Portable Storage? Which to buy?

[Mad Dave]

Hi All,

Work are packing me off to Ukraine for a week to take photographs, and as I got through 9GB of images in just 2 days in Albania last month, I think I should get myself a portable storage device (in Albania I had to make frequent trips to the Kodak shop to have my images transferred to CD!).

So, what should I buy? I ideally want something that can store at least 30GB, if not a bit more, and I'd really like to be able to view my images as I already have one that simply copies to an internal drive and I never quite trust that my images have been copied correctly!

So, recommend one to me

Dave

[ehasler]

If you've got the budget for it, then the Epson P-2000 (40GB) gets my vote, although there are a few more of these things on the market now so it may not longer be the best around.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Mate had a P-2000. Nice screen but a bit of a shock when you see it in the flesh. I don't know why but I thought it was just a bit bigger than an iPod...

He's sold it now and has an Archos Gmini 500. I can't say I've seen it but he thinks it's better all round.

[ehasler]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

He's sold it now and has an Archos Gmini 500. I can't say I've seen it but he thinks it's better all round.

I've got one of these too (assuming they've just changed the name from AV 500), and not overly impressed. It doesn't feel as solid as the P-2000, and doesn't have any memory card slots (only a USB port) which makes it useless if you want to download one card while continuing to use another in the camera.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

ehasler said:

ThatPhilBrettGuy said: He's sold it now and has an Archos Gmini 500. I can't say I've seen it but he thinks it's better all round. I've got one of these too (assuming they've just changed the name from AV 500), and not overly impressed. It doesn't feel as solid as the P-2000, and doesn't have any memory card slots (only a USB port) which makes it useless if you want to download one card while continuing to use another in the camera.

Hhhmmm, I think he said that plugging a CF / SD reader in the USB worked as it was a USB host. I'll check with him.

[rhubarb]

Another vote for the P2000. It's a bit on the big side, but it is all in one, with compact flash reader built in. The only thing I've found an issue with it is that it can be a bit slow, especially when drawing the thumbnails. It seems like at the start of the folder it's quick, but by the end it's really slow to render the image. Other than had it for about 18 months and I've never lost an image, and it's been an absolute saviour in some instances.

[Colin Blues2]

The Gmini and AV500 are different devices.

I have an AV500 (60gb) and I'm very happy with it. It's a metal case slightly larger than the hard drive it contains. The screen is excellent I use it for photo storage as well as storing movies to watch when travelling.

There is a standard USB port for connecting to a PC to upload and download files. There is also a USB host port which you can connect your camera USB cable to and download directly from the camera to the AV500.

Colin

[Podie]

Whilst still very much in the amateur side of photography, I saw little point in paying a small fortune for a device with a tiny, crappy screen no better than the one on the back of my camera…

Ergo, I went for a Digimate-III and put in a spare laptop HDD I had. Works with CF / MD / SD / miniSD / MMC / Memory stick PRO / Duo / whatever and acts as a portable USB storage device.

Not bad for about £40 + the cost of a HDD….

[Mad Dave]

Podie said:

Whilst still very much in the amateur side of photography, I saw little point in paying a small fortune for a device with a tiny, crappy screen no better than the one on the back of my camera… Ergo, I went for a Digimate-III and put in a spare laptop HDD I had. Works with CF / MD / SD / miniSD / MMC / Memory stick PRO / Duo / whatever and acts as a portable USB storage device. Not bad for about £40 + the cost of a HDD….

Is that the one from Crown Digital? I bought one of those but if I can't check my images are all there, I can't bring myself to trust it! I work for a charity and flights/hotels aren't cheap so I couldn't bear to have them spend money on sending me out there, only to return without the best results possible - ergo, I can't afford to risk losing shots. I'm worried enough about only having the one camera (D70) hence wanting to get a D200 and demote the D70 to backup

[Podie]

Mad Dave said:

I bought one of those but if I can't check my images are all there,

Well the display shows that the data is copying and the amount of free storage space decreases...

Each to their own.

[ehasler]

Podie said:

Whilst still very much in the amateur side of photography, I saw little point in paying a small fortune for a device with a tiny, crappy screen no better than the one on the back of my camera…

Which is why, if you do want one with a screen, it is worth paying the extra to buy something like the P-2000. The screen is excellent - far better than any you get on the backs of cameras.

[Mad Dave]

Podie said:

Mad Dave said: I bought one of those but if I can't check my images are all there, Well the display shows that the data is copying and the amount of free storage space decreases... Each to their own.

Call me paranoid but I just have to know they're there. I'm not fussed with personal shots but 'job' stuff like overseas assignments or weddings, things that one cannot reproduce if lost, make me rather more cautious!

[UKbob]

I know its not answering your question, but I use the delete button almost as much as the shutter button. Probably in part due to my skill (with the shutter button ) but relaxing over a beer deleting photos on holiday beats sorting through millions of them when you're back. You're not going to print and save them all, are you?

[ehasler]

UKbob said:

I know its not answering your question, but I use the delete button almost as much as the shutter button. Probably in part due to my skill (with the shutter button ) but relaxing over a beer deleting photos on holiday beats sorting through millions of them when you're back. You're not going to print and save them all, are you?

but you don't have a camera?

4 good reasons not to do this though

1) It wastes battery life which may be an issue if you don't have a charger or power socket handy
2) You might drop your camera in the beer
3) It wastes valuable drinking time
4) It's sometimes impossible to tell on a small camera screen whether a shot can be salvaged afterwards. Some shots that look crap on your camera LCD may end up working well with a bit of cropping and converting to b&w for example

[Mad Dave]

Whilst in Albania I deleted probably a third of the shots I was shooting to free up space on my three CF cards, but I still managed to fill them three times apiece so came back with some 9GB of data. I do shoot in RAW+JPEG but even so, that's a lot of shots!

[UKbob]

ehasler said:

4 good reasons not to do this though 1) It wastes battery life which may be an issue if you don't have a charger or power socket handy 2) You might drop your camera in the beer 3) It wastes valuable drinking time 4) It's sometimes impossible to tell on a small camera screen whether a shot can be salvaged afterwards. Some shots that look crap on your camera LCD may end up working well with a bit of cropping and converting to b&w for example

re: 1 ... Dont leave the country without an international power adapter...

[C&C]

Another vote for the Epson here.
I got the P4000 at Christmas (80Gb). It's not cheap - was £412 then from Amazon, now appears to be £440!
Have had no problems with it, and the screen is large and of amazing quality.
One thing to note though is that you don't quite get the full 40Gb (P2000) or 80Gb (P4000), as some space is taken for "system files", so you do lose 3.5Gb on the P2000 and a whopping 6.2Gb on the P4000.
Still an excellent product though.

[ehasler]

UKbob said:

re: 1 ... Dont leave the country without an international power adapter...

That's assuming you're going somewhere with a power socket

[Mad Dave]

[quote=C&C]
One thing to note though is that you don't quite get the full 40Gb (P2000) or 80Gb (P4000), as some space is taken for "system files", so you do lose 3.5Gb on the P2000 and a whopping 6.2Gb on the P4000.
Still an excellent product though.[/quote]

That's dreadful!!!

[theboyfold]

Once again I'll vote for the Creative Zen Vision 30gb, native CF slot, and you can put movies and music on for the flights and traveling.