Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
At 11:16 AM 1/8/2004 +1030, mapson wrote: 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 -
Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
This nifty gizmo just showed up on DP Review yesterday: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04010501epsonp1000.asp -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
This nifty gizmo just showed up on DP Review yesterday: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04010501epsonp1000.asp Sweet. Put a 40GB drive in it, and .PEF support, and I'd be seriously tempted. But 10GB is definitely on the small size. Mind you, I'm not interested in direct connection to an Epson printer, so I expect somebody else will match the display quality in a cheaper, higher-capacity unit.
Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
John Francis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This nifty gizmo just showed up on DP Review yesterday: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04010501epsonp1000.asp Sweet. Put a 40GB drive in it, and .PEF support, and I'd be seriously tempted. I'll bet both are coming. But 10GB is definitely on the small size. I think it's enough for a day's shooting for most people; a dump onto a laptop PC would follow. Mind you, I'm not interested in direct connection to an Epson printer, so I expect somebody else will match the display quality in a cheaper, higher-capacity unit. There will certainly be competitors, but I expect everyone will offer direct printing as it probably adds *very* little (if anything) to the cost. -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
John Francis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This nifty gizmo just showed up on DP Review yesterday: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04010501epsonp1000.asp Sweet. Put a 40GB drive in it, and .PEF support, and I'd be seriously tempted. I'll bet both are coming. But 10GB is definitely on the small size. I think it's enough for a day's shooting for most people; a dump onto a laptop PC would follow. I want something large enough so that I've got multiple copies of the image until I've burned it off onto CD or DVD - I really, *really* try to avoid a single point of failure at any time. (For example, I don't re-use a compact flash card or microdrive until I've copied the image files to both the portable drive and to my laptop). Even after dumping to the laptop I'll keep images on the portable hard drive for a while until I've had time to sit down and make the backups onto more permanent media. That's a great deal easier now I have a notebook with a CD burner. I actually bought an Archos 20GB USB hard drive some years ago for just that purpose, even though in those days I only had a 3MP digital camera. I no longer use it because it doesn't work well with XP, and because the battery charging circuit has died. But the nice thing about a 20GB drive was that I'd enough space for images, and could still use 5-10 GB for MP3 audio files so I had something to listen to on the road. When I get a replacement (with a viewing screen, and a direct CF reader - both functions the Archos didn't offer) I'll look for a unit with enough space to have room for audio, too.
Re: Laptop, portable burners and others.
On 8 Jan 2004 at 11:16, mapson wrote: Just a quick info for those searching for a nice portable storage device for their photos. So far the unit has worked without a single glitch. We are quite happy to have decided against a laptop. Not only is this one much more affordable, but also not so bulky and really simple to use. Highly recommend it! This is good to hear, I have been looking at purchasing the bare shell and adding an 80GB/4200RPM drive. A lap-top is a completely different device to the X-Drive, my requirement is for a small bulk storage device that I can pop in my back-pack whilst hiking. A lap top is just something else to be worried about in the car. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
