portable storage

[ssra30]

Unless iPod seriously upgraded their batteries in the current model, I would personally avoid it. The older version, the battery would not last long enough to download a full 4GB card (and it would take forever as well) so it is definitely not ideal unless you are on a liveaboard or do land base diving and have enough memory cards to last until you get back to shore. I bought an older 40GB iPod a couple of years ago for exactly this purpose but found that it is not very usable. The optional AA batteries pack helps a bit but still annoying.

 

[lairdb]

I have a FlashTrax FTX30, like-new-in-box-with-all (and a card adapter and a spare battery) -- I liked it a lot, and it met exactly your expressed needs perfectly for me. (Plus it was a handy music player (including surprisingly decent speaker) for travel.)

The only reason I'm not suing it is that I was recently issued a new very tiny and light laptop that I take instead; I'm willing to sell my FTX30. Any interest?

 

[ScubaLuke]

Unless iPod seriously upgraded their batteries in the current model, I would personally avoid it. The older version, the battery would not last long enough to download a full 4GB card (and it would take forever as well) so it is definitely not ideal unless you are on a liveaboard or do land base diving and have enough memory cards to last until you get back to shore. I bought an older 40GB iPod a couple of years ago for exactly this purpose but found that it is not very usable. The optional AA batteries pack helps a bit but still annoying.

The newer ones seem to be working OK. I've got a 60GB I bought back in April. I think Apple says "up to" 20 hours of battery life. I'd guess I get around 10-15.

I bought the thing to use on trips for photo backups for those times when I didn't want to take my laptop. But I've ended up using it almost everyday to listen to music. I put all of my CDs on it and still had almost 40GB to spare.

Technology is good.
Luke

 

[ssra30]

The newer ones seem to be working OK. I've got a 60GB I bought back in April. I think Apple says "up to" 20 hours of battery life. I'd guess I get around 10-15.

I bought the thing to use on trips for photo backups for those times when I didn't want to take my laptop. But I've ended up using it almost everyday to listen to music. I put all of my CDs on it and still had almost 40GB to spare.

Technology is good.
Luke

Thanks for the information. That's encouraging.
My iPOD battery on last about 3-4 hours for music, not even long enough on some flight that I took without the optional battery pack and much less for downloading stuffs. Any idea how fast does it take to download say a full 1-2GB card?

 

[ScubaLuke]

Any idea how fast does it take to download say a full 1-2GB card?

Good question. I'll go fill up a card and see how long it takes to download and report back.
Luke

 

[ScubaLuke]

Thanks for the information. That's encouraging.
Any idea how fast does it take to download say a full 1-2GB card?

It looks like the transfer speed is around 3.8 megabits/s. So it would take about 35 minutes to transfer a whole 1GB card.

I had 37 photos shot in raw mode (D100 raw mode. ScubaLuke was fully clothed) taking up 166BM on a SanDisk card. It took the iPod 349s to copy them in. I used a USB 1.0 SanDisk reader but I don't think USB speed was the limiting factor. The same files copied to the PC in 189s.

Also I found this article on iPod Lounge:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/comments/apple-ipod-camera-connector-ipod/
They got about the same transfer speeds. They also brought up some battery life issues. If you're using a card reader instead of the camera like I did, you'll drain the iPod's battery faster than if you just had it hooked to the camera.

Another note, you can't view photos shot in Nikon's raw mode on the iPod.
Luke

 

[Dee]

After just returning from a trip I'm seriously considering one of these small storage units. I'm still narrowing down my choices, (Thanks, you've all been very helpful) but I keep coming back to 2 questions.

1) My laptop and PC are older and only have 1.0 USB ports. All of the units I've looked at at 2.0. Can I still use them?

2) Can I copy RAW files to them? I seriously doubt I'd be able to view RAW files but it's more important to be able to store them.

Whatever I get may never totally replace the laptop but will definately be used to transfer files from laptop to PC. I have a Maxtor 120g external hard drive but it's too large to travel with and it took almost 2 hours to download my Raw folder. That's probably due to the 1.0 USB speed.

Any ideas?

 

[JamesD]

Dee,

My two cents.

1. Yes, USB 2.0 is fully backwards compatible with USB 1.0, all that will happen is that it won't be able to fully utilize the speed of USB 2.0 (eg, when you transfer off the device it will be slower).

2. I would assume that any of these devices that's worth it's salt can store any file, and should have no problems storing RAW files vs JPGs or TIFFs. Since you state you aren't THAT concerned about viewing the pictures while on the go, I'd recommend one of the ones without LCD (cheaper).

You can also get USB 2.0 for your desktop fairly easily (example : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815153001) which would make the copy time MUCH faster.

 

[Dee]

Thanks, I was hoping that's what someone would say! I'm learning all this computer stuff....slowly.

 

[ssra30]

Dee, depending on your requirements, there are a few options. If you want to be able to view the pictures, I think the Epson unit is probably the best out there. Epson does support many RAW file types. Not sure about ORF but it will definitely display NEF (nikon raw file). I went the non displaying unit route (cheaper, faster and bigger HD capacity) and really like the Nexto unit that I mentioned although I heard that it is hard to get one in the US but I would highly recommend one.
Scubaluke, thanks for the update on download speed of the iPOD. Unfortunately that is a bit too slow, at least for me since I usually use 4 GB card as my D2X RAW file is about 20 mb a picture so I definitely neesds something a bit faster than that for downloading