Hitachi have announced they have acquired Fabrik the company whose brands include G-Tech that focuses on content creation professionals and the A/V market; their products cater to Mac users, with FireWire connectivity and product designs that complement pro Mac models. From the press release…
Fabrik’s business will continue intact and form the core of Hitachi GST’s newly-formed external storage business. Hitachi GST will fully support the G-Technology and SimpleTech product lines, building upon their success and differentiation in the market. The combined company will also leverage operational, technical and product development resources, distribution channels and global reach to accelerate delivery of a full portfolio of traditional hard drives, solid state drives and branded personal and professional storage products.It is interesting that Hitachi who acquired the IBM drive business back 2003 has now bought Fabrik giving it access to the retail drive market something Seagate has done by buying Maxtor in 2005.
I do hope that Hitachi don’t mess with the G-Tech brand and range as they are one of my preferred drive options for Pro Tools as they have Oxford chipsets in them and a reasonable warranty support.
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Mike is Pro Tools genius and an award winning ‘audiomeister’, defined as ‘a person of great skill and authority in sound’. His vast array of credits include music (from classical to rock), drama and documentaries across all the BBC Radio networks, as well as audio post production for video and TV, ‘new media’, live sound, commercial CDs, DVDs and podcasts, helping clients tell their stories with sound. He has been described as "an oasis of calm in a stormy creative world"; "quick, creative & easy to work with"; "always going the extra mile"; and "invests himself in the success of your project"’.
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Seven radio producers – all based in the north of England – have joined forces to launch a new co-operative venture – ‘Radio Wizards’. It’s equally remarkable that their aim now is to work together on every kind of sound production... except radio!
"It’s taken over a year to get to this point," says ‘wizard’ Mike Thornton, "but now we’ve got a viable business plan, we’ve launched our website and we’re already starting to attract commissions. As a facilities provider we decided to facilitate this partnership and set them up with a web site to help kickstart this excellent partnership."
May 22, 2010 at 8:22 am
Well… apparently your biggest fear has come true. Hitachi has managed to destroy G – Tech’s reputation as well as it’s quality hard drives. I walked into Melrose Mac in L.A. and was told by a sales guy that the G – Drives and G – RAIDS are all coming back with gliches and problems. I noticed a huge drop in the price of G – Tech drives and thought, “wow this is great” but of course you always get what you pay for. I bought a G – Drive mini and it crapped out on me in the first two months. Gives me error 9031 and I can see all my data but can’t access it (really strange). Even the way they are packaged now is cheap. They used to come packaged in a nice firm foam type material. Now they use egg cartons. And the power adapter used to be a thick high quality one. Now they use this cheap thin A/C adapter thing that looks like something you would buy at radio shack to charge a remote control car for a 5 year old. What a crock. I hate cheap crap. I read somewhere that a company called CalDigit used to design G – RAIDS, so I am now switching to CalDigit until G – Tech can do something about Hitachi screwing up their products. Who knows, maybe they’re doing it on purpose to get them off the market? Sometimes companies do shady stuff like that… acquire a smaller company to put them out of business.
October 15, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Your fear has definitely come true. The brand is tarnished. I just had my GRAID 3 drive go down on me and when I contacted G-Tech to get it repaired under it’s 3 year warranty I was told that their repair department has closed and now they only offer to replace it. The peace of mind their repair service offered is what made the price of the drive worth it to me. Now I have to pay $800 to get it repaired without data loss. Why would ever buy a G-Tech drive again?