudioRAID Mini: $269.95; 500GB BlackBox: $99.95 WEBSITE: www.glyphtech.com Competitive price points Great looking design & craftsmanship Reassuring warranties L REVIEW