Memory Card BackUps - on the go

[Woolies]

Does anyone have suggested solutions to this? I am failing miserably to find a good selection of options to choose the best from

What I want is some device or gadget gizmo that can store photos while I am away from computers for extended length of time. 80GB CF card is not enough storage & multiple HUGE GB cards not an opton I'd feel confident about.



Video iPods are winning as the "not practical but how GEEK would it be" option. (Totally silly but they can plug into DSLRs and transfer pics from memory cards via p2p...)

Epson Photo Viewers are winning as being the most "over-priced & not really looking very good" option.



In fact the only real option I've found so far is a Hyperdrive thingy - 250GB is the largest they offer but they use laptop hard drives so technically could handle even more. Option to run off normal AA batteries means it'd never be useless waiting for a recharge.
(They're not available in the UK yet it seems.)
And also the option to impersonate Scotty everytime I back up is big points in it's favour


I am out of the loop and probably just not searching for the right technical/sales name for the things, anyone know of others/better?

[Stew]

The gadget you're looking for, if I read that correctly, would be a 'digital photo bank with card reader'. They don't seem to have that much storage capacity though compared with the 80GB CF card you mention.

e: Example: £75 for this 80GB one: LINK.

[Sgt Craig]

Meh, i'd just get a cheap ultra portable laptop and stick the biggest drive i could find in it
some thing like a compaq n200, Dell X300 or Thinkpad 31 (i think?) can be picked up on ebay for £100 or so and most offer USB, FireWire, SD, bluetooth, WiFi, external drives etc.

I just sold an N200 the other day actually, but it only weighed 1.3kg and was 11 inches wide, so fairly portable.

EDIT: although that hyper drive thing does seem pretty slick

[2plus2isfive]

You have an 80GB CF card!

...I'm taking it that's a typo (considering 64GB solid state hard drives retail in the £600 region)?

Could get a large capacity laptop drive and caddy...very portable and runs off usb power so no chunky adapter or worrying about batteries.

I got mine off ebay a while ago. About £30 for a 60GB drive with enclosure.

Here's an example of a 160GB one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/160GB-160-GB-2...QQcmdZViewItem

[Woolies]

Originally Posted by Stew

The gadget you're looking for, if I read that correctly, would be a 'digital photo bank with card reader'. They don't seem to have that much storage capacity though compared with the 80GB CF card you mention.

e: Example: £75 for this 80GB one: LINK.

Thanks for that link, led me to learn the term "Portable Storage Device" which brings up afew more similar devices such as from Jobo.
I'm still thinking the hyperdrive may be by far the best choice and I'm just being wary because I found it first with nothing to compare to!

[Woolies]

Originally Posted by Sgt Craig

Meh, i'd just get a cheap ultra portable laptop and stick the biggest drive i could find in it

One of the major drawbacks for me of laptops from backing up & storing excess photos while away from home is that laptops need charged more than I imagine having the ability to do so.
(Especially since I'd totally not resist the urge to stick a few movies on it to watch and drain the battery...!!)

Originally Posted by 2plus2isfive

You have an 80GB CF card!

...I'm taking it that's a typo

tum tee tum, yes - I was thinking of 8GB cards while reading about 80GB devices...! oops

Could get a large capacity laptop drive and caddy...very portable and runs off usb power so no chunky adapter or worrying about batteries.

no worrying about batteries but no usb power available is a bigger concern

To be honest I'm not certain what sort of capacity I'd be happy with.

50pics per day is a reasonable estimate for me I think, 14MB per pic so
1GB per day is a nice safe number to aim at I think.
Maybe a good deal on CF cards would suffice after all

[djtoast]

Video iPods are winning as the "not practical but how GEEK would it be" option.

Murray posted somewhere about this being hugely draining on batteries if I remember correctly.

14Mb per picture!? Just take all your pics on small/course, you fit more on a card that way

[0x21]

Originally Posted by djtoast

Murray posted somewhere about this being hugely draining on batteries if I remember correctly.

14Mb per picture!? Just take all your pics on small/course, you fit more on a card that way

Yeah I used to have an iPod video (20Gb) and it'd drain the batteries whilst copying a 2Gb card (its also only USB1.1 [I don't know if the 300D or the camera->iPod adapter was the bottleneck though] so took a while). This was about a year ago so the latest generation may be better.

You probably want something like an Epson P-400: ~80Gb drive, takes a CF card and copies across, will also let you preview the images (and I think it can handle video as well). Its about the size of a PSP and was about £350 but the last time I looked at one would have been a year or 2 ago so there will probably be a better cheaper version out there by now.

[Woolies]

Originally Posted by 0x21

You probably want something like an Epson P-400 (...) about £350 (...) will probably be a better cheaper version out there by now.

nope!
ref:

Originally Posted by Woolies

Epson Photo Viewers are winning as being the most "over-priced & not really looking very good" option.

[0x21]

Originally Posted by Woolies

nope!
ref:

At least it'd work though, even if that are still far more expensive than I thought they'd be