Portable Storage

gubbs · March 16, 2005

With my trip to the US looming fast, I need to sort a method of downloading my cf cards and storing the images.
I did have an apacer steno 100 cd writer which worked well & was easy to use but I sold it a few months ago as it wasn't capable of "spanning" across cds. If I had over 700mb on my cards it was a real PITA.

I was very tempted to buy something like a Transcend USB photobank which is small, good value and sounds simple to use. I just have this niggling doubt about the reliability of portable HD's & having all my eggs in one basket. Plus of course there is the possiblity I'll fill it up!

I'm now thinking about a Delkin DVD burnaway a little more expensive, & if you consider that I put all my pics onto dvd's anyway, its no more hassle or on cost (unless, of course I burn 2 copies

).

I'd be interested to hear opinions :ear

Cheers

Nir · March 16, 2005

Gubbs,

I've been using the XDrive-II without any hitches. Took it with me on two 'ocean crossings' as well. Treated it like a basket of eggs and it didn't let me down. There are newer models now with screens to view downloaded images to make sure they transferred well.

wxwax · March 16, 2005

Gubbs, sounds like it only burns to CD. Is that right?

This sucker's expensive but has been getting excellent reviews.

gubbs · March 16, 2005

wxwax wrote:

Gubbs, sounds like it only burns to CD. Is that right?

This sucker's expensive but has been getting excellent reviews.

Sorry Sid, they do a DVD burnaway too but they haven't put up a full spec page yet but this is the thing I'm on about. (I changed the above link too)

The epson is cool but I'm not bothered about being able to review the pictures, so it seems ott for my purposes

Cheers

wxwax · March 16, 2005

gubbs wrote:

Sorry Sid, they do a DVD burnaway too but they haven't put up a full spec page yet but this is the thing I'm on about. (I changed the above link too)

The epson is cool but I'm not bothered about being able to review the pictures, so it seems ott for my purposes

Cheers

Sounds great. Google doesn't seem to be working this morning, so I'm having trouble researching it. Why are the prices in Pounds instead of Euros?

I did find this brief review - that sucker looks kinda big in the hands of the model.

gubbs · March 16, 2005

wxwax wrote:

Sounds great. Google doesn't seem to be working this morning, so I'm having trouble researching it. Why are the prices in Pounds instead of Euros?

I did find this brief review - that sucker looks kinda big in the hands of the model.

What are euros, we've held onto the quid for the time being

It's 170x138 mm (6.75"x5.5") pretty big compared to the HD based systems but no too bad to carry around

pathfinder · March 16, 2005

gubbs wrote:

With my trip to the US looming fast, I need to sort a method of downloading my cf cards and storing the images.
I did have an apacer steno 100 cd writer which worked well & was easy to use but I sold it a few months ago as it wasn't capable of "spanning" across cds. If I had over 700mb on my cards it was a real PITA.

I was very tempted to buy something like a Transcend USB photobank which is small, good value and sounds simple to use. I just have this niggling doubt about the reliability of portable HD's & having all my eggs in one basket. Plus of course there is the possiblity I'll fill it up!

I'm now thinking about a Delkin DVD burnaway a little more expensive, & if you consider that I put all my pics onto dvd's anyway, its no more hassle or on cost (unless, of course I burn 2 copies ).

I'd be interested to hear opinions

Cheers

Guggs, I used my laptop hard drive to store one copy and burn another copy to a DVD disk with my laptop. ( A cheap used laptop would work for this purpose, it doesn't need to be the latest or greatest.)

That lets me store the contents of a 4 Gb MD on one DVD with second copy on the hard drive of my laptop until I get home.
But burning a couple of DVDs every evening is tedious and time consuming. I have better things to do in my evenings. And I don't really trust fragile DVDs much anyway, allthough those from my PowerBook have always been readable.

What I plan to do for Yosemite, is to puchase an external USB2 based 3.5 in small form factor portable hard drive - LaCie, Delkin, whoever.
These now come in 50-100Gb ( 80 is a typical size) and run about the same price more or less than the portable CDR/DVD burners. This external drive plus the copy of the file on the HD of my PowerBook gives me a nice warm feeling of redundancy - two independent copies. And they will copy the files in 1/10th the time it takes to burn DVDs. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!:D

ridetwistyroads · March 16, 2005

That's exactly what I do pathfinder. I use my LT's hardrive for normall access, I burn a DVD to hide somewhere, and use and external 120gb for backup. ALL it ever does is store photos, and it is unplugged from the world (power surge scared.) when not in use. The only time it's used is to transfer images for backup. (the hd, not the laptop)

Best I can figure, with my logic. Problem is, these are all "temp" solutions, technically speaking. I know optical media has longevity issues, and HD's have a lifespan of their own. So, in some ways prints are still the only loooong term archival solution. I talked in length to another photo buddy a week ago about all this, and neither of us came up with any other ideas. I mean, look at where 5 years has brought us with computers and the media they use. In 10 years, we might use 100% solid state storage (ram, basiclly) for mass storage, what then? Will DVD's last long enough to convert them to the "next greatest thing?" What will that be?

Thus is the challange: True Archival.

pathfinder · March 16, 2005

ridetwistyroads wrote:

That's exactly what I do pathfinder. I use my LT's hardrive for normall access, I burn a DVD to hide somewhere, and use and external 120gb for backup. ALL it ever does is store photos, and it is unplugged from the world (power surge scared.) when not in use. The only time it's used is to transfer images for backup. (the hd, not the laptop)

Best I can figure, with my logic. Problem is, these are all "temp" solutions, technically speaking. I know optical media has longevity issues, and HD's have a lifespan of their own. So, in some ways prints are still the only loooong term archival solution. I talked in length to another photo buddy a week ago about all this, and neither of us came up with any other ideas. I mean, look at where 5 years has brought us with computers and the media they use. In 10 years, we might use 100% solid state storage (ram, basiclly) for mass storage, what then? Will DVD's last long enough to convert them to the "next greatest thing?" What will that be?

I think Raid 5 is where we we ultimately be going. Three or more hard drives that back each other up and are hot swappable. Now lightning and fire will be the major risks - just like they are for prints or anthing else we own. Lightning and fire are one of the reasons why I store images on smugmug also - so I have offsite storage. It only takes the loss of one 160Gb drive full of family images to convince you that smugmug is a helluva deal!! I will never depend entirely on home storage - you don't store all your dcash at home, why store all your precious date at home either?

Read about Raid 5 here http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/readynas600.shtml

binghott · March 17, 2005

i was considering making my own thread, but since this one was related i figured i might as well use it. i have a digital rebel and a 1gb high speed card, but there are some times when i need more space. should i buy another 1gb card or buy some sort of portable hard drive player with a compact flash slot like the archos gmini 400. another memory card is more reliable, but having a player like that would let me carry around every single picture i've ever taken plus music and videos.

any suggestions would be great.

-barry

wxwax · March 17, 2005

Barry, I carry around a wallet with a 2GB card, four 1GB cards and a few smaller ones, if that's any help. CF memory is so inexpensive, that if all you need is more "film" for a day's worth or a trip's worth of shooting, I'd just get more CF cards. I'm waiting for the price of a 4GB card to come down.

Portable Storage

Comments