Portable Harddrive

[lamar328]

Hey, I'm carrying around a nikon d40 while traveling, and I want to bring a small, lightweight, and durable portable hard drive which hold around 200GB. I'm not going to have access to computers all the time, so if there's a way of just connecting the camera to the storage device without a computer then that would be a lot better.

[Marko]

I don't know anything about this product, but it looks like it might do the trick. It's only 160 GB though. Hope that helps - Marko
http://www.digitalfoci.com/photo_safe.html

[tegan]

The hyperdrive which is somewhat similar in concept but 3 times faster is also more expensive although the addition of a colour LCD screen to preview images is also helpful.

Tegan

[lamar328]

I'm really just looking for a storage device without anything fancy. It's for traveling purposes, so if it's stolen I dont want to freak out that I spent like $500 on it.
The Photo Safe (first reply) looks pretty cool, but I'm not sure if it's mac compatible. It most likely is, but I'll have to find out for sure.

[tegan]

I'm really just looking for a storage device without anything fancy. It's for traveling purposes, so if it's stolen I dont want to freak out that I spent like $500 on it.
The Photo Safe (first reply) looks pretty cool, but I'm not sure if it's mac compatible. It most likely is, but I'll have to find out for sure.

I don't know how you travel, but I have worked with $50,000 worth of photographic, audio and video equipment and have yet to have anything stolen. Maybe, just chance or luck. :)

I am however very security conscious.

Tegan

[PaulaLynn]

I don't know how you travel, but I have worked with $50,000 worth of photographic, audio and video equipment and have yet to have anything stolen. Maybe, just chance or luck. :)

I am however very security conscious.

Tegan

:eek: Whoa!

[lamar328]

haha ya I'm more of an $800 type. even that's steep for me.

[mindforge]

I have done a lot of research on drive data stability compared to dvd's and if you properly care for both of them the dvd will outlast the hard drive. Hard drives are only better in one case usually and that is when you have a raid setup with seven hard drives that mirror the data. We use this at work with terrabytes of information.

If you want my advice, get a solid laptop -- an old one. All that is necessary is that you can burn from memory card to dvd. Then just always make dvd copies of your data.

Even with an older laptop, you can probably find one on Ebay or a garage sale you can get good performance for just a few hundred dollars. I have seen someone use an older laptop with a strip that will read 4 memory cards at once. The computer was bare bones and pretty much only had the necessary software on it. He would just pop in a card and run a dvd backup of the memory card. Done.

It did take longer than recording straight to a hard drive.

---------------------------

Ok. Now, if you want to ignore that advice here is a hard drive from Wolverine data that will allow you to record and preview images. I have seen this and I asked the photographer what it was and he was more than happy to .. ahem.. brag about it.

The Wolverine ESP is great if you have a few bucks to spend and it has some bells and whistles. Personally, I wish they had a bare bones version with just the LCD preview screen instead of all the peripherals...

You can see the Wolverine ESP at the following link:

http://www.wolverinedata.com/index.php/site/quicklinks/C11/

[lamar328]

Ya, I'm aware of the DVD comparison to hard drives, but once again this is for travel, and I dont feel like lugging around a laptop when i'm going backpacking around the world. The personal hard drive allows me to save a lot of space and still holds all my photos. I'm also still trying to find something under the $150 range, but still decent quality. Photo Safe 2 from Digital Foci was more of what I was looking into.

[tegan]

Have you considered simply multiple memory cards, since they are small and easy to carry? You might be changing cards more often but the chance of losing large numbers of shots would be less.

Tegan

[ret]

I would recommend something like the 16GB Sandisk Extreme 3, it's fast and on my Canon 40D with the best resolution can store around 4500 pics!!!!

[mindforge]

I actually prefer to have 4g cards. I have an 8g and a few 4g and unless I know I am going to fire 500 shots or so, I stick with the 4g cards. They give me over 200 shots and I like the aspect of doing that as far as cataloging them. I keep them in time order. So, I know that the first one is from the morning, the next one was after lunch and the last one was at night. If you are shooting more than 1000 shots, you should probably have an assistant that can copy these for you while you continue shooting also.

I have a friend that shoots weddings and only weddings. She has a second shooter that copies the cards onto cards and copies them onto a hard drive too. They have 3 copies of it once it comes out of the camera. The second shooter also uploads to the web via ftp as she goes back to take more pictures. Her second shooter is more of an assistant with a camera. She does very little shooting in comparison to my friend. But, before they even leave the wedding they have 4 copies of every single memory card:

*The original memory card
*A second memory card to go in a different vehicle with the second shooter.
*A version on the hard drive of the laptop
*A copy online via ftp

She started doing this after losing an original memory card and the laptop backup. She was mugged at a gas station. They took her purse, camera bag and the laptop. She lost over 2000 wedding images and had to go through a bunch of legal problems because of the contract.

[lamar328]

well that was a horrible story!
So as a general concensus would everyone recommend a few cards instead of a portable 80G harddrive?
I see the benefits of having multiple cards since portable harddrives can kickout at any time, where as I may have a single card kick out throughout my entire trip... only loosing a few hundred pictures instead of 80G's worth.

If everyone agrees that having multiple cards instead of a mass storage device is the way to go, then would a few 4g cards probably be sufficient (a few being 6-10)?
I would opt to go for a few 16G cards instead, but if I my data is lost then it's a hell of a lot of pictures gone.

last comment... I'm on a fairly tight budget so I'm trying to get my safest bang for the buck here. Getting a handful of cards can end up running me well over what it would cost to get a p.Harddrive. I guess it's just a security factor.

[ret]

I have a 300 GB portable HDD that i use to back up my images .... you don't need that many memory card if you have a portable HDD as you can transfer images to the HDD and free up the memory card. the HDD stays at home so there is little chance of losing it

i would suggest go with the 16 GB card as if you are shooting RAW + JPEG on a 10 megapixel camera then it will use up 16 mbs for 1 pic, which will give you around 1000 pics and you need that much space if you are traveling

[tomorrowstreasures]

Have you considered simply multiple memory cards, since they are small and easy to carry? You might be changing cards more often but the chance of losing large numbers of shots would be less.

Tegan

GREAT suggestion, Tegan!

[lamar328]

I'm on a super tight budget, so getting multiple memory cards may not be the best solution for me. I think I'll get 2 8GB cards and an 80G hard drive. That way I can switch between another card just in case I don't reach an internet center in a hostel for a while or something like that, but I also have a storage device to clear the cards in case I need too.

I was going to ask about ftp as storage, but I'll make that a new forum... so checker out!

[mindforge]

Multiple memory cards, from what I have heard from serious pros and my own experience is the way to go.

Radiation from space can fry a hard drive at random. I know this sounds funny but it happens and it happens more than you think. If you want, you can use a memory card to copy onto another memory card if you want backups... don't go with cheapies though. Get good memory cards.

Honestly, I also backup to DVD (which is the reason I prefer the 4g cards). I drop these into an acid free anti static bag (cheap and you can get them in the thousands). The DVD backup of a memory card is labeled (acid free archival pen at any art store) and then stored in the plastic container it came with. These round containers stack well too. Basically I take all the dvd's out and put them on a larger storage cylinder. Then I keep the old plastic cylinders so I can use them for storage. Store them in the dark in an area that remains constant. I use a simple overhead cabinet for the common dvd storage and a safe for final dvd backups.

Archivists say any DVD (normal name brand) can remain stable for at least 20 years if stored correctly. Sunlight alone can reduce this time by 75% (5 years). Follow good archival practices.

[krphotogs]

I bought a Sanho Colorspace memory card reader. They come in all sizes - I bought the 160gb version (if I remember about $350). It backs up my 4 gig Lexar CF cards in about 5 minutes. It uses USB2 to interface to your PC. The nice thing about it is, say a 500 gig drive comes out at a reasonable price - you can open it up and install the 500 gig drive.

Don't call me paranoid - but when I have to re-use a CF card I get worried (hate having only 1 copy) so, for some of the sports shooting I do I am considering buying a second for redundancy. But now that I say that, for $360 I cold probably buy a bunch more CF cards.... hmmmmm

Kevin