CF Card -> Best place to buy?? (Sydney)

[Grumpy]

Hello all,

I am looking for another CF card so I don't need to panic about running out of space when I go away.

I currently have 2 Sandisk Ultra II 256MB cards, and I am after another Sandisk Ultra II, tossing up between 1 and 2 GB.

I have noticed a massive variation in price place to place, any tips for where I can find a good price, and a sort of ballpark price to expect. Also recommendations on where to buy other brands if you have had good experiences with them

Thanks
Adam

[r2160]

Send birddog a pm. He will be able to help

Glenn

[gstark]

Had you been at today's picnic, you would have been able to buy a 1G Astone for $100!

[MHD]

Good picnic?
I'm still here at work *grumle*

[gstark]

Good picnic?
I'm still here at work *grumle*

I pity you, Scott.

While I can only speak for myself, yes, it was a great day. Great company, good weather (not too sunny - perfet lighting for photography) nice location, too much food, lots of fun eating, drinking, and talking D70ist.

[stubbsy]

Had you been at today's picnic, you would have been able to buy a 1G Astone for $100!

Sheeeesh Gary, rub it in.

Oh, and yeah, it WAS a great picnic, not to mention Birddogs Bargain Table (which I won't)

[mudder]

... I am looking for another CF card so I don't need to panic about running out of space when I go away.

G'day Adam,
Welcome to the forum

If you're going away where you may run out of memory and it's not convenient to go to a shop to dump your images on CD, I'd check out the range of PSDs (Sersonal Storage Devices) on the market...

I was also thinking of buying a heap more memory but instead went for a 40Gb PD7x, dumps heaps of cards on one battery charge and it only cost me about $245 (comes with batteries and a car charger too!), the price of about 2Gb of memory... Dumps a 1Gb card in a little over 3 minutes... Very quick and a handy external 40Gb hard-drive that's plug 'n play.

Cheers,
Mudder

[fozzie]

Grumpy.

Following on from mudder, 40Gb PD7x.

Please check this out:

http://www.jaldigital.com.au/catalog/pr ... cts_id=247

In stock now and available, AU$240 + GST + Shipping.


Cheers,

[mudder]

Whooops, sorry mate... I forgot to include the URL... Doh!

Cheers,
Mudder

[Rusty W. Griswald]

That 40gb PDX7 sounds like a good idea. Could you hack into it yourself and upgrade the hdd size in the future if you wanted?

Whilst looking around at that I saw that the latest SanDisk Ultra II is up to 8gb, and with a $1300 price tag to match!

mmmmmmmmm 1G Astone for $100.

[johndec]

That 40gb PDX7 sounds like a good idea. Could you hack into it yourself and upgrade the hdd size in the future if you wanted?

Whilst looking around at that I saw that the latest SanDisk Ultra II is up to 8gb, and with a $1300 price tag to match!

mmmmmmmmm 1G Astone for $100.

No need to hack Undo 4 screws at the back, unlug the old HD and plug in the new one. Actually, you can buy it with no HDD and put you own 2.5" one in.

[mudder]

That 40gb PDX7 sounds like a good idea. Could you hack into it yourself and upgrade the hdd size in the future if you wanted?

G'day,

It just uses a common Fujitsu laptop hard drive, you could use any compatible hard-drive (they just plug-in as a standard hard-drive, the manual even shows you how), also you can get the original with either no hard drive and use your own, or pre-configured in any common size, but dunno how big you'll need though if you're only dumping camera memory cards...

40Gb's a *lot* of memory cards and it's only temp til you get home, then you dump 'em on your PC... I'd hate to get home and have to process 40Gb if images, that'd keep you busy for a while considering I get about 180 per Gb, and that's shooting raw, so I'm assuming 40Gb would hold about 40*180=7,200 images... If you're shooting jpeg then I'd assume you'll get even more images on a 40Gb drive...

Cheers,
Mudder

[birddog114]

That 40gb PDX7 sounds like a good idea. Could you hack into it yourself and upgrade the hdd size in the future if you wanted?

Whilst looking around at that I saw that the latest SanDisk Ultra II is up to 8gb, and with a $1300 price tag to match!

mmmmmmmmm 1G Astone for $100.

Remember all 2.5" notebook Hdd with 40Gb or 60Gb is OK with the PSD whether it's the X-Drive or PDX7 or the Epson or the Nikon Coolwalker. If someone wants to upgrade the Hdd over 60Gb, please observe the following:
- Over 60Gb needs the power supply permanently connect to the PSD to copy or transfer to and from the CF card, if not the copy function disk won't work properly and file transfered may be corrupted. The hdd consumes lot of power, and they're 5400rpm instead of 4000rpm.
- The PDX7 with 80Gb won't last on its rechargeable battery. We tested it out couple weeks ago.
- The 40 or 60Gb with 4000rpm is safe in using those PSD, that's the reason why manufacturers did not recomment user to have a high capacity of the drive in the devices

[mudder]

Thanks for the insight Birddog... Very handy info, thanks.

I went for the 40Gb 5400 rpm drive (for extra speed) and so far I've copied a few 1Gb memory cards and about 2Gb from my PC to the drive on the first charge... Seems plenty left... The 40Gb seemed about the best value too...

Cheers,
Mudder

[Grumpy]

Thanks for the suggestion Muddler, Fozzie, Birddog and others. I will definately take a closer look at those portable storage devices. I have seen (and used) similar devices before, but only in the capacity of an external removable hard drive. I have used one that runs on battery (normally USB powered) with a CF card reader built in.

I have also been considering different options for my computer backup, so this may be two birds with one stone. I do however have concerns with the reliability of notebook hard drives. I have seen three fail in external hard drive enclosures, but I don't know if it was just a faulty device. Has anyone had any reliability issues with these devices, or am I just paranoid because of Murphy?

One last question, are these devices airport xray safe? I am not going to obviously leave it in the xray for any longer than it has to be there, but I am going away and I would hate to lose my photos to an xray machine.

Thanks for your help;

Adam

[birddog114]

Thanks for the suggestion Muddler, Fozzie, Birddog and others. I will definately take a closer look at those portable storage devices. I have seen (and used) similar devices before, but only in the capacity of an external removable hard drive. I have used one that runs on battery (normally USB powered) with a CF card reader built in.

I have also been considering different options for my computer backup, so this may be two birds with one stone. I do however have concerns with the reliability of notebook hard drives. I have seen three fail in external hard drive enclosures, but I don't know if it was just a faulty device. Has anyone had any reliability issues with these devices, or am I just paranoid because of Murphy?

One last question, are these devices airport xray safe? I am not going to obviously leave it in the xray for any longer than it has to be there, but I am going away and I would hate to lose my photos to an xray machine.

Thanks for your help;

Adam

The failure rate of notebook Hdd is very low, I did not have many complaint of it nowaday, the manufacturers, they improved alot otherwise all notebooks will turn to recycling yard.
With the PSD devices or CF card, you can leave it fulltime in the Xray machine at the airport, no harm. Only avoid to leave it near the strong magnetic field as Hi fi speaker etc...