USB Sync Box

[dieselnut]

I've seen in Maplin, a cunning device, which lets you plug a digital camera into one side, and a USB flash device into the other, press a button, and the camera will be copied to the flash disk.

With the impending arrival of my 350D, and my dislike of spending (further) money I was thinking of using a 1Gb CF card in the camera, and once it's full, whipping the stuff off onto my 60Gb external HDD. Thereby saving my buying many many flash cards for holidays etc

My question, do these devices supply enough juice to run a hard disk drive ? It's a 2.5 inch in a caddy, and bus powered, therefore draws 500mA from the USB connector when it's on. The one I've seen takes 3xAAA batteries... will that do it ?

Alternativly I have a couple of 2Gb flash USB devices already I could use with it.

Or should I stop being pikey and buy some more CF ?

Matthew

[Platinum]

How about one of these , although that means buying another HDD...

[dieselnut]

I quite like the look of that... do you have any experiences with it ?

[te51cle]

I've got something very similar from Storage Depot. They work fine as long as you don't want to look at your images on the move. I would recommend that you get two CF cards though as it can take 15 minutes to transfer 1GB to disk - you don't want to be unable to take pictures for that length of time because your one and only card is in the process of being backed up. Sod's Law says something good is bound to happen exactly at that time ! I use one 1GB and one 2GB card with my 350D.

[Platinum]

dieselnut said:

I quite like the look of that... do you have any experiences with it ?

I'm afraid not. It was just on a website I was looking at cameras on.

[speedychrissie]

Platinum said:

How about one of these , although that means buying another HDD...

i bought one of those last week, it is very good.


here is what i said when i first got it:

speedychrissie said:

recently purchased a vosonic Xs-2XL 40Gb portable storage device and it so far seems great:

it is smaller than i was expecting, about the same size as a 1st generation ipod
it is incredibly simple to use, one button for on, one button for copy, that is it.
it is fast too. many people in reviews of any portable storage device moan about transfer speeds, but this is very good.
connection to a computer is also very good. it seems exactly the same as my 250Gb external hard drive which stays attached to the cpu.
i have yet to test how long the battery will last but i am going on a 3 week holiday next month so that should test it.


i know that it has been around for a while, and it is possible to basically make your own by getting a case and separate hard drive from ebay, but this is just so simple, and it was only £97 from picstop.co.uk

so all in all, a big from me, and i thought i should let you know!

and that is still exactly how i feel.

[Podie]

I've been using one of these (not this particular model, but one very similar), and bought one for her indoors as well.

I bought the units sans HDD and put a 20GB drive into each. We both use them for photo backup whilst "out in the field" but also for day-to-day stuff, as it's also a portable HDD for moving data about - just connected via USB... also acts as a card reader when connected to a PC.

I've also got a DigiMate II-Plus with a 20GB HDD in it doing nothing if someone wants to make me an offer...

Edited by Podie on Sunday 9th July 13:45

[dieselnut]

Where do you pick them up without HDD ? I have a stack of 9.5mm 2.5incers here doing nothing

[Podie]

Google is your friend...

[te51cle]

Storage Depot used to do them. Try calling 0118 375 8308 and ask for a Mr. Tiel Holdstock.

Edited by te51cle on Tuesday 11th July 17:31