Just a quick info for those searching for a nice portable storage device for their photos.
After purchasing our *istD we looked for something that would allow us to store our images on while being on assignment. After doing some searching we found the X-drive. we got the X-Drive . I believe that now they also have a newer model X-Drive Pro VP300. Nice toy!
I'll second that. I'm using a 40 gig X-Drive II (which, I think, is actually named X's Drive II) and it works great. 40 gigs should be at least 2800 raw files (probably more as I seem to get ~75 RAW files on a 1 gig card.)
I took it out in the field and used it extensively out in my garage while photographing snow flakes this week. It's worked flawlessly, even in 10F temps.
The only drawbacks - while the USB 2.0 is really fast when dumping the drive to the PC, it takes just over 15 minutes to transfer a 1 gig card to the X-Drive II from the slot. I just use another card while one is transferring, but you have to have at least 2 cards. (I have the 1 gig card and 2 256 meg ones, and so far have not gotten jammed up waiting for the X Drive.)
Also, the batter charge lasts about 1.5 hours. At 15 minutes per gig of transfer, that works out to only ~6 gigs that you can transfer on one charge. The car adapter is cheap, though I can see potentially running out of disk space while out in the field.
Otherwise it is great device - I can see using this and only this on a vacation to hold images. I got mine at
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=x%27s+drive+II
- MCC -----
Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
http://www.markcassino.com
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