On Disk Arrays and Warranties: G-Speed eS power failure.

(note: I will be uploading pictures during the week of March 26-30)

A number of years ago, G-Technology was an independent drive manufacturer, with an aesthetic that appealed to Mac users (brushed metal housings). They made great devices, and during my tenure as a Mac Genius at Apple, I recommended their products without hesitation time and again. I used them myself, with 2 G-Drives, 2 G-Drive Minis, and (originally) the G-RAID. My support of G-Tech was cemented when the G-RAID had a failure with the controller chip. G-Tech couldn't get replacement boards or chips (the manufacturer had stopped making the components), and they were very gracious in my options for replacing the device. I was a proponent for the smaller business treating the customer right, and their customer service attitude reflected the attitude I and my genius team at Apple practiced. In the end, they replaced my G-RAID with a 3TB G-Speed eS as soon as the product was released in mid-2008. This was their top of the line eSATA storage, the next step up would have been a fibre channel array (and I couldn't justify buying a $1500 fibre channel card even though they offered me that array as an option during the 6-month wait for the release of the eS).

For the next 4 years (almost to the day) the G-Speed eS has served me well as a high-speed RAID 5 array. I keep raw footage on there for my late-night hobby of visual effects, as well as classes and footage from fxPhD completed projects. After all, as a RAID 5 array, I have at least some warning when a drive fails to actually generate a backup of anything that's live and urgent, right? As I learned last month, that was wrong.

I woke up one morning to a strangely silent workspace. The ever-present hum of the G-Speed fan was gone. I checked the power, the cables, and my Mac - all seemed in order, but the drive would not spin up. I did some basic troubleshooting (I was a Mac Genius once, after all, I have a bit of troubleshooting skills), and determined I had a power problem. The device wouldn't start up, but the power light would flash on (then turn off). If I removed all the drives, it would start up, the fans would spin, and no error lights. The web console showed only the error of 4 missing drives and a missing array when I checked the chassis. I searched the web for similar issues, and found this post at Creative Cow. So I contacted G-Technology support via their web-based form.

48 hours later, I hadn't heard back, so I gave them a call. I provided my serial number, informed the technician I was aware that I was out of warrantee, and described my problem. His response?

"Sorry, you are out of warrantee. I can't help you."

I was trying to be calm. The data on the drive was (mostly) backed up elsewhere, so I wasn't worried about data loss. I asked if they could sell me a power supply, since that was the most likely failed component.

"We don't sell parts. You could buy a new drive."

At this point, I got a bit upset. I asked if I could buy a chassis (no drives) since I had 4 perfectly good drives.

"We don't sell the chassis without drives. You could buy the cheapest version and pull out the drives if you want."

Well, I was done. G-Technology's once amazing customer service had degraded to the point of "don't help, sell." Frustrated and finished, I expressed my disappointment that a once-great company was now a shell of it's former self, and hung up. I went to the internet, and began searching for information on G-Speed eS failures. I found nothing (hence this blog post). My next step was to examine the power supply and see if I could replace or repair it, so I cracked open the rest of the case.

[insert disassembly pictures here]

After removing the six screws at the bottom that held the brushed metal housing to the internal frame, I was relieved to find a third-party manufacturers label visible on the power supply. The G-Speed eS used a 250W Enhance ENP-7025B Power Supply. A quick search led me to a number of suppliers, and (surprisingly enough) they all listed the G-Speed eS as a compatible device. So I ordered one for about $50 USD from Amazon.com.

A few days later, it arrived, and I unboxed it only to discover the replacement power supply had a standard ATX power connector and a number of drive connectors, but not the same cabling as the G-Speed eS. I contacted the vendor (third party through Amazon) and they explained that I needed at ATX to AT converter to get the spade pin-outs on the power supply that were required for the G-Speed eS. They were also gracious enough to send one to me free of charge. A few more days passed, and the AT converter cable arrived. I did a dry-run connection, and sure enough, the power supply worked, the chassis powered up, and the drives spun up. The only problem was the sheer mass of cabling from the ATX connector and then the almost 24" of AT cabling. So I pulled out the soldering gun, the heat gun and some heat-shrink cable shielding (rather than just electrical tape. I tagged the two (yes, only two) cables I needed from the AT cable housing, spliced them with the original spade heads from the original power supply, and trimmed the rest of the ATX cable assembly down to about 3" long stubs. I then capped all those cables with non-conductive caps, and installed my replacement power supply.

[insert picture of cable ends here]

Reassembling the case, plugging the drives back in, and powering up the array (and then my Mac) I was thrilled to find my volume intact, my data intact, and my gSpeed eS usable again.

In the end, I was able to resolve this myself, with a bit of ingenuity, experience, and faith in my own skills. The real take-away from the experience though, is that G-Technology is no longer a company I would recommend. Their products may still be good, and they have a decent warrantee, but their customer service is almost as bad as AT&T. It's silly, really, that one simple thing would have kept me as a purchasing customer, and a promoter for G-Technology. If the technician on the phone would have directed me to Amazon (or some other online reseller) with the information on what I needed for a power supply, or even provided some suggestions beyond "Sorry, spend at least $1500 on a new device" I would still recommend their products. But I can't.