Photo Storage device

CocktailHB · February 10, 2010

Hi,

I am going on a longer trip to Equador and entertaining the idea to buy another storage device. Any experiences or further advised would really help me.

Thanks,
A.

Rhuarc · February 10, 2010

Sure, in my opinion a small netbook with a 250GB hardd rive (or larger if you can afford it) It not only lets you back everything up, it also lets you access your photos for basic chimping and tagging. You can also then use a regular external hard drive for creating a second backup copy if you wish.

IMHO this is a better and more efficient option that getting a dedicated Photo Viewer device (such as the Epsons). THe only way this would not be the case is if you need the ability to backup in the field where you may not have the 10 minutes to get out the netbook and copy things off the cards.

Just my 2 cents!

chrisdg · February 10, 2010

I had the Epson P2000, and while it has a beautiful display, it was slow downloading, slower viewing, and sufferred short battery life in my experience. I sold it for the HyperDrive Color about 1.5 years ago and am very happy to have made the switch. While the hyperdrive doesnt have the elegant viewing experience, it downloads the photos very quickly, has a great battery life, and is smaller/lighter.

There are various capacity choices and models.
http://www.adorama.com/ICDHDCSO080.html

ziggy53 · February 10, 2010

chrisdg wrote:

I had the Epson P2000, and while it has a beautiful display, it was slow downloading, slower viewing, and sufferred short battery life in my experience. I sold it for the HyperDrive Color about 1.5 years ago and am very happy to have made the switch. While the hyperdrive doesnt have the elegant viewing experience, it downloads the photos very quickly, has a great battery life, and is smaller/lighter.

There are various capacity choices and models.
http://www.adorama.com/ICDHDCSO080.html

I use an older HyperDrive and it's great for those times when I want to backup in the field. Later, I can connect to a computer and the HyperDrive appears as an external hard-drive and it's quick to transfer the images into the computer.

mercphoto · February 10, 2010

chrisdg wrote:

I had the Epson P2000, and while it has a beautiful display, it was slow downloading, slower viewing, and sufferred short battery life in my experience. I sold it for the HyperDrive Color about 1.5 years ago and am very happy to have made the switch. While the hyperdrive doesnt have the elegant viewing experience, it downloads the photos very quickly, has a great battery life, and is smaller/lighter.

There are various capacity choices and models.
http://www.adorama.com/ICDHDCSO080.html

If the OP really wants an Epson P2000 for this task I'll sell him mine, cheap. It is a gorgeous display, but it also does download cards very, very slowly. Worse, even though it has a 40G hard drive you cannot download 40G worth of cards, not even close, before the battery dies. Seems like that was a pretty obvious design criteria that the engineers missed.

I also suggest avoiding the Epson photo viewers.

Do you have a reason why you don't want to simply buy more flash cards instead?

dbveto · February 10, 2010

The setup That I use and it works well for me I have a net-book with a 120GB HD and a portable 500GB hard drive.
When I import my photos (using Lightroom) they are copied to a folder on the netbook named for the shoot and also at the same time a backup set is created on the portable hard drive.

Rhuarc · February 10, 2010

dbveto wrote:

The setup That I use and it works well for me I have a net-book with a 120GB HD and a portable 500GB hard drive.
When I import my photos (using Lightroom) they are copied to a folder on the netbook named for the shoot and also at the same time a backup set is created on the portable hard drive.

Exxactly what I do! In my mind the only thing a dedicated Photo Storage viewer has over netbook for this sort of work is smaller size. Even the transfer rates and battery life seem to be dismal on the storage devices.

ziggy53 · February 10, 2010

Rhuarc wrote:

Exxactly what I do! In my mind the only thing a dedicated Photo Storage viewer has over netbook for this sort of work is smaller size. Even the transfer rates and battery life seem to be dismal on the storage devices.

The HyperDrive unit I use is faster than any normal USB 2 card reader I have, although I have not tried the Firewire readers.

dbveto · February 11, 2010

Rhuarc wrote:

Exxactly what I do! In my mind the only thing a dedicated Photo Storage viewer has over netbook for this sort of work is smaller size. Even the transfer rates and battery life seem to be dismal on the storage devices.

I have an extended battery on my net book that gives me almost 4 hours and if needed I can check email or post to forums with it to:D

I went with this setup because an 80 Gb media drive was more than what the net book cost and it could also run lightroom so when not shooting I can do some editing applying keyword ext..
I am not knocking the media drives my setup just works the best for me.

TopCat · February 12, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

...

Do you have a reason why you don't want to simply buy more flash cards instead?

Ditto!???

dbveto · February 12, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

Do you have a reason why you don't want to simply buy more flash cards instead?

On trips for me the reason would be If I just buy more cards and fill with pictures and one gets damages or lost the photos are gone

cry
With my setup card is used then download to net book and portable hard drive, now if the card is lost or stolen I still have my photos.
And I don't pack the net book and hard drive together. This year I will be adding a second hard drive so I will have a copy on my net book and a copy on two portable hard drives.
I guess maybe I am a bit paranoid

rpcrowe · February 14, 2010

I have 36GB of CF cards
I have 36GB of CF cards that, when shooting RAW ,which is my usual practice, can give me in the area of 2,700 images. I have never shot 2,700 images in a single session or during a single day. That would mean shooting 337 images an hour or 5 images each minute (one shot every 12 seconds) for an entire eight hour day of shooting. If I am shooting sports in a burst mode, I usually am not shooting for 8 hours. However, I have not yet exhausted 36GB of CF memory without the opportunity to download my images. If I were shooting full frame or shooting sports for a full day; I would simply buy additional CF cards. They are relatively inexpensive these days.

I use a small notebook computer (my wife's) when I travel by air and a larger 17" Toshiba notebook when I travel in my motor home. I open my RAW files in either Canon DPP (on the small computer because it is a smaller program) or in Adobe Bridge which is installed as part of Adobe CS-3 on my Toshiba.

I download and batch rename my images each evening. I look at selected samples to ensure that there has been no human or mechanical malfunction during the day's shooting. I then copy the images to a pair of Western Digital 500GB My Passport external hard drives which cost about $70 each at Fry's Electronics. I duplicate the saved images making mirror copies on each hard drive. When I am flying, I carry one My Passport and my wife carries the other for sake of safety. A 500GB hard drive will store in the area of 38,000 of my 40D RAW images.

After successful copy, I format my CF cards and recharge my batteries.

I also use the computer for Internet access (I like working with a larger screen) and I have saved the manuals for all my gear as PDF files on the computer just in case I need to refer to them. After all, I need to be retrained if I take a coffee break!

Mav · February 26, 2010

Here's the new Hyperdrive:

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-Album-s/174.htm

Looks great - 350USD for 160GB, 600USD for 640GB.

I think I shall be getting one of these

Art Scott · February 26, 2010

Mav wrote:

Here's the new Hyperdrive:

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-Album-s/174.htm

Looks great - 350USD for 160GB, 600USD for 640GB.

I think I shall be getting one of these

Can you store and view RAW files on this......that was a draw back in the past for such a device........right now I have over 100gb of cf cards (all 8gb each).....

Mav · February 26, 2010

Art Scott wrote:

Can you store and view RAW files on this......that was a draw back in the past for such a device........right now I have over 100gb of cf cards (all 8gb each).....

Taken from their site:

RAW
- Support for virtually all types of photo/RAW image files
- RAW image decoder displays photos up to pixel level
- Use actual camera CCD/CMOS sensor data to find dead pixels

ziggy53 · February 26, 2010

Mav wrote:

Taken from their site:

Be sure to ask about how the RAW comparability is maintained for future RAW file types. Every time a new camera model is introduced it has a new RAW file type.

chrisdg · February 26, 2010

ziggy53 wrote:

Be sure to ask about how the RAW comparability is maintained for future RAW file types. Every time a new camera model is introduced it has a new RAW file type.

HyperDrives have a firmware update capability - I've updated mine a few times in the past couple of years. Example:

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-COLORSPACE-UDMA-Firmware-Updates-s/66.htm

So, like for other products (Adobe, etc) we'll just need to hope they continue to release timely updates to handle the new variations of RAW as they arise. The actual backup/storage aspect of these RAW files is they key and *shouldn't* be impacted by camera-specific RAW variations going forward. Viewing/decoding them is the tricky part that will likely require the firmware updates.

mercphoto · February 26, 2010

chrisdg wrote:

So, like for other products (Adobe, etc) we'll just need to hope they continue to release timely updates to handle the new variations of RAW as they arise. The actual backup/storage aspect of these RAW files is they key and *shouldn't* be impacted by camera-specific RAW variations going forward.

That should be correct.

Viewing/decoding them is the tricky part that will likely require the firmware updates.

That should also be correct. And yet another reason why proprietary RAW formats are bad.

Rhuarc · February 26, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

That should be correct.

That should also be correct. And yet another reason why proprietary RAW formats are bad.

Just one more reason I'm sticking with my netbook for this job, even though it is a bit bigger than these devices.

chrisdg · February 26, 2010

Rhuarc wrote:

Just one more reason I'm sticking with my netbook for this job, even though it is a bit bigger than these devices.

But your netbook is subject to the same constraints as the hyperdrive device (or any similar device). Proprietary RAW formats require firmware and/or software updates for every downstream component in the workflow of getting images out of your new camera and into post-production. If the manufacturer of your new camera decides to implement some new variation of RAW, you will not be able to see, for example, the thumbnails of these images on the desktop of your netbook (roughly equivalent to viewing them on the hyperdrive) and your image-viewing/editing software of choice (Lightroom, Aperture, etc) will also require an update to support the RAW rendition coming from your new camera. This often takes weeks to many months (if ever for less popular cameras) for the new camera-raw types to be supported.

If (and it's a big IF) the standardized DNG file type becomes supported as a lossless in-camera file format option (in addition to JPEG and RAW), then we have theoretically eliminated the hassle of firmware/software updates that are required to view and/or edit any RAW format tweak that Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, etc decide to implement.

mercphoto · February 26, 2010

Rhuarc wrote:

Just one more reason I'm sticking with my netbook for this job, even though it is a bit bigger than these devices.

Understood, but I'm doing a track day tomorrow (cars). I'm putting an old Epson 2000 into my pocket to empty cards with. Hard to lug around a netbook for stuff like that. However, while on vacation in Hawaii I brought the PowerBook, not the Epson, to do the same chore. (well, it did other chores too

)

Rhuarc · February 26, 2010

chrisdg wrote:

But your netbook is subject to the same constraints as the hyperdrive device (or any similar device). Proprietary RAW formats require firmware and/or software updates for every component in the downstream workflow of the new camera. If the manufacturer of your new camera decides to implement some new variation of RAW, you will not be able to see the thumbnails of these images on the desktop of your netbook and your image-editing software of choice will likely require an update to support the RAW rendition coming from your new camera.

If (and it's a big IF) the DNG file type becomes supported as a lossless in-camera file format option (in addition to JPEG and RAW), then we start to eliminate the hassle of firmware/software updates that are required to view and/or edit any RAW format tweak that Canon, Sony, Panasonic, etc decide to implement.

Agreed, no argument there. With a photo storage device though u are reliant on the manufacturer of the device to provide an update to the device itself. With the netbook I have many different options for viewing images. Worst case scenario I can download the proprietary camera software and use it temporarily while I wait for my normal program, be it Lightroom or whatever, to update.

Either way you are right, we are all dependent on the camera makes proprietary file formats, until they get off their collective asses and make a standard!! (OR use the one Adobe is proposing in DNG)

Rhuarc · February 26, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

Understood, but I'm doing a track day tomorrow (cars). I'm putting an old Epson 2000 into my pocket to empty cards with. Hard to lug around a netbook for stuff like that. However, while on vacation in Hawaii I brought the PowerBook, not the Epson, to do the same chore. (well, it did other chores too )

Very true, pocketability is probably the single largest thing that the storage devices have over a netbook. In application where size and weight trump other factors that is the way to go!

chrisdg · February 26, 2010

Rhuarc wrote:

Agreed, no argument there. With a photo storage device though u are reliant on the manufacturer of the device to provide an update to the device itself. With the netbook I have many different options for viewing images. Worst case scenario I can download the proprietary camera software and use it temporarily while I wait for my normal program, be it Lightroom or whatever, to update.

Either way you are right, we are all dependent on the camera makes proprietary file formats, until they get off their collective asses and make a standard!! (OR use the one Adobe is proposing in DNG)

Ok, we are basically on the same page then.

With the photo storage device, actually VIEWING the images is just the cherry-on-top, and is not critical to the backup process. A new RAW file type shouldn't require a hyperdrive firmware update to simply store the file until you get home and download them to your computer. So, it's the same as your netbook in this regard. Both options are temporary backup storage anyway. This is where the ultra-portability, very LONG battery life, and very fast download speed of the hyperdrive really trumps the netbook option in the field and during travel. It really shines in this regard.... but then again, it can't check your email either.

(I use my iPhone for that)

mercphoto · February 26, 2010

chrisdg wrote:

This is where the ultra-portability, very LONG battery life, and very fast download speed of the hyperdrive really trumps the netbook option in the field and during travel. It really shines in this regard.... but then again, it can't check your email either. (I use my iPhone for that)

Will a HyperDrive fill up its hard drive on a single charge? That's my big complaint about my P2000, I can't even half-fill the hard disk before the battery gives up the ghost. That, and its really slow downloading cards.

I have to admit, my experiences with my P2000 have biased my view of portable storage devices in a negative manner that probably isn't fair to the newer devices.

dangin · February 26, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

Will a HyperDrive fill up its hard drive on a single charge? That's my big complaint about my P2000, I can't even half-fill the hard disk before the battery gives up the ghost. That, and its really slow downloading cards.

I have to admit, my experiences with my P2000 have biased my view of portable storage devices in a negative manner that probably isn't fair to the newer devices.

i've been able to backup over 50GB on my colorspace o and still have plenty of charge left in the battery. i just ordered the new colorspace album today. can't wait till it comes in!

chrisdg · February 26, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

Will a HyperDrive fill up its hard drive on a single charge? That's my big complaint about my P2000, I can't even half-fill the hard disk before the battery gives up the ghost. That, and its really slow downloading cards.

I have to admit, my experiences with my P2000 have biased my view of portable storage devices in a negative manner that probably isn't fair to the newer devices.

The HyperDrives come in many capacities, include the 640GB version (versus the 40GB in the P2000). 640GB goes a LONG way.

I had the P2000 before I bought the hyperdrive O. The P2000 was painfully slow in downloading and viewing images, and the battery life was relatively short - especially after a year or so of use. The hyperdrive beats it in every regard by a mile - except for display quality when viewing the image, which hyperdrive just closed the gap on with their new "Album" version.

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-Memory-Card-Backup-Device-s/119.htm

carmel6942 · February 28, 2010

mercphoto wrote:

Will a HyperDrive fill up its hard drive on a single charge? That's my big complaint about my P2000, I can't even half-fill the hard disk before the battery gives up the ghost. That, and its really slow downloading cards.

Here is the information from their website.

Power
- Long battery life. Backup 200GB of photos on a single battery.
- Unlimited SATA HDD capacity (120~640GB & beyond)

something else I notice while reading about it is that you can change the HDD with any 2.5 sata drive.

Also from their site.

Support any 2.5” SATA interface hard disk (80GB-640GB)

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) monitors internal hard disk for potential problems.

Multiple hard disk partition format support.

I wasn't in the market for one of these but after reading this thread I am really considering one.

Photo Storage device

Comments