It’s nice to have a few hundred gigabytes in your bag and when the first guys to the wireless hard drive party, Seagate, released the Satellite, they piqued my interest by allowing those gigabytes to be streamed onto iOS devices as well as almost any laptop or cellphone. Now, however, Hitachi seems to have hit the sweet spot with their wireless drive with built-in access point and, interestingly, no battery.
The $199 500GB drive can run off of USB power or any external source. It allows up to five devices to stream content to multiple devices and it includes iOS apps for the iPad and iPhone. It is also DNLA-complaint so it will show up on your network as a media playback device and it also serves music up as a share iTunes drive.
The best part? The drive features public and private folders so you won’t have to share all of your deepest, darkest secrets with your friends and family. The drive will ship in July.
FOR APPLE® iPAD® WITH INTERNET ACCESS
New G-CONNECT Supports Five+ Devices, Wirelessly Streams up to Five Movies at Once, While Providing Shared WiFi Internet Access for a Hotel Room, Conference Room, Dorm, Office or Home. Now You Truly Can Take All Your Content with You and Access it from Multiple Devices!
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 22, 2011 – Known for delivering premium external storage solutions engineered to meet the needs of the Apple Mac® community, G-Technology by Hitachi today introduced its G-CONNECT™ wireless storage solution, the first in a family of products providing instant, wireless storage and 802.11n WiFi Internet access for your Apple iPad, iPhone® and many other mobile devices. The G-CONNECT solution provides on-the-go wireless access¹ to content that’s not already loaded on your iOS devices, including your favorite movies, music, books, photos and documents. No Internet connection is required. G-CONNECT provides access to five+ simultaneous devices, depending on the workload, and supports up to five SD or three HD video streams at once².
When connected via Ethernet to a network, the G-CONNECT drive becomes your own personal cloud or WiFi Internet access point, allowing you to surf and stream content, wirelessly, at the same time. Access and view content on the G-CONNECT solution with a mobile iOS app now available on the App Store®, or through your browser. Android® devices are also supported with access through a web browser, with native apps available this fall.
Fitting easily in your laptop bag, backpack or purse, G-CONNECT is the must have iPad and iPhone storage companion. Power it up in a dorm room, conference room or hotel room via its AC adapter or take it on the road using Apple iPad-compatible USB power cables, car power adapters, or external batteries3 for hours of entertainment wherever you go.
G-CONNECT Highlights:
• Simple wireless storage for your iPad/iPhone so you can take more with you everywhere
• Easily access and stream content to your iPad and iPhone
• WiFi Internet access for multiple devices when connected via Ethernet
• Supports five devices or more, depending on the workload
• Wirelessly streams up to five SD or three HD movies simultaneously
• Surf and stream at the same time, i.e. listen to music, while surfing the Internet
• All content is automatically discovered and organized into Photos, Videos, Music, and Documents categories
• Flexible access via iPad/iPhone mobile apps, multiple browsers, PC, Mac, DLNA-certified connected TVs and Apple TV® with AirPlay®
• iPad/iPhone apps make G-CONNECT simple and easy to use; Android apps coming this Fall
• Password protection to keep your content safe
• A personal “private” folder allows you to share only what you want to
“With the unprecedented growth in tablets and smartphones, our goal is to deliver solutions that better fit the increasing mobile lifestyle of consumers,” said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager, Hitachi GST Branded Business. “The mobile devices on which we listen to, work on and view our digital content on are proliferating, giving us new freedoms while at the same time creating practical realities – you just can’t take all of your content with you, and you’re left with constantly reorganizing your stuff to make more room. With G-CONNECT, now you truly can take it all with you! Providing more wireless storage for your iPad or iPhone, with WiFi Internet access, G-CONNECT users can easily access all of their content across multiple devices and from the cloud with the simplicity of a light switch.”
Celebrating the launch of the G-CONNECT wireless storage solution, G-Technology and Fool’s Gold Records® is bringing you “Tight Space”– a brand new streaming web series featuring exclusive DJ performances by Fool’s Gold artists, broadcast live from their store in Brooklyn. ‘Like’ the G-Technology Facebook page (Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GTechnology) to get front row access!
Pricing and Availability
The G-Technology G-CONNECT wireless storage solution for iPads comes in a sleek white design for $199.99 MSRP (500GB). It will be available in the U.S in July through Hitachi’s authorized retail and distribution channels, or preorder now on www.G-Technology.com.
