Which hyperdrive do you use?

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I'm thinking of investing in a hyperdrive (an external battery powered hard drive with a CF card reader). Do you have one? Do you like it? Which model do you have? If you have the iPad version, does is work with the most recent iOS? I heard that many people now have problems with card readers for the camera kit for the iPad after they updated to the most recent iOS. </p>

<p>Any thoughts on this are much appreciated.</p>

<p>-Vail</p>

<p>You should do a survey.</p>

<p>I have a Hyperdrive 360 Gig drive that is never used. I bring a laptop with me and back the images up there instead.</p>

<p>I keep the Hyperdrive on a shelf in case I go on an extended trip and may have a need for it. But as for weddings, it never comes with me.</p>

<p>Very funny Bruce. Manuel, why not bring it to weddings? Do you use your laptop for same day slideshows? Otherwise I don't see why you would bring that with you when you own a hyperdrive.</p>

<p>Bruce: I see what you did there.</p>

<p>Vail, is the point simply to have an immediate backup? I've thought about this a few times, but I don't see sufficient value to warrant spending money on this rather than other equipment.</p>

<p>If my CF card fails, it will be in camera or when I'm transferring files, so doing the transfer sooner (i.e., on site) has no positive effect compared to doing it when I get back. If someone steals my gear bag with the cards in it, the drive would go right along for the ride (where else would I keep it?). And hard drive is considerably more fragile than a CF card, so impact damage sufficient to destroy the CF card would probably also deal the deathblow to a hyperdrive.</p>

<p>So, what risk are you mitigating with a drive like this, and what is the likelihood of that (or those) circumstance(s) occurring without also taking out the hyperdrive?</p>

Vail, we do NOT do slide shows on the day of the wedding. I use the laptop over the HyperDrive because a laptop is

so much more than a HyperDrive. Frankly, I'm pissed at myself for even wasting money on the HyperDrive.

<p>I have a 60 gig Wolverine MVP. I used to use it to back up in the field, and it worked well. I had it on my belt. I verified with the outfit that it could take being on my belt while backing up the cards. I don't take it in the field anymore because I got less nervous about card/file security, and it is one more thing to think about and possibly screw up.</p>

<p>I still use it as a second back up of the cards after I get home. The reason I do this is because the unit copies the entire card as is--so you can't skip files, like you might when writing the files from the card to the computer.</p>

<p>At one point I was copying files to the drive and then using those files when I got around to processing. I had a couple of corrupted files and couldn't recover them. I had the unit fixed, but I now don't rely on the files from the drive. I just use it as an extra security blanket. It has been completely fine up to this point.</p>

<p>For anyone who has seen my site, it is obvious that I travel alot! And most of the times, I'm away for weeks and weeks at a time, sometimes shooting as many as 1,500 images per week (and, on special occasions, even more). So, this question has troubled me for some time and I have, as a result, researched pretty much all the solutions out there. I am still without such a drive for the following reasons:</p>

<p>1. The cost is disproportionate, at least when compared to purchasing the same amount of space in CF cards, and therefore, in terms of sheer investment, it is not a good one. At least not yet.</p>

<p>2. The viewing screens on those things (I'm only mentioning them because the account for 1/3 of the unit's cost) are about the same size and the screen on my D3s and so offer no concrete advantage apart from sucking up more battery power.</p>

<p>3. Their weight is also disproportionate to the storage they offer, especially when compared with the same storage in CF cards, yet another critical issue when travelling and moving from one hotel to another every two days.</p>

<p>4. They require yet another power supply adapter, more cables and, in effect, yet another item to have to locate a plug for when travelling in places such as India and Africa.</p>

<p>5. (this has been mentioned already) They are more fragile than the CF cards and usually the guarantee is much, much less for failure (and let me tell you, failure of such electronic devices is high in such high risk environments).</p>

<p>6. I would not risk erasing my cards AFTER transfering to these drives simply because the risk of losing valuable images is too much. A card may fail and I will lose 300 images. The drive fails and I lose much, much more. And it is highly unlikely that ALL my CF cards will fail.</p>

<p>For all the above reasons, I still trust my cards, I renew them every couple of years, take care of them and so far they have not let me down. I'm sure there are benefits in having one of those, but I have not been able to find sufficient ones to make me fork out $300-400 for one. For studio (and commercial location) work, I use a laptop with an external drive.</p>

<p>I also wasted some money on one of those. In some ways they were valid back when CFs topped out at 1 gig, were more prone to failure, and cost an arm-and-a-leg (not that long ago actually).</p>

<p>Now, they are to slow for a separate step in the process at a wedding ... unless used like Nadine mentioned ... and even then you have to really pay attention to what you were doing to avoid user errors.</p>

<p>Interestingly, for my MF camera, I have a separate Hasselblad Image Bank-II that parallel stores 100 gigs of images written to the in-camera CF cards. It uses common Sony L video-cam batteries, and is small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. It connects to the camera with a FW800 cord and is very fast at storing the huge MF digital files. I do not know if anything like that exists for 35mm DSLRs. </p>

<p>If one is paranoid about redundancy, use one of the dual card cameras ... once the domaine of big Pro DSLRs, I believe there are some Pro-Sumer cameras that offer this ... at least the Nikon D300s does. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm thinking about it for when I have a 2nd shooter, and I want them to be able to use their own CF cards, but have me transfer the images before they leave that night. That way I don't have to burn multiple DVDs for me to send them in the mail afterwards for them to have the RAW images for their portfolio, etc.</p>

<p>I have a 60GB and came to the same conclusion as many here; it's just not worth dragging around.</p>

<p>Have any of you started using the iPad for a similar type function? I'm concerned with the new iOS that I would have to use the usb cord to my camera rather than a card reader due to the new power restraints apple has put on external devices. (I don't have an iPad yet, but am considering getting one).</p>

<p>I have one of the first versions I think. It takes the CF card and ingests the images and then verifies that the images on the unit is the same as on the CF card.</p>

<p>I bought it because I though I would do backup in the field but I came to the conclusion that it was too risky and too much to manage on the run. However I've used it to transfer a bunch of card to the unit at the end of the day for instance while driving home.</p>

<p>I think it would actually work great for you needs. At the end of the day you just ingest all your 2nd shooters cards and you know you have them since it verifies your transfer. When you get home you just plug it in and transfer all the images to your computer in one go.</p>

<p>If there are different models I would get the cheapest one large enough for your needs and with the smallest display.</p>

<p>Sometimes, a long time ago, I used to put my car in hyperdrive but the police didn't like that. It was difficult because I had a VW Bug back then.</p>

<p>I must confess to you that I have never used a hyperdrive. My recommendation, get more CF cards and use those. I make 500 maybe 800 pics at a wedding and my associate photographer makes 250 to 350 images. We each used about two CF cards each. On my Canon 1D's I have a 16 gig card, the camera has two slots, and it will last an entire wedding. That's my backup but I have never had to use it.<br /> Have a successful 2011.</p>

<p>Vail - <br>

You should always provide the CF/SD cards for your second shooter. That way you can control the transfer from card to computer in a controlled environment; the refreshing of cards (making sure they are current, not corrupt, and ready for your second shooter to format them in camera on the day of the event); and you don't have to risk mailing them back to your second.</p>

<p>If your second shooter is getting copies of the original RAW files then mailing a few DVDs gives me much more piece of mind then letting a second use their own cards and transferring them to an "temporary storage device" before moving them to your computer for editing and backup. It's just one more step that can be avoided between shoot and edit. And it's one that I would keep out of my workflow due to the higher probability of corruption/damage/loss of files then personally controlling all of the cards for the day.</p>

<p>RS </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I use dual card slot cameras (Nikon D3, etc) and set them to write to both cards.</p>

<p>Haven't touched an "image bank" type backup in years.</p>

<p>I use an Epson P-7000. I do not know how I ever got by before without it!</p>

<p>I would follow the advice above<br>

1. provide the CF cards for the 2nd shooter and<br>

2, Backup to a laptop as time allows.<br>

Why mess with an iPod/something you arent familiar with in the heat of battle?<br>

I have an EPSON P3000 but you can buy a cheap laptop for about the same $$ that will run the software you want ( I want an iPad2 also, but not practical for this stuff)</p>

<p>I bought a card reader for my iPod several years ago, that was a total waste of money. Even with 8 MP JPG files it was dreadfully slow, I shudder to think how it would have responded to 22MP Raw images. As many of the others have said, I've considered one, but determined it doesn't really fit into my workflow. If I'm doing a wedding more than an hour away from home, I will have my assistant start downloading cards to my laptop on the drive home. </p>

i have a wife that runs on hyperdrive. Does this help?