Mini-Review: Glyph PortaGig 62 Hard Drive and Granite Digital FW 800 Cable

[Akapod]

Mini-mini-review: They’re good!

 

My LaCie warhorse was beginning to show its age – the fans were getting louder and running longer, and the hard drive would occasionally disappear from the desktop when my Mac Mini woke up. So I decided it was time for a replacement.

 

I elected to go with the Glyph PortaGig 62 for several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to get a bus-powered hard drive to avoid the noise associated with the typically cheap power supplies shipped with most hard drives. (I also wanted something that was portable.)

 

I also wanted something which was very reliable. I’ve had generally good experiences with LaCie, but I’ve also returned a couple of drives under warranty. Glyph focuses on the audio and video markets, where hard drive failures aren’t simply an inconvenience -- music and video production companies rely on these kinds of drive for their businesses. In addition, I hoped that their use in music production would mean that the drive would run quietly.

 

The PortaGig was also one of the very few I could find which had sufficient capacity – my iTunes library runs about 1.6 TB, and the PortaGig 62 is available in a 2 TB configuration (and a 3 TB one as well). Finally, it used the Oxford 936 chipset. Though I am not familiar with this particular chip, the Oxford family of chipsets has generally been considered one of the better ones around this forum.

 

The Glyph definitely outperforms my aging LaCie. The most audible difference is due to how quietly it runs – for all practical purposes, it runs silently. Losing the fan noise meant I could hear more detail. In addition, I thought I heard the soundstage was slightly improved – a bit deeper. I was, however, unable to do any A/B testing, so I have suspicions about my own findings.

 

The differences, in short, were positive, but not so much as to make someone run out and replace a solid, relatively quite hard drive. But should you find yourself with a need for a good one, I would definitely recommend the PortaGig 62. At $349 (at Tekserve), it’s not cheap, but I think the money is well spent.

 

I also wanted to upgrade my FW 800 Cable. Although many people here have recommended GoldX for Firewire cables, they do not make a FW 800 version. CA member Bob Stern recommended Granite Digital in this thread, so I decided to get splurge on a $46, 3 ft. model.

 

I can’t find the link now, but I’m aware that Gordon Rankin does not believe that a premium (or super-premium cable) is important with Firewire. In fact, this is why I didn’t try something more expensive. I expected to find no audible difference, but hey, sometimes you need to try things for yourself. Also, there really hasn’t been much recent discussion on Firewire 800 cables, so I was willing to be a guinea pig.

 

Despite my skepticism, I though there was an immediate and real audible difference. It is, to be clear, on the order of a “tweak” (as opposed to going from no DAC to my Ayre QB-9). But I think the transients are slightly improved (especially on cymbals), the bass seems slightly more focused and the soundstage slightly deeper. In short, the instruments seem more in place – more where they should be. If you’ve only used standard cables like Belkin, I would recommend giving the Granite Digital a try.

 

As with the Glyph, I could not conduct any A/B testing. Switching out the hard drive or the cable would require shutting down Pure Music and iTunes, swapping out the equipment and restarting the software. The whole process probably doesn’t take more than a minute, but that’s why too long for me to be able to remember the qualities of sound accurately. I acknowledge the subjectivity of my comments here.

 

[HiFiInsider]

Nice review. Any issues with the Bus Power? How much power does it draw? I'm eyeing the 3TB version. I may wait till the price go down some.

 

So did you just drag the files from old drive to new and it copies over? Any chance of data/sound loss?

 

[Akapod]

I've had no issues at all with bus power. Unfortunately, I can't find a spec anywhere which would indicate how much power it does draw. If this is important to you, you might wish to contact Glyph directly.

 

As for moving your music files -- BE CAREFUL. Remember that there is a lot of metadata (playlists, rating, etc.) associated with those files which you do not want to lose. (And yes, I speak from experience.)

 

If you are using iTunes, this support article will guide you through the necessary steps. It's all pretty easy.

 

Finally, the files on your new drive will be bit-perfect copies.

 

[davidR]

Glad to see another listener enjoying Glyph drives as well!

 

[RankStranger]

with over 1TB of music. This really appeals to me, as do some other dual 2.5" bus-powered enclosures. what concerns me is that running in striped mode, aren't you twice as likely to suffer a drive failure? Sure, I try to be well backed up but it just makes me squirm.

 

How do you feel about your dual drive solution?

 

RS

 

[Akapod]

I've lost hard drives before, and the experience has led me to be conservative about data storage.

 

On my main computer, my music files are saved on a RAID disk set at RAID 5 + Spare, so I can lose one of the four drives and have complete access to all files. This RAID is then backed up via Time Machine to a DroboPro.

 

I then have the Glyph attached to a Mac Mini which is dedicated to music playback. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy over the music files, and update them -- via sneaker net -- every so often. As the Glyph is small and bus-powered, it's no big deal to walk it over to my main rig, plug it in via FW800, and transfer over the new files.

 

The one weakness with my set up is with off-site storage. About once a year, an out-of-state friend and I swap hard drives, so I do run the risk of losing whatever music I've purchased in the last year.