Portable storage

digitalfailure

digitalfailure

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Brian
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Hi Peeps
Can someone please chuck some suggestions for portable storage into the ring please.

Now I have a 5dmk2 a cf card doesn't last very long when shooting in raw, and if I'm away for the day or more with no access to my laptop I'm running out of space pretty quickly. I know I could buy more cards, but I'm going on a 5 day trip soon(ish) and don't want to take a laptop at all and don't really want the hassle of having loads of cards.

So, I'm after something I can slot a CF card into and download the images to the drive and possibly review the images on it's screen.

It'll have to handle cards from 2 bodies, so the ability to create and name folders would be nice. I'm sure it's going to come in cheaper than a handful of 8gb extreme IV's..........:D
 
Erm...a CF card reader? I'm not sure I understand the requirement digitalfailure? Apologies.
 
The canon one is an opition, but it's expensive for a small amount of storage.

I've seen other makes with 120gb drives for less than the 30gb canon, what i need is real life usage experiences.
 
I have a storvision one. http://www.card-media.co.uk/storvision+psc100.htm

It works well but takes ages to copy a 4GB card so you will need at least two cards. One to use while the other is being copied. You just insert the card and press copy. It takes about nine different types of cards and saves all copies into seperate folders. The screen tell you the progress and remaining space but thats all. I have the 40GB one and am happy with it.

The ones with a screen are much more expensive and, from what I was told not very high resolution.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Ron
 
The 5dmk2 produces RAWS anywhere between 21 and 30mb, i'll be looking at storing 5 days shooting from the mk2 and the same from a mk1.

The ability to view the images on screen at night and delete the obvious dross will allow me to get away with about 80 or 120gb storage.

8gb udma cards are still fairly expensive, :eek:
 
EPson P2000 here. You should be able to pick up a used one now for about £100
 
Thanks for the replies, not heard of the hypershop ones before.

I don't want to take my laptop with me to cut down on clutter, the weight is going to be bad enough with just camera gear :eek: Excess baggage costs a fortune :(
 
Chaz Photos said:
Will Canon RAW show on the screen?
Click to expand...

Under the middle picture it say's "True RAW image decoding" Not sure if that includes Canon Raw. I would drop them an email and ask.

Cheers

Ron

Edited to add.

It say's it supports

Canon .CR2 .CRW .TIF
Fujifilm .RAF
Konica Minolta .MRW
Leica .DNG .RAW .RW2 .RWL
Nikon .NEF .NRW
Olympus .ORF
Panasonic .RAW .RW2 .RWL
Pentax .DNG .PEF
Samsung .DNG
Sigma .X3F
Sony .ARW .SR2
 
We have two Epson P2000, one bought new, one bought for £93 on ebay.

they are only 40Gb each though, but they do display canon raw images.

In Namibia we used both of those as primary storage and an Acer Aspire 150 netbook as backup which cost me £150. That has a 120Gb hard drive and isn't really that much bigger than the epsons but did need a card reader.

You can replace the hard drives in the Epsons quite easily apparently, I think I will be doing that before too long to get them up to 80Gb or so.
 
I`ve got an Epson P2000, it`s one of the older generation 40gig ones. The screens excellent, it takes around 8 minutes to download a 4 gig CF card.

The only downside is the rate at which it eats batteries. After downloading two cards, the battery`s empty.

Now, it might be a dodgy battery. A friend of mine has the later generation one, and his lasts far far longer.
 
minky_monkey said:
I`ve got an Epson P2000, it`s one of the older generation 40gig ones. The screens excellent, it takes around 8 minutes to download a 4 gig CF card.

The only downside is the rate at which it eats batteries. After downloading two cards, the battery`s empty.

Now, it might be a dodgy battery. A friend of mine has the later generation one, and his lasts far far longer.
Click to expand...

The download to the netbook is certainly faster.

Battery life has never been an issue with us as we only download once a day and by then we are usually somewhere with power.

if we did safaris in tents it might be an issue but this year I took an inverter.
 
I have a P2000 too and you can easily upgrade the hard drive to a higher capacity. I thought about buying one of those mini laptops with an 8.3" screen for about £250 and a 160Gb drive - a sandisk card reader works well with it. Slightly larger than the P2000 but very neat, and a better screen. Just install your canon software to be able to D/L and view the images.
 
I also use a netbook where appropriate but when travelling light nothing beats the Hyerdrive for me. 80Gb download on a single battery - with fast cards. Little bigger than an external 2.5" drive.
 
grumpybadger said:
I also use a netbook where appropriate but when travelling light nothing beats the Hyerdrive for me. 80Gb download on a single battery - with fast cards. Little bigger than an external 2.5" drive.
Click to expand...

The hyperdrive looks excellent. If I'd known about those I proably wouldn't have bought the second Epson, though we weren't shooting raw then and 40 Gb was enough for a holiday. I got a second one as a backup device and found with raw I needed two as primary storage on the longer trip.
 
I use a asus netbook with media card reader. Ok its larger than a cf reader/hard drive solution. But with a 160gb hdd & a 10" screen, you can see what you have shot :)
 
I've got one of the Hyperdrives mentioned above, 320GB, works great. I can't be bothered carrying a laptop around it's only another thing to get broken/weight me down
 
I looked at this for the trip out here and TBH, I just stocked up on more 8Gb CF cards - even shooting RAW, I'll get 6-800 images on the two in-camera cards...that along with the additional 8 CF cards in the bag...
Plus on any trip over three days i'll be expected to edit along the way - well... if I have to take the laptop, I may as well take the 1Tb drive as well...

I used to have a 250Gb Image tank - but they seem to have fallen by the wayside in recent years...you can thank cheaper CF cards for that...who's going to pay £300 for one of them nowadays?
 
We used to rely on just the epson, but that offers no backup once you have reformatted the cards hence the second epson and now the netbook.
 
I use a Toshiba 10inch netbook got it from HERE although it was cheaper when i bought it £264 gone up to £300 but still cheaper than a Canon type and give's you a bit more scope with a 160 gig hard drive, i guess if you want real portable on the cheap normal speed CF cards are the answer, personally i think most of the Canon type ones are way over priced for what they are.
 
Your best bet (in my experience) is the Hyperdrive ColorSpace. VERY good price, excellent usability and the battery is good for a extended periods of use. I would advise buying the external battery pack (takes 4 standard AA's) as a back up though. It is possible to turn the ColorSpace on when its in a bag or whatever is something is resting up against it. However, I keep all of mine (4 of them) in small Peli-boxes which are waterproof/dustproof etc. so its not a problem. I would reccommend doing that for any HDD you are using in the field though.
 
Good point on the external battery pack.

I've been using the predecessor to the ColorSpace (the Space!) for over 3 years now. Can't review pictures on mine but since I never delete in the field its not an issue.

I run a pair and back a card up to each in case of HDD failure
 
I might be a bit thick, but I can't seem to determine what drive would be compatible with the colourspace, i'd be looking for 80 to 120gb i think

Looking at the costs of 120gb in sandisk cf cards against the portable drive, the drive is winning through
 
Hairyduck said:
I've got one of the Hyperdrives mentioned above, 320GB, works great. I can't be bothered carrying a laptop around it's only another thing to get broken/weight me down
Click to expand...

Yep, got the hyperdrive and it works very well.
You have to get your own 2.5in drive (got one off ebay 320gb).
It is very easy to install, plug the drive in, put the cover over, tighten the screw with the provided screw driver.

The screen is ok for a quick preview but isn't any better than the screen already on your camera.

Still a very good way of backing up 'in the field'
 
digitalfailure said:
I might be a bit thick, but I can't seem to determine what drive would be compatible with the colourspace, i'd be looking for 80 to 120gb i think

Looking at the costs of 120gb in sandisk cf cards against the portable drive, the drive is winning through
Click to expand...

Hyperdrive ColorSpace UDMA (current model) uses 2.5" SATA drives so that's what you want. For the difference in price, you may as well get 250Gb or 320Gb I'd have thought.

Remember you may well have to pay VAT and import duty on the way in...
 
Are the samsung spin point drives any good?
I've seen a 250gb drive advertised for less than 40 quid :)
 
Just checked my cheque book for my vat payment, I paid £16.52 vat and duty and the unit itself (320gb model) was about £290 with shipping via ups. That was about 3 months ago so the exchange rate will have shifted no doubt. I did ask them to put a lower value for customs though which they did ;)

Sinbecks said:
Yep, got the hyperdrive and it works very well.
You have to get your own 2.5in drive (got one off ebay 320gb).
It is very easy to install, plug the drive in, put the cover over, tighten the screw with the provided screw driver.

The screen is ok for a quick preview but isn't any better than the screen already on your camera.

Still a very good way of backing up 'in the field'
Click to expand...
 
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