Stand Alone Data Storage

[gerry297]

I've posted about using an Ipod for photo storage, but have decided against that

due to tranfer time & battery charging issues. I have also decided against a

storage unit with a viewer as they are simply too expensive. I see that there

are several units that offer the storage without the viewer. Does anyone have

experience with these units i.e. digital foci, Jobo, Wolverine etc. and are they

compatible with raw files?

[bob_flood1]

I have a stand-alone CD burner made by Alera Technologies. It's a 110-v, 60 cycle device, no battery power. It has slots for various cards in the front and works very nicely. (For size, imagine a portable CD player that's 1.5 inches thick and has an AC adapter.) Given the standardization of the CD-ROM format, it's reliable as a brick. I've only had one bad CD come out of it in three years of use, and that was due to operator malfunction.

 

It allows swapping CDs as each disk fills and swapping cards as copying is completed - very nice. CDs are available pretty much everywhere, so spares or additional supplies should be available for purchase as you travel. Duplicate storage would require copying from the cards twice, which is inconvenient, but do-able.

 

Important limitation: my copy predates SDHC, and the Alera model I have will handle SD cards up to 2 GB, but not larger. I would expect current models to not have this limitation, but if you are interested in a CD burner, be sure to ask about limits on the memory capacity of cards it will use.

 

BTW, I've prefered CDs over DVDs because of the lack of format standardization among DVD hardware and software. If you don't find this to be an issue, obviously a DVD burner would have advantages over a CD burner.

 

Not matter what, buy good CDs or DVDs - if you care about your photos, don't go bargain hunting for storage disks. If you plan to use DVDs, be sure to buy cases made for DVDs (not CDs) - they are different. DVDs are much less flexible than CDs (and need to be), and removing a DVD from a CD case can cause the disk to flex too much and potentially damage the data-carrying surface.

[vivid_earth_photographics]

A search of "wolverine" on this site will turn up many prior posts on this. Bottom line: Wolverines work fine--they are a portable hard drive and will store whatever a hard drive stores. RAW is just another file for it. You'll need to recharge fairly often though.

[keith_leonin]

I use a Hyperdrive HD-80 -- it's fast, uses AA batteries and ordinary laptop drives (buy it without an HD, and look for a bargain laptop HD).

 

It's still available through resellers (like B&H), but not directly from the manufacturer -- they're pushing their latest version, which has a viewer -- BTW, the new version (with the viewer) is not expensive (compare to others) -- it's $149 w/o an HD.

 

Google Sanho Hyperdrive Colorspace.

[patrick_p]

I have a wolverine and can give you some pros and cons. I've used it on 2 trips so far, a 2 week trip to Southwest USA and a 3 weeks trip in Northern India.

 

The big pro is that it has not failed yet. I've copied over 4k photos jpeg and raws with no problems. The bad things are these.

 

- Battery life is short. I get 2 x 4GB cards before I need to recharge.

 

- It doesn't give you any information about what is on the hard drive. You need to plug it into a computer to see what is actually saved. This is a real pain in the neck because it means you have to trust that things were copied without problem.

 

- It is far bigger than what I thought! I don't understand how Apple can make an 80GB iPod so small that has so much functionality but this thing is so large and all it does is copy.

[stevepamp]

I second Keith's HD80 recommendation -- screaming fast data transfer and great battery life (with good rechargeable AAs). Plus you can use "regular" AA's in a pinch. It has served me well on my travels throughout the world.<br>I replaced an older Wolverine with it -- my main issues with the Wolverine were slow slow slow data transfer (both from the card and to the computer -- USB1) and I had difficulty getting it to reliably connect to my PC. Also, the internal rechargeable battery was terrible. I needed a solution for extended backpacking trips where I wouldn't be able to recharge for a while, and the HD80's battery life is phenomenal. I haven't seen or heard anything about their new one, but I highly recommend the HD80.<p>Steve