"On the road" image storage solution for $30.

[Charade]

Many people have asked how to store their images until they get home from vaction. Asking about CD burning facilities and such. I found this item which looks it might be an inexpensive solution for some people. I already have a portable hard drive unit with memory card reader (which cost considerably more) so I don't need this but I thought I'd pass it on. What's nice about this is you can burn your CDs and then mail them home or to someone else before you head home.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?In...-daily_html-_-17JAN07_GEEK8100-_-GEEK8100main

 

[Anewman]

Very interesting, I wonder if they make DVD burners.

CDrs are just too small for it to work for me.

 

[jann1033]

this seems like a great deal...i can;t tell from the site...do you think you can use this as a card reader for your computer or just to read them to put on disk...my card reader i think died ( ican load from the camera but not the reader)

 

[Charade]

this seems like a great deal...i can;t tell from the site...do you think you can use this as a card reader for your computer or just to read them to put on disk...my card reader i think died ( ican load from the camera but not the reader)

I don't know but I would be surprised if you couldn't use it as an external card reader since you can use it as an external CD burner/player

 

[Groucho]

Very interesting - but how would it deal with a card that's bigger than the CD can store?

A DVD version would be very compelling (though I'd probably still want a laptop around, to make sure the burn was successful - I'm guessing that this unit doesn't do a verify step after burning.)

 

[Charade]

Very interesting - but how would it deal with a card that's bigger than the CD can store?

A DVD version would be very compelling (though I'd probably still want a laptop around, to make sure the burn was successful - I'm guessing that this unit doesn't do a verify step after burning.)

Maybe it would split it up. Read and burn as much as possible then ask for another blank CD.

 

[MICKEY88]

this seems like a great deal...i can;t tell from the site...do you think you can use this as a card reader for your computer or just to read them to put on disk...my card reader i think died ( ican load from the camera but not the reader)

seems like a waste to run such a unit as a card reader only


keep an eye on local office supply places, a few months ago i bought 2 ....
20 dollar card readers that were on sale for 10 with a 10 dollar mail in rebate

free is my favorite price..

 

[MICKEY88]

thanks for sharing, that price is incredible, I've looked at those units before, was more tempted by a dvd burner,
as I recall cd burners were 150-200 dollars and dvd burners were over 300 dollars

I eventually decided on portable storage unit as well, I actually have 2, one 30 gig that displays the uploaded photos, and one 20gig that does not display photos, and a back up 20 gig drive that I aquired by gambling on a defective flashtrax on ebay..

my concern with the cd/dvd burners was twofold, first I didn't want to pack disks to take with me, second I don't trust the post office to not lose my pics...I realize the odds are slim, but they exist


but for 30 bucks this unit is mighty tempting

 

[jann1033]

seems like a waste to run such a unit as a card reader only


keep an eye on local office supply places, a few months ago i bought 2 ....
20 dollar card readers that were on sale for 10 with a 10 dollar mail in rebate

free is my favorite price..

my last one was free as well but it was worth what i paid for it since it's only lasted 7 months..our cd drive needs replaced since i only have 1 dvd burner now so i figured this could kill 3 birds with 1 stone for $10 each

 

[DueyDooDah]

I eventually decided on portable storage unit as well, I actually have 2, one 30 gig that displays the uploaded photos, and one 20gig that does not display photos...

Love my Zen Vision by Creative Labs. I never take my laptop any more, and have movies to watch and music to listen to on the plane.

 

[MICKEY88]

my last one was free as well but it was worth what i paid for it since it's only lasted 7 months..our cd drive needs replaced since i only have 1 dvd burner now so i figured this could kill 3 birds with 1 stone for $10 each

I've run 10s of thousands of pics thru both of mine without problem{one at work one at home}

I'd still recommend the free card reader, replace your cd burner with a dual layer dvd burner, and buy this unit if you want for travel storage

 

[jann1033]

what brand are your card readers? mine is irocks and basically has worked off and on the entire time i've had it.( i've tried new ports etc and it still sometimes just won't read the cards but i dan download with my camera so i must be the reader rather than the card)

 

[Bete]

It's not bad for the price, but it's not for serious photographers. I say this because it takes too long to burn a CD. I tried it as an alternative to bringing a notebook on vacation, but I'll be sticking with the notebook. I don't want to pay $200 or $300 for a better picture storage device, either. I rather use those serious dollars towards a notebook. A notebook has so many other uses. This is why I gave this device a try for $36 including shipping. I'm always concerned about leaving my notebook (even though I lock it up) in our room or cabin for someone to steal or having to lug it around at the airport as carry-on luggage, etc. I wanted this cheap device to allow me the freedom of not caring about it. Alas, I don't see it as a good answer for most of us.

Here's what I can tell you about the device. The maximum it will let you burn to CD is 642MB out of 650MB (74 minutes) CD disc. It will not allow you to continue your memory card to another CD if you have more than 642MB on your memory card. In fact, it will not allow you to load the memory card to the device at all if you exceed that amount of 642MB. In other words, the maximum memory card you can use without a problem is 512MB. If you use a 1 gigabyte card or more, you cannot exceed 642MB for a 650MB CD disc which means you cannot use the full capacity of the 1 gigabyte card. I do most of my pictures in TIFF file format and it did except that format. JPEG works, as well. I didn't test any other formats.

I did a CD that was 620MB (only 27 pictures in TIFF format) from a 1 gigabyte memory card and it took 34 minutes to complete. I can easily take 10 cards of pictures (270 pictures) a day on vacation. This translates to 340 minutes to download those 270 pictures. This is almost 6 hours of time for 270 pictures. I would need 10 CDs to do this amount of pictures. This is not practical for me and it's very time consuming.

It will let you join up multiple memory cards, as long as, you don't exceed the 642MB CD disc limit for burning. I thought this was a good feature especially for those out there with small memory cards like 128MB or 256MB.

If you don't take a lot of pictures in a day and you don't want to spend for extra memory cards this device may be for you.

It is a personal CD player. It can be used as an external CD drive to your PC. I like the multi-tasking of this product.

If anyone has a specific question, I will try to answer it.

 

[Charade]

It's not bad for the price, but it's not for serious photographers. I say this because it takes too long to burn a CD. I tried it as an alternative to bringing a notebook on vacation, but I'll be sticking with the notebook. I don't want to pay $200 or $300 for a better picture storage device, either. I rather use those serious dollars towards a notebook. A notebook has so many other uses. This is why I gave this device a try for $36 including shipping. I'm always concerned about leaving my notebook (even though I lock it up) in our room or cabin for someone to steal or having to lug it around at the airport as carry-on luggage, etc. I wanted this cheap device to allow me the freedom of not caring about it. Alas, I don't see it as a good answer for most of us.

Here's what I can tell you about the device. The maximum it will let you burn to CD is 642MB out of 650MB (74 minutes) CD disc. It will not allow you to continue your memory card to another CD if you have more than 642MB on your memory card. In fact, it will not allow you to load the memory card to the device at all if you exceed that amount of 642MB. In other words, the maximum memory card you can use without a problem is 512MB. If you use a 1 gigabyte card or more, you cannot exceed 642MB for a 650MB CD disc which means you cannot use the full capacity of the 1 gigabyte card. I do most of my pictures in TIFF file format and it did except that format. JPEG works, as well. I didn't test any other formats.

I did a CD that was 620MB (only 27 pictures in TIFF format) from a 1 gigabyte memory card and it took 34 minutes to complete. I can easily take 10 cards of pictures (270 pictures) a day on vacation. This translates to 340 minutes to download those 270 pictures. This is almost 6 hours of time for 270 pictures. I would need 10 CDs to do this amount of pictures. This is not practical for me and it's very time consuming.

It will let you join up multiple memory cards, as long as, you don't exceed the 642MB CD disc limit for burning. I thought this was a good feature especially for those out there with small memory cards like 128MB or 256MB.

If you don't take a lot of pictures in a day and you don't want to spend for extra memory cards this device may be for you.

It is a personal CD player. It can be used as an external CD drive to your PC. I like the multi-tasking of this product.

If anyone has a specific question, I will try to answer it.

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry for your disappointment. I thought it was a very reasonably priced solution to a problem that's fairly common to vacationing photographers.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks for the info. I figured that was too good to be true. A CD-based system might be OK even for today's big memory cards, IF if could span CDs, and burn them fairly quickly. If it could do verification after burning (something I'm a real nut about), it could be really good. Make a DVD-based system that could do all those, and you'd have a clear winner. I'd feel pretty comfortable with such a system, burning duplicates for redundancy and fitting two full 2g cards onto each DVD.

 

[cryssi]

DH is looking into portable hard drives for our upcoming trip. I don't know if you all take laptops with you? Portabld HDs are getting really small and inexpensive! A 120GB WD passport is only $99... He's looking into 500GB drives, though... Ah well, that's what happens when you have a techie husband, I guess...

p.s. I should add that he's still looking into an Hi Def camcorder to take, that's why he needs the excessive amount of storage space...roflmao He's already told me that he needs a new laptop...

 

[Charade]

There's a difference between a portable HD device and a portable HD device that will allow you to transfer pictures to it. Be sure that what you're looking at does that. The transfer unit will have a memory card reader in it and usually a small LCD screen telling you what's going on.

 

[MICKEY88]

an alternative storage solution is to buy one of these units and install your own hard drive.. which you can get at the same site and have a decent storage unit for about 120-150...

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=UK-KX-707&cat=MP3

 

[MICKEY88]

what brand are your card readers? mine is irocks and basically has worked off and on the entire time i've had it.( i've tried new ports etc and it still sometimes just won't read the cards but i dan download with my camera so i must be the reader rather than the card)

the one I've used for years is Mercury Innovations, I got it free with my first digital camera...never had any problems with it,

the 2 newer ones are Digital Concepts,

 

[Bete]

an alternative storage solution is to buy one of these units and install your own hard drive.. which you can get at the same site and have a decent storage unit for about 120-150...

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=UK-KX-707&cat=MP3

This device would be a better answer in that you would not have to burn to CDs, etc., but you would still probably have very slow uploading times for the memory cards. These cheaper devices perform the function, but it's just way too slow for me. I will not use precious vacation time trying to get memory cards uploaded at a snail's pace. It's not for me. I've experimented with this CTX-MC-602 device and I would need some real convincing to try any other ideas.