Portable Storage Devices.
 

Looking for advice/user feedback on portable stowage devices of about 80/120 gb.
1.Battery life, and number GBs per full battery charge in the field.
2.Rechargable in car,
3.Downloadable formats,and compatable raw (which camera type).
4. Image playback or just confirmation of download.
Any help appreciated.
I have already asked similar question on BF.

Regards I4ANI.

Hi Subzero, how portable do you mean? Something that will slip in your pocket or something a little larger? What's the budget?

Hi Andy123,
Size to fit in pocket, and use in the "field", the "jobo giga one" type of thing. Price, well best value for money, and must be reliable,and be able to download Nikon raw (nef), from what I seen so far they range from about £150 plus??
What had you in mind?
regards Subzero.

Not quite the size you require, but the Jobo Giga 1, 30gb was on offer at £40 at the Warehouse Express sale. I bought one yesterday.

Harry

Edited.
Have just been over to the WE site and notice the Giga 1 is no longer listed, nor the £100 CS2 version for the Mac, both where there yesterday, so it looks as though the sales items are going fast.
Still quite a few bargains to be had though.

Check EPSON 5000N also.

Thanks for the replies,
Wolfie- Postcardcv suggested the same, but when I looked they had gone, but thanks anyway for the info, and I hope yours works out for you.Perhaps at some time you might let us know how it works, and your experiences with it.
Rudra Sen - I will look into the Epson P5000n, thanks.
regards Subzero.

Hi again - I was going to suggest the Epson P5000n - I don't have one but have used my brothers. I is a great piece of kit and I am looking for one for myself - it handles Nikon Raw very well.

Thanks Andy123,
The useful bit of your info is that it takes raw (nef), when I have looked at some models it states to check compatibilityl of cameras.
regards Subzero.

I've been looking at perhaps getting some portable storage to back-up full memory cards.
I've seen that picstop.co.uk have some reasonably priced ones. However, I've not used these people before.

Joe, I use the Xs-Drive2XL 40gb from warehouseexpress, they have a similar one the jobo giga drive at £99, they also have a couple of cheaper ones at around £59.

I normally copy all the photos off the drive to the computer when I get back from a trip I then backup to cd so the drive is always empty, ready for next time. I find the smaller 40gb ample.

Hi ,
Joe - I have used picstop many time for memory cards, fast, reliable,worked for me !
Saphire - thanks, but will it take Nikon raw files??
regards Subzero.

Subzero, mine takes Canon Raw I don't know about Nikon.

I use a vosonic VP2160 60Gb drive, inbuilt card reader, fits nicely into a jacket pocket, and slurps the data of your card pretty fast. Took it to France in the summer and over Xmas and it performed flawlessly.

Oh and I've not charged it since the summer.

No image playback though. You're into the something around £170 rather than £70.

Thanks Saphire and Walwyn for the replies.

Walwyn - what did you down load to the vorsonic?, canon or nikon.

regards
Subzero

Don't understand. It just sucks off whatever data is on a memory card. Reads SM, SD/MMC, MS, MS pro, CF Type I/II. I've used it with both SD from my pana and a xD from an olympus.

I've used it to copy off jpg, tiff, raw, mov, and mp3.

There Is also the Epson P3000 to consider - it is the same as the 5000 only it is 40Gb not 80Gb - Dabs do the 3000 for about £300 but you can get them cheaper on eBay and some other stores

Thanks Andy 153 and Walwyn for the info
regards Subzero.

Have used picstop several times and can say they are amongst the best I've ever used. No complaints at all.

Duncan

My £40 + £4 P&P Jobo Giga ! appears to be a very good buy. I tried it out this weekend, only a couple of Gb of raw files, but found it to be very fast, both ways. So at less than £1.50 per Gb, I'm very please.

Subzero I use Canon so cannot say how the unit will work with Nefs

Agree with Duncan, I've always found Picstop to an excellent company to deal with.

Harry

Thanks Wolfie,
It sounds like you got a good buy, well done.
I think it was Joe who asked about Picstop, I already use them, and agree that are very good indeed.
I have ordered a portable storage device which should be here tomorrow, I will report back on it when/if it arrives, and I have tried it out.
The reason I asked about which RAW files could be downloaded, was mainly because many of the manufacturers blurbs state check camera compatability.
So thanks again to all who responded.
I think that with increasing no. of cameras with 10/12 mp counts, and people being away from home/laptop, that PSDs will become more popular.
regards Subzero.

Hi again,
As promised, a quick update on the PSD.
I ordered a 80 GB Vosonic VP6230i (note the "i"), from good old Picstop. on Monday at about 1500 hrs and on Tuesday at 0930hrs PostmanPat knocked on my door with parcel. All the way from IOM and through the storm, what more could you ask for.
I sat down and read the manual and charged up the internal battery, and reread the manual.Dusted off the D2X and the D300 (both are set to jpeg-raw) and fired off about 30 images on each.Loaded card from D2X and got nice message, "format not recognised".Tried the card from D300, and got same message!!Formatted both cards and went to jpeg only, and cards from both cameras downloaded and images were viewable.
Tried jpeg+raw again still no transfer.Checked Vosonic forum and found a lot of unhappy canon/nikon raw users!!.Woe is me.
So contacted good old Picstop regarding the problem,they replied in 20 mins and advised to me to update to latest firmware and even gave link and how to do it bless them.
Updated firmware and banged out more jpeg+raws and inserted card, and yes it works a treat and very quick, and shows both images.
The 6230i comes with mains charger, ear phones, usb lead, av leads, driver for windows, instruction book, and a nice strong case for transporting it.
Size 3" wide x 5" high x 1" deep ( in mm 73 x 128 x 26 ) and weighs about 280 grms. After inital problems seems to be ok.
Thanks to those who shared their knowledge and well done Picstop.
regards Subzero.

Phew! Glad that got sorted. Hope you'll enjoy it. Actually the VP6230i something I was considering back in the summer as one could put a few avis on it and play them through the hotel TV at night. In the end I settled on the more modest VP2160.

Great little devices. Don't have to carry loads of cards, just pull the one from the camera, stick in a new one and have the device slurp off the files whilst you carry on shooting.

A good idea in principle. I've used "yousendit" within the UK and yes it's great for large files, but not much good when out on the Mara, or most places that I visit in Kenya or the Caribbean for that matter.

I go abroad with my cameras twice a year, I've yet to have access to a decent "dial up" connection never mind broadband, so I will continue to use my Giga One, laptop and a number of CF cards.

Now a days it'll be difficult for you find a 80/120 gb storage device if you are looking to get an external hd. Mostly found drives are 500gb or more. You may choose memory stick but their performance is fairly slow.