A few weeks ago, I wrote about the G-Tech G-Connect iOS NAS drive. It is a 500GB 2.5" NAS that allows you to stream videos to iOS as well as act as a micro AFP file share / TimeMachine server. It has onboard ethernet as well as Wi-Fi built in. They routinely go on sale for $39.99 at Frys and I actually like them very, very much. I am able to store files off my PLEX server that my kids can't view. AKA "Daddy files."
The issue with them is they only store 500GB.This device is discontinued and I wouldn't pay more than the $40 street price for these. However, they are pretty easy to crack open and you can easily replace the built in drive with a larger capacity drive.
I did just that with a 1TB Western Digital 2.5" blue drive.
The drive I replaced it with appears to be thicker. Possibly 9.5 mm height and the built in one may be 7.5 mm tall. With some work, I was able to manage the swap. I was concerned that Hitachi (who now owns G-Tech) may have added some special firmware that locks their devices to their own drives but that was not the case. I just attached the drive and formatted it as normal. Once booted, I was able to see it in the network.
Voila. 1TB available. These make good TimeMachine remote backups. $40 for the G-Connect and $60 for a 1TB 2.5" drive.
How to open it exactly? Getting red light and need to retrieve critical data from it.
ReplyDeleteI used a thin screw driver to make an insertion. Once I got it in, I used a plastic zip tie; inserted it and slowly ran it around the case so I wouldn't break any seams.
DeleteHi. Did you format the HD with it attached to your computer first? And which file system format did you use? It doesn't seem to have a format util in the web UI.
ReplyDeleteRight now, I'm trying to SSH in as root, but have not been able to guess the correct login name. Check here for more info: http://avoidthinking.blogspot.com/
I formatted the drive with the unit connected via USB after it was installed into the enclosure.
DeleteI did HFS Plus so I can run timemachine.
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