By Graham K. Rogers

With the recent flood-related shortages of hard disks from companies with operations in Thailand, it is interesting to read the news from Hitachi who are announcing prior to the CES in Las Vegas that it is releasing two hard drives in its G-Technology, G-Drive series. In a press release, the company is clearly aiming the two drives -- the G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile and G-DRIVE mobile USB -- at Mac users.

The G-Drive Mobile is a portable (5400rpm) drive with up to 750GB of space. It connects to a Mac via a Firewire port so does not require any additional power source. The drive comes pre-formatted in HFS+ with journaling so, the company tell us, it is Time Machine ready and ships with all necessary cables. There are two Firewire 800 ports and a single USB 2.0 port. It may also be used with a Windows computer with some simple initialization. The G-Drive Mobile comes with a warranty of 3 years. The company prices the 500GB drive at $149.99, with the 750GB disk at $169.99. The 500GB drive is reported as being in stock, while there is an estimated shipping time of 1 week for the 750GB drive.

The G-DRIVE mobile USB drive is powered by the USB connection so no additional cables are required. Like the G-Drive Mobile, it comes pre-formatted in HFS+ with journaling so is Time Machine ready. It ships with all necessary cables. It also carries a warranty of 3 years. The 750GB G-DRIVE mobile USB drive is priced at $149.99 and is reported as being in stock (US site).

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.