Portable Storage Experiences

Opinions X's Drive, Image Tank, Tripper? Going to Panama and need an additional portable storage device. Battery life not important, as I'm bringing a car inverter. Also, any opinions on CF->CD burners?

Forgot to mention that I use 1GB storage media, so CD's are not so appealing because of size. OTOH, they are cheap, so maybe I shouldn't care.

I have two Tripper units, in addition to my T41 Thinkpad notebook. The Tripper devices also act as CF readers, in case my USB or CardBus adapter die on me. I don't like to rely on the Tripper units for downloading in the field, but I rather use them as backup hard drives each evening in my lodge room. But they can act as more than just backup hard drives, since they have CF slots.

I have had no problems with the two units, except for poor battery performance. I have built a 4xAA battery holder from Radio Shack for about $5 in parts. No soldering required. I bring along so many AA rechargeables for my 500EX, so I don't have to deal with yet another battery charger. Ugh.

Just my $.02

Dan:

I bought a tripper before I went to Nome, Alaska last year as emergency backup. Thankfully I did not have to rely on it.

Before leaving on the trip I did a few weekends at Ft. Desoto to simulate a workflow where I had to use it--It worked fine. It was a good price from mydigitaldiscount.com

abiggs wrote:The Tripper devices also act as CF readers, in case my USB or CardBus adapter die on me. I don't like to rely on the Tripper units for downloading in the field, but I rather use them as backup hard drives each evening in my lodge room. But they can act as more than just backup hard drives, since they have CF slots.

I agree with this as well. I have used my Tripper in the field to d/l my images, but I am always nervous. I recently got a Dell Latitude C600 for $300 and added a CD-RW/DVD drive for $120 and have decided to use my Tripper as an emergency backup unit and CF drive. For the money, the laptop was a godsend...I can now watch DVD's on the plane and in the room at night as well as review pictures from that day.

I've decided to go with the Apacer CD writer. Somehow, making hard media satisfies my sense of paranoia. Also it plays DVD's etc. About $280 plus media. So, I'll pack a 100 blank CD's and still have the 30 GB Fasttrax as a backup to the writer.

At this point everyone is wondering, why not just take a laptop. The answer is with all the stuff we're dragging along, the laptop would just be over the top for carryon.

I use a laptop for my primary storage while travelling, but grew increasingly concerned that if the h/d failed or (more likely) the laptop was lost or stolen, I could lose ALL my photos from a major trip. I don't have a DVD writer on my laptop, couldn't afford a new one, and didn't want to joke around with CDs for the large number of images I shoot in a place like Yellowstone.

I ended up getting an X's Drive II from mydigitaldiscount.com. It does work tolerably well. Without a way to verify writing, I am not comfortable using it in the field, then reformatting and reusing my CF cards, so I used the X-drive only to make a backup of the files as I loaded them onto my laptop hard drive. I did this in the evening most of the time. Incidentally, battery life of the X-Drive in the field is very, very, short.

My original plan was to use a USB 2 PCMCIA converter to copy the downloaded files from my laptop to the X-drive. This didn't work well, the drivers for the USB 2 device (not the X's drive) caused my laptop to become incredibly buggy.

Now I just put the CF cards into the X-drive and dowload them a second time after downloading them onto my laptop. Works okay, though it is a hassle. I don't really consider it an acceptable long-term solution, but am going with it for now.

One thing I was concidering was an external HD along with the lap top. A bit more space, but I have an extra 60 gig unit which is bmore space than my laptop 40 gig HD.

stevebein wrote:One thing I was concidering was an external HD along with the lap top. A bit more space, but I have an extra 60 gig unit which is bmore space than my laptop 40 gig HD.

I think herein lies the problem. An external backup hard drive is a good thing, but you are then left with only *1* way to offload your photos from your memory cards. By using a digital wallet type device you can use it as a download tool, in addition to being used as an external hard drive. Your weakest link in your system is always the part that has no redundancy.

Just food for thought.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your advice on the 300 f2.8. Here's my experience when I decided to purchase a storage device last July.

My first choice was the APacer Disc Steno. I located a dealer in Ontario who had just receives 6 from Jobo. As my usual careful self I wanted to try them out before purchase. I drove for and hour to Fredericks of St. Catherines. I was there for more than an hour, the first model did not work so we abandoned it and tried another, we down loaded the latest drivers from the manufacturer. This did not work either, with my card or any CF card. I gave up and left. My further research identified the FlashTrax as being the best value out there, but, it's not available in Canada and for some reason stores in the US will not ship that unit to Canada. So I finally decided on the ImageTank G2 20GB. I have used it as a storage device as well as a card reader, so far no problems. I would like their instructions to be more detailed and more comprehensive though.

The really neat thing about the ImageTank G2, is that it can also be used as a backup device for your PC for temporary problems. I now use CF cards for PC backup through the G2 and transfer large amounts of data from PC to PC. Once the pics are downloaded from the G2 I can delete the bad pics and write the good ones to a CD. The APacer writes everything to a CD, you don't have a choice, or to rename the files to suit your filing system.

All the best,

I advise smartdisk, 80 GB,small window display, takes cflash cards, usb conect to computer,light and small, won some awards

I got from warehouse express in the uk , (20 GB from 279 bpounds)

I have used the Tripper for about 14 months with no problems... I use it in the field to offload CF cards and as an external HD while on trips. I have found it to be very reliable. I have actually had good luck with battery life, although I generally do bring a car charger along. Highly recommended.
Matthew

I've owner an Image Bank for about 18 months now. Works flawlessly.

Jim

Dan,

Just encountered my first problem with my ImageTank G2 yesterday. Took 230 images and the download from the CF Card showed OK, so I formatted the Card and kept on shooting. Today attempting to transfer photos to PC, 2 folders are created with no files

I have sent an email to the manufacturer, but no answers yet.

So I suggest you stay away from ImageTanks, not reliable.

Latafat

I'm new to digital. Just ordered a camera and do not own a laptop, so I'm looking for a way to download cards in the field if need be. I've read the information below and was wondering if anyone has heard of the I/O Magic device. Their add says "it is the solution to all of my digital data storage needs" :roll:

Thanks.

Charleen Baugh

Hi, Charleen. Sorry, but I don't know a thing about the product you are asking about, just wanted to welcome you to NSN!

Jim

Dan: I bought the X's 2030 drive and two 80gb laptop hard-drives. I have used the drive for two months and it works like a charm. The battery will allow me to copy 8 512K Cards without recharging. I have a car adapter rated at 12-24 volts, so it should work on some unexpected vehicles in Africa. It takes about 6-8 minutes to offload a 512K card. The reason I bought a second 80gb drive is to make certain that I have enough space for long trips. My 1Ds eats up about 9-11mbs per shot. Warning, the drive has no verification and you cannot view the files. I solved the viewing issue by shooting in RAW and JPEG (normal) and view the JPEGs on my iPAQ 2215 by inserting the CF card. This allows me to screen shots on the fly. At home I simply hook up the drive to my PC and offload to my desktop hard drives and then burn to DVDs. I would prefer to use a laptop but the added weight and charging issues were too much for the kind of traveling I do. Bill