External Hard Drive (Backup)


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leechungfatt

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Jul 11, 2007
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Hi all, recently just found that Harvey Norman selling an 'Avation' external hard drive (160GB) with card reader which special design for backup file (CF card) without connect to PC at SGD 189.00. Can any senior give advice on this? is it worth to buy if compare with buying several memory cards for shooting when travel to oversea?
 

You will need to find out how fast the data transfer is. A lot of these device has a very slow transfer rate so it will take a long time to backup 4GB/8GB memory cards. The other thing about these devices are the battery time. Of course, the fastest the transfer rate, the less time you need to turn on the device and therefore will last longer.

Nexto is one of the fastest portable storage. http://www.eastgear.com/shop/index.php?cPath=17
Hyperdrive Colordrive's is also comparable to Nexto. http://www.hyperdrive.com/ (I understand MemoryWorld carries this model)
 

there are many such portable devices out there

like cs tan has mentioned, transfer speed versus battery life is important - if where you are going has a lot of power points i won't worry too much about that though..
but if say, you don't have ready access to charging facilities, then the number of transfers you can make is probably more important than speed, since from my practice i usually only transfer at the end of the day

another thing to note is if you wish to be able to preview your photographs.. for the price described above i think that particular model will not have a display, if it does i would be very surpirsed

if you plan to use it for a long long time, maybe you can check out the hard disk being used inside, and whether it is easily replaceable.

some other brands which offer this viewing feature are vosonic (what i use).. creative also has, canon and epson.. arranged more or less in terms of pricing. :bsmilie:
 

Thanks for the replied. I have check the link and done some surveys, the price really out of my budget. The cheapest price close to 350 bucks. I think i better get more memory card instead of external hard drive.
 

Actually if you think about it, getting alot of memory card is more expensive than shelling out for an equivalent harddisk unit ( talking in terms of price / space ). And is quite a number to handle.

Some of the units such as Nexto and Hyperdrive that lack the lcd viewer perform scans post transfer to ensure byte by byte file integrity. The other brands cited offer image viewing.

I am pretty impressed by the long battery life of my Nexto unit, and the transfer speed is remarkable. Hyperdrive is another renowed brand.

Ryan
 

Thanks for the replied. I have check the link and done some surveys, the price really out of my budget. The cheapest price close to 350 bucks. I think i better get more memory card instead of external hard drive.
The one thing you might have overlook with buying more memory cards is that you will still have one copy of the image when you transfer the images to the portable device and then delete the photos from the memory cards.

The way I do backup is to have enough memory cards for the trip (if you are traveling overseas) and backup the photos to a portable storage but still keep the images in the memory cards. This way you have two copies.
 

Actually if you think about it, getting alot of memory card is more expensive than shelling out for an equivalent harddisk unit ( talking in terms of price / space ). And is quite a number to handle.

Some of the units such as Nexto and Hyperdrive that lack the lcd viewer perform scans post transfer to ensure byte by byte file integrity. The other brands cited offer image viewing.

I am pretty impressed by the long battery life of my Nexto unit, and the transfer speed is remarkable. Hyperdrive is another renowed brand.

Ryan
Hyperdrive (or Compact Drive) depends on where you buy the unit, has two current models that have LCD image viewing. The Hyperdrive Colorspace has a 2.2" LCD and the latest Colorspace 'O' has a 3.2" LCD screen. You can view the files as it is transfer from the memory card to the device. One thing to note on the hardware verification function, for RAW, the viewer is only looking at the embedded JPEG and not the whole RAW file (it will take too long to open up a RAW file with the processor they have on the device). For normal JPEG files, the hardware verification is pretty safe and reassuring to the users.
 

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