? for you dSLR users...

Bada Gora · May 29, 2005

Has anybody used one of those portable hard drives that copies the images directly from your media card onto a hard drive?

I am wondering if it would be cheaper to buy a portable hard drive or just buy quite a few memory cards... I am going to India this summer and would really like to avoid bringing a laptop if at all possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Brandon

Artemis · May 30, 2005

Hey, yeh my Dads got one and its amazing...it also holds music, and short video clips if you can find the right file type.

Lets see, youll need a lot of memory cards....2...3? each being 1 gig...so thats about...for good ones....£300 - 350, and more in dollars...when you can get a nice 40gb hard drive thing for that much...leave it in the hotel, although I wouldnt advise that, and it also means you dont have to fumbal about with memory cards...I have two 1 gig cards and its cost me about £200, which with an extra £60 I could pick up a nice hdd.

Hope this helped

any more questions please ask!

SonicAdvDX · May 30, 2005

Yeah, I have one of those myself; got it just recently, as a matter of fact. I'm not up to the exchange rate from USD to Leros, (That's what they're called, right..?) but, mine cost very little... About $10, actually, but it is an older sort.

hobbes28 · May 30, 2005

It's cheaper to get one of those portable HDDs as long as you don't want tons of cool options on it like a huge LCD and stuff. They have some generic ones for around the same price of two 1GB cards. There are also portable CD burners that work the same way except you burn all your images to a CD. The good thing about that is that you can buy CDs most anywhere so you don't have to worry about running out of space.

SonicAdvDX · May 30, 2005

hobbes28 said:
It's cheaper to get one of those portable HDDs as long as you don't want tons of cool options on it like a huge LCD and stuff.

Agreed. My dad has quite a few of those, just like you described. Hardly cost more than dirt... But, dirt is actually expensive, when you think about it... <_<;;;

Artemis · May 30, 2005

Do these cheap portable hdds transfer from a memory card? I dont need a display, but something that is cheap and jst can copy from a compact flash would be cool...

SonicAdvDX · May 30, 2005

Yeah, they transfer from memory cards. I have a few that go directly into a camera, or do a number of things, but most can read cards.

Artemis · May 30, 2005

Ohh wow...now im interested...how much are they?

SonicAdvDX · May 30, 2005

Not really sure. They range from about $25 - $350... I don't know that translation to Euros, though...

Artemis · May 30, 2005

you have to transfer to sterling for me, im british

SonicAdvDX · May 30, 2005

Don't know what the Sterlings are either. ^_^; Sorry. I think there's a website for that... But, I can't seem to find it...

suryad · May 30, 2005

Err I found one from smartdisk called fotochute...and you can find them in 2 versions. One has a small lcd and the other one does not. I think the cheaper version is 20 gigs @ $189 US and the expensive version is same size but @ $249 US. http://www.smartdisk.com/eWeb/smartdiskus/www/staticpages/FotoChute.asp

Bada Gora · May 30, 2005

So far, I'm looking at the Smartdisk FCD20. This model does not read from a memory card but connects directly to the camera via USB cable. It costs around 214 USD@ computerbrain.com. It might not be the LCD version though.