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I've been looking into devices that I can slot in my 60GB 2.5" hdd I already own. Something that can directly read CF cards and is good on battery

The Digimac II plus has been recommended, does anyone have any other options? I'm taking :

30D with 1 x 4GB card, 1 x 1GB card and 1 x 512MB card and will shoot raw+jpg.

Thanks
Kris

A PSD but it's not really safe incase the Hdd crashes.

More CF cards.

Burn CD or DVD and send home frequently as second and third backup

I have the PD70X with a 60gb drive and like it. Others have used the Nexto with success. Search on the forums for those two words or PSD, you should get a number of hits relating to experiences with various devices.

Stubbsy recently posted a link for a DVD burner that takes CF cards, also a reasonable option.
http://www.apacer.com/en/products/Disc_Steno_CP300.htm

cheers,

André

I have one of these, very basic unit. But it does the job percetly well.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/DIGIMATE-2-USB-2-0-PORTABLE-STORAGE-CASE-CARD-READER_W0QQitemZ8826876761QQcategoryZ111503QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

The guy sells heaps of them.

Cheers

I have an old xdrive 2 with a 30GB hard drive, it did the trick when I was travelling.

The biggest problem with it is that I had no way to confirm that the photos downloaded so on occasion I would end up copying a CF more then once.

I think the new xdrives have corrected this.

I picked mine up from http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au/

Have you looked at the Apacer Disc Steno?

I used one of these (the Steno-100)a while ago to burn CD's off my 512MB CF card onto CD's

The latest version can burn to DVD's and also do disc spanning. You can also verify the information on the disc to help eliminate errors.

I loved mine and am looking at getting the latest version before my next big trip.

Yes it's slower than a HDD... but In my opinion it's a safer option (especially if you burn more than one copy). And also you are only limited by the number of CD's/DVD's you can carry, not HDD space

Good luck

Paul

Wocka wrote:I have one of these, very basic unit. But it does the job percetly well.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/DIGIMATE-2-USB-2-0-PORTABLE-STORAGE-CASE-CARD-READER_W0QQitemZ8826876761QQcategoryZ111503QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

The guy sells heaps of them.

Cheers

Do you know how fast it could do a 1GB CF card in?
I think I may take birdys option and carry another 4GB CF and just burn DVD's and send them back...

I can time it for you tonight for an accurate answer. But at a guess, I'd say about 7-10 mins. It shows on the screen how much data is on your card ( in MB ) and the percentage that it has copied across. But not how long it took, or has left to finish.

Cheers.

If say 1Gb required 7-10 minutes to transfer then 4Gb card will take closed to an hour

birddog114 wrote:If say 1Gb required 7-10 minutes to transfer then 4Gb card will take closed to an hour

an hour

hmmm......"time is money"...that's one old adage...my grandfather also said "the most precious thing anyone can give is time...it is the only thing once given that cannot be taken away"

Time is money.

I was able to shoot at a mates wedding, swap the CF card out and dump to my portable HDD ( that was in my suit jacket ) and keep shooting with my other 1GB card. Then swap around again.

I wasn't able to fill a 1GB card ( @ 115 images ) before the other one was copied across. But some people may be more trigger happy @ weddings than I am.

I'll do a time test tonight and report back with accurate time figures, seeing that I now also have a 4GB card.

Cheers,

A test would be great and yeah 1hr to transfer 4GB is far too slow..

Kris wrote:A test would be great and yeah 1hr to transfer 4GB is far too slow..

Kris,
IMHO, get few CF cards and burn them to the DVDs at your convenience as my above suggestion.
You'll never ever worry about lost, corrupt any of your photos.

NikonUser wrote:Have you looked at the Apacer Disc Steno?

I have one, you're welcome to it for a small fee. It works but it's slow and the battery life is a joke - treat it as a mains device... I bought it for cycle touring.

I use a Nexto ODI which I bought coz it's fast and it has firewire. Works for me. Oh, and it can take an external battery so I can use my collection of camera batteries to power it.

Few more CFs and a laptop with you on the way should do the trick.

birddog114 wrote:

Kris wrote:A test would be great and yeah 1hr to transfer 4GB is far too slow..

Kris,
IMHO, get few CF cards and burn them to the DVDs at your convenience as my above suggestion.
You'll never ever worry about lost, corrupt any of your photos.

Sounds like the go. I hear that DVD's only appear to have a certain life time, any suggestion for long life media?

Kris wrote:

birddog114 wrote:

Kris wrote:A test would be great and yeah 1hr to transfer 4GB is far too slow..

Kris,
IMHO, get few CF cards and burn them to the DVDs at your convenience as my above suggestion.
You'll never ever worry about lost, corrupt any of your photos.

Sounds like the go. I hear that DVD's only appear to have a certain life time, any suggestion for long life media?

Yes, there's TDK ARMOR DVD for archiving.

G'day,

Not sure if this is what you're after, but you can get just the body of the unit (ie: no HDD) which I *think* you can just slot any 2.5" HDD into...???

I used to take my PD7x when I went away and it worked a treat, but these days I've been lazy and stayed in places with power and just take my laptop...

http://www.technobox.com.au/catalog/por ... 34_43.html

Those PSDs will slip into the history soon.

Really? I haven't kept up to date with new stuff so maybe I'm just behind the times (again )... Suppose technology progresses so fast huh...

What's the go these days?

mudder wrote:Really? I haven't kept up to date with new stuff so maybe I'm just behind the times (again )... Suppose technology progresses so fast huh...

What's the go these days?

4Gb CF card or 8Gb CF card

16Gb & 32Gb are on their way.

Kris wrote:I hear that DVD's only appear to have a certain life time, any suggestion for long life media?

Stone tablets.

Seriously, the lifetime of the format is likely to parallel the media - you only need to be able to read the media while you can still use the drives, at which point it starts to become academic. If you're planning on reading DVDs or whatever in 10 years time, I think you're at best optimistic. Far better to plan a roll-forward strategy where you buy new formats once they stabilise and prices drop, then convert your data and then destroy the old backups once the readers become hard to use.

Alternatively: do you really want to be backing up 100MB images from your D5X onto a 100GB external drive, or better still, 600MB CDs? I replaced ~400CDs with ~70DVDs when DVDs hit the $1/disk mark, and recently got rid of the up to 8 year old CDs. I expect to do the same with whatever comes out of the BluRay/HD battle when their prices drop similarly.

If you want a laugh, go look at 20 year old mass storage devices. Now work out how much physical space would be occupied by the amount of data on a USB keyring. Then calculate the read time assuming no retries or failures. I think you'll decide that even if it was possible, you wouldn't want to do it.

Kris,

Here are my figures as timed last night. It took longer to transfer files from my PC to the CF card (through the reader) than it did to copy to the PSD @ USB 1.

Working off battery of the PSD
HDD was nearly full when finished the 5GB transfer (HDD size is 12GB).

4GB CF Card
========

5 Folders / 526 .CR2 Files
Time to transfer = 33:15mins

1GB CF Card (Birddog Special )
========

4 Folders / 146 .CR2 Files
Time to transfer = 6:58mins

Cheers,

moz wrote:If you're planning on reading DVDs or whatever in 10 years time, I think you're at best optimistic.

I still see floppy drives, although not 5.25s.

CD media has been around for well over 15 years, and shows little sign of dying out anytime soon.

COBOL was supposed to be dead 25 years ago.

In the 70s, when AMP was introducing word processing technology, I kept on hearing the term "paperless office". I have yet to see one.

Supposedly obsolete technologies seem to have a habit of sticking around for a lot longer than people seem to give credence to.

Howver,

Far better to plan a roll-forward strategy where you buy new formats once they stabilise and prices drop, then convert your data

is good advice, but

and then destroy the old backups once the readers become hard to use.

is not.

Why destroy it? Even 400 CDs take up very little physical space.

What if your updated storage medium, for some reason, becomes unreadable? I suspect that, within our foreseeable future, there will always be some ways to read any media that is currently and commonly available, and as such, the retention of even obsolete media is not to be considered a bad thing.

And I note that you're saying as the readers, rather than the media, becomes hard to use.

The solution I used for my recent African sojourn was:

• Nexto CF unit with 80GB drive (these can be bought empty for you to install a laptop drive into).
  This was used to read my SD (with an adapter) and CF cards, and has USB2 and FireWire interfaces to connect to a computer.
• 12" PowerBook G4 (unfortunately only with ~10GB free though).
• External 60GB laptop drive in a bus-powered USB2&FW case.
  The contents of the Nexto were synchronised to this using `rsync` on the laptop.
• A SanDisk USB2 CF reader was along as a backup in case the Nexto played up.
  In the end the only use this got was on loan to a fellow traveller (his reader was slooooooow) but it was just insurance.

I carried the Nexto in my camera backpack (when not working from a base camp the laptop was also in the pack) and the 60GB drive was carried in my wife's carryon/backpack. As well as duplicating files, the laptop was used for annotating images and for occasional email/web from hotel rooms at each end of the trip.

The system worked well, although the default Nexto battery only lasted a few days at a time (many days I was downloading 3x 2GB, 3x 1GB, and 1x 512MB from various cameras each day) before recharging. At least when connected by Firewire the Nexto is powered by the laptop.
If I didn't take a laptop I'd have taken a second PSD and backed up each card to both devices...

Wocka wrote:Kris,

Here are my figures as timed last night. It took longer to transfer files from my PC to the CF card (through the reader) than it did to copy to the PSD @ USB 1.

Working off battery of the PSD
HDD was nearly full when finished the 5GB transfer (HDD size is 12GB).

4GB CF Card
========

5 Folders / 526 .CR2 Files
Time to transfer = 33:15mins

1GB CF Card (Birddog Special )
========

4 Folders / 146 .CR2 Files
Time to transfer = 6:58mins

Cheers,

Hi Warwick,

4GB in 30minutes isn't too bad I guess. How was your battery life after the 4GB transfer?

Thanks for those results, for the price I think its hard to beat.

Regards
Kris

I have posted this link a few times before, but you may not have seen it Kris, it has comparison times

http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD.htm

Kris,

It's hard to say how long the battery lasts. I have never had it run out of juice on me when it's been needed. I also don't charge it every time I go out. At a guess, I'd say I'd easily be able to fill my 12GB HDD I currently have im my PSD.

It lasted quite well @ a mates wedding as explained before. I expect most PSD's have the auto off feature after copying the CF card. It doesn't happen straight away (i'm guessing 1 min after the copy completes), but leaving the PSD in my pocket to copy the CF card, I didn't have to worry about it finishing and turning off just to conserve battery life.

For the cost of it, it's a bargain. Especially if you have access to a 2.5" HDD for no extra cost.

As for security against corrupted files etc, everything is a risk, you have to decide how much security you need. I have had a few CF cards become corrupted and lost images after placing them in my CF reader. I think XP was trying to read the CF card as I placed it in the reader. Although I can't really say for sure. I have changed my actions in placing my CF card in the reader and the computer, and haven't had an issue since.

I have access to a 30GB HDD, on the weekend I'll try another test. I'll charge the battery and see how many CF cards can be copied over before the battery runs out.

Cheers

Pls. note:
The 12Gb Hdd is 4200rpm
And newer Hdd (2.5") is 5400rpm.

The later will empty the juice more quicker.

 PS Kris, 30 mins seem slow to me for 4gb

Birdy,

That is true, I was also working off battery and not mains power as a true test. I'd expect the transfer to be better on mains, but probably not by much.

Cheers,

Glen wrote:PS Kris, 30 mins seem slow to me for 4gb

30 mins, you can burn at least 3 full size of DVD discs

Thanks for the Link Glen, I'll take a look

I'll be using a 5400 rpm 60GB HDD. 30mins is quite slow for 4GB, but thats why this costs about $40 for the case inc shipping rather than $150 for the PD7X which is 3 x as fast...

I guess 30minutes to empty a card isnt too bad as I would be emptying the cards at night time when the unit is charging near my bed or something.

I'd fill my 4GB, 1GB and 512Meg card during the day so I'd unload that at night

I'd say when the 60GB fills up, I'd then archive that to TDK Armour DVD (9GB if possible) and send the discs home.

Kris wrote:
I'd fill my 4GB, 1GB and 512Meg card during the day so I'd unload that at night

I'd say when the 60GB fills up, I'd then archive that to TDK Armour DVD (9GB if possible) and send the discs home.

My honest advice, you better archive everyday rather than leave it till the 60Gb is filled up.

You're so confidence with the Hdd, I'm not.

And please take into other account as: PSD get lost or stolen, file corrupted, etc...

Birdy,

I found a 1GB CF card only last week in a shopping centre carpark.

Wocka wrote:Birdy,

I found a 1GB CF card only last week in a shopping centre carpark.

That's belonged to Matt.K He threw it away after an airborne shooting thru the cargo door of the C-130

birddog114 wrote:That's belonged to Matt.K He threw it away after an airborne shooting thru the cargo door of the C-130

I really need to find out more about the flight paths of these C-130's....