Digital Storage Device - quick advice needed please

stick35

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OK - I have some money burning a hole in my pocket...

I'm looking at the various digital storage devices out there. There are many different kinds that use "little" hard drives (20, 30, 40, 60 and 80GB), and one that I found that writes to a CD. They all have slots that allow you to insert a CF and/or SD card (and others too).

I was all geared up to get one of the hard-drive types, but then I talked to a guy at the local camera shop and he said that he used to offer the hard-drive types but they had all kinds of trouble with them, so they now only offer the Apacer CP200 (the one that writes to a CD). The good thing about that is that once you get the pictures onto a CD, the device can totally crash and you still have your pictures. If I use a hard-drive device and copy 10,000 pictures to it and it crashes before I can offload them to my PC, then I lose everything.

The hard-drive types are a little more compact and they are cheaper to use (because you don't have to use a CD everytime you copy a load of photos off of your memory card).

So, basically I am asking: Does anyone have input on how reliable the hard-drive devices are?

Sorry for the long post. By the way - I would be wanting to use this device outside for the most part (on vacation).
 
It is really tough to gauge the reliability of a hard drive based device. They are going to be much more likely to fail, as well as be more fragile when it comes to travelling than non-hard drive type devices.

Should it be a huge concern? Probably not. I wouldn't want to use a device like that for long-term storage, but as an option while travelling, I don't think you'd be likely to have any problems with it.

Last note: Considering the price I have seen quite a few of these things going for, have you considered purchasing a low-end laptop instead? Just a thought...
 
I went the CD burner route, though I got a RoadStor. It was cheaper than the hard drive based units, and more versatile. It'll play music CDs, DVD movies, and can display your pics (jpegs) on the TV as well.

I lugged it around with me in Hawaii. It was nice being able to remove a CF card and burn a CD while I was trooping around. Mine will burn at least 2 CDs on a charge. Didn't try to do three. It comes with house and car chargers.

All-in-all I'm happy with it, but it is a bit slow. It takes about 20 minutes to burn from a 512 Mb CF card.

YMMV

**edit tpyo**
 

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