This dual hard drive enclosure is fast and allows you to mirror the HDDs to ward off data loss. It also accepts SanDisk’s modular Pro-Blade NVMe SSD cartridges.
Expert’s RatingPros
Up to 48TB of capacity
Supports JBOD and RAID 0 striping/RAID 1 mirroring
Faster sustained HDD transfers than you might guess
Pro-Blade Transport port can hit 900MBps Cons
Mirroring cuts advertised capacity in half
Pro-Blade SSDs limited to 10Gbps
Pricey per TB in lower-capacity models Our Verdict
If you need a lot of storage in a single box, the Thunderbolt 3 G-RAID Mirror dual-HDD delivers at speeds that might surprise you. The box also accepts SanDisk’s Pro-Blade SSD modules for on/offloading and backup.
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WD’s G-RAID Mirror is an external enclosure housing two 3.5-inch hard drives. It provides up to 48TB of storage with the drives in striped (RAID 0) mode, or half that in mirror mode RAID 1. It also provides a Pro Blade SSD port for SanDisk’s modular NVMe SSDs.
What you may not realize if you haven’t been around a 3.5-inch HDD in a while: They’re a whole lot faster than they used to be. In RAID 0, the G-RAID Mirror can deliver data at over 400MBps. This is not your father’s RAID box.
Further reading: See our roundup of the best external drives to learn about competing products.G-RAID Mirror features
The G-RAID Mirror is a handsome, dark gray, Thunderbolt 3, two-drive external enclosure available in capacities up to 48TB/24TB (striped/mirrored). The unit measures 5.24 x 8.27 x 4.06 inches (13.30 x 21.00 x 10.21 centimeters). It can weigh up to 7 pounds (3.17 kilograms) depending on the drives inside. Standing on non-skid feet, there’s little chance of this drive dancing around the desktop. The four hex bolts on each side hide anchor points for attaching the unit to a Digital Imaging Technician cart or adding other hardware.
The back of the G-RAID Mirror is home to two Thunderbolt 3 ports (1 computer, 1 pass-through, see below) as well as the RAID configuration double dip switch (JBOD, RAID 0/1). That means the RAID is onboard, which I prefer over the software variety as it’s portable across operating systems without installing said software. There’s also a button to adjust the front LED light.
The front of the drive is home to only the aforementioned LED light, and the removable front grate that allows access to the hard drives for upgrade or replacement. Note that because of the fantastic amount of capacity, rebuilding a RAID 1 array can take a very long time — two hours per terabyte.
By far the most unusual feature of the G-RAID Mirror is its Pro-Blade Transport slot. The somewhat pricey Pro-Blade Transport modules are NVMe SSDs in proprietary enclosures that slide into the slot. They’re super handy for uploading, offloading, and backup, and are fast enough that you could boot from them. However, the Pro Blade system is 20Gbps USB 3.2×2, and current Thunderbolt (Mac and Windows) implementations don’t support USB 3.2×2 at 20Gbps, dropping it to 10Gbps. Still fast, but not optimal. Thunderbolt 3/4 does support 20Gbps USB 4, though, so I’m confused as to why SanDisk didn’t choose USB 4 for the Pro-Blade Transport, or even Thunderbolt 3. Especially as Mac users seem to be the intended audience.
As this drive is largely aimed at the Apple/video production crowd, the G-RAID Mirror ships formatted to APFS.
