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Hi guys . I'm in the market for a portable hard drive style thing that has a card reader in it to upload my photo files to when i'm out shooting . Was just wondering if anyones got any recommendations or warnings.
Couple of key things i'm interested in it having are . Replacable rechargeable batteries .I have a thing about the internal ones and will only go that way if they are reputable and i know i'm not going to be stuck with a 300 dollar box that needs a 400 dollar replacement battery 6 months down the track . I'm not interested in viewing the pics on it , only uploading them and a small green screen indicator that lets me know when thats done will do me . Also preferably rechargeable via a car charger too . Really aiming to find something i can use as a 20/40/60GB or whatever size vault for stuff when i go away rather than buying anymore memory cards .

Your thoughs ?

Based on your stated requirements, I believe the PD70X is well suited to your needs. I would suggest sticking at or below 40Gb capacity.
2.5" drives (which personal storage devices are based on) have 40Gb platters, ie. 60/80/100/120Gb drives will have 2 or more platters, which will have an effect on current drain and battery life - and for the purposes of portable storage, optimum battery energy management should be a priority. At <40Gb, it comes down to price.

This link may prove helpful: http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD.htm

also try doing a search, this has been discussed a lot, most recently by Kpolack

Thanks guys . Plenty of food for thought there . The pd 70x looks pretty good from first impressions.

Tony, I use the PD70 and find it good, it has been updated since then and plenty of details on here about foibles with it, only real complaint I have is the inbuilt charger is painfully slow, maybe 20 hrs. I just charge the AAs in my normal charger. Other complaints people have listed are lightweight end covers and a voltage regulator problem which is fixed on the new model

Just a quick question . Whats the battery life like under use ? As long as its good for the 20 GB on board then thats fine . I really like the replacable batteries side to it . Peace of mind to be able to buy the things anywhere if need be .

I have the PD70x (just bought it).

Things that sold it for me were ability to use AAs, low price, verify function, and copies many formats. What I don't like is the somewhat over-simple UI and strange navigation buttons; but I'm sure I'll get over it.

sorry for the slight hijack but how about the same question but for a psd with a review screen what do you guys use and do you find the screen useful i mainly want a screen for peace of mind more than anything, so i can actually SEE my photo's are on the device

nodabs. This has also been discussed in some detail elsewhere here. The consensus pretty much is the Epson P-2000 but you pay for the privilege. Try searching for Epson AND PSD this should bring up the various discussions

I have done a LOT of looking and research and am buying a new laptop (Mac powerbook) with DVD burner. There is no perfect system but this suits me the best (I hope )

drifter wrote:Just a quick question . Whats the battery life like under use ? As long as its good for the 20 GB on board then thats fine . I really like the replacable batteries side to it . Peace of mind to be able to buy the things anywhere if need be .

Tony, battery life varies with different drives and files sizes and also with different AA batteries. As a comparison, if you read the link I gave earlier in this thread, they got 35GB from one charge using 1gb cards (4gb cards would give a better result, 256k worse), it is listed under autonomy (eg how long the device can run by itself, autonomously). You should have no problem with filling the 20gb drive if you get that size.

My biggest grievance with the PD70X recently was I went out with it after using the HDD in another device so the HDD was full. However I wasn't really aware of this out in the field and everytime it just showed a stupid sad smiley face everytime I tried to copy files over. I was about 15min from Geelong so I went there and spent $180 on a 1gb Sandisk Ultra II card to get me through the rest of the day. It's a bit annoying that they don't have a delete function on it.

kipper wrote:...it just showed a stupid sad smiley face everytime I tried to copy files over

Yea stupid as it may be, but at least it gave you some sorta indication something was wrong instead of letting you assume it copied only to find out later you've lost your data.

Kipper, I'm with Onyx, it told you it didn't work, about all you can expect from a dumb device like this, they usually have miniscule vocabularies.