Photo storage devices

[AndrewWG]

Has anyone here used a mass storage device to store their photos before transferring them to your computer? One that comes to mind would be the SmartDisk FotoChute 20GB Digital Photo Storage Unit or the SmartDisk FlashTrax units. These seem like a good idea when filling my SD cards with photos and video on a regular basis. Are they worth the money? Some seem to be quite expensive.

Andy

 

[tigger795]

Good question Andy!

I am also considering a storage device as backup and to offload if I fill up all my cards. I am considering the Wolverine ESP 160GB and am curious if anyone has any experience with these as well.

 

[AndrewWG]

Well, here is why I ask. 2 years ago while in WDW at the carousel, I ran out of space on my SD cards. Bad planning on my part as I didn't download the photos from the day before onto my computer before going to the parks. I had to find a place that sold SD cards, and quickly, before my daughter got on the carousel. I went to the Kodak kiosk nearby and bought a 256MB SD card (not a fast one either, mind you) for $50! Unfortunately, the images that I captured on that measly 256MB card are nothing compared to the image in my mind of me handing over $50 for that card. Even 2 years ago, that was a VERY steep price for such a small card.

So, in an effort to not have that happen again, I am hoping to get some good advice on the storage units.

 

[Alacrity]

I have used and X-Drive portable hard drive and my laptop. The X-Drive that I have is an older one and slow but it does work and keeps pictures safe and allows you to clear off the cards. On the downside, once I move stuff to the portable drive you can't see the pictures...unless you have a computer handy.

I found this site http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD.htm some time ago. Not sure how up to date it is anymore but it does give a good idea of what is available out there.

Last I went shopping I wanted one with a screen to be able to view the photos copied to the drive. The ones that do that seemed fairly expensive.

 

[ukcatfan]

With today's memory prices, I just do not see how those are worth the money. You can get a 1GB card for around $10 and sometimes less. If you took $200, you could get nearly 20GB in cards. I don't know how anyone could go through that much memory in a day or two, even if shooting RAW. With my 6MP K100D set to RAW, that would be around 1,800 shots. I likely would not shoot that many during an entire week at WDW.

Kevin

 

[AndrewWG]

With today's memory prices, I just do not see how those are worth the money. You can get a 1GB card for around $10 and sometimes less. If you took $200, you could get nearly 20GB in cards. I don't know how anyone could go through that much memory in a day or two, even if shooting RAW. With my 6MP K100D set to RAW, that would be around 1,800 shots. I likely would not shoot that many during an entire week at WDW.

Kevin

That is true. I would never shoot that many photos but usually my memory cards are chewed up by shooting video with the camera. Since the S2IS takes such nice video, I use it quite a bit. Still, getting individual cards may be the way to go. I think $200 is a lower end storage device too. I've seen them at $300 (with a screen) quite a bit.

With that said, does anyone know if the lower cost memory cards are good? I have seen some like Corsair that go for quite cheap prices compared to the rest. Usually, I just use Kingston which is also fairly cheap comparitively but the Corsair I have seen for super cheap. They all say limited lifetime warranty, and they even may be manufactured by the same company, but I jsut don't know that much about them. Any suggestions?

Andy

 

[ukcatfan]

That is true. I would never shoot that many photos but usually my memory cards are chewed up by shooting video with the camera. Since the S2IS takes such nice video, I use it quite a bit. Still, getting individual cards may be the way to go. I think $200 is a lower end storage device too. I've seen them at $300 (with a screen) quite a bit.

With that said, does anyone know if the lower cost memory cards are good? I have seen some like Corsair that go for quite cheap prices compared to the rest. Usually, I just use Kingston which is also fairly cheap comparitively but the Corsair I have seen for super cheap. They all say limited lifetime warranty, and they even may be manufactured by the same company, but I jsut don't know that much about them. Any suggestions?

Andy

I have had no problems with Corsair, Transcend, or Kingston. As long as you are buying from a reputable place like Newegg or Buy.com, then you should not have any problems. I have never seen a good deal at a B&M store.

Kevin

 

[boBQuincy]

I used to download my cards to a laptop, check the images to be sure they were ok, then clear the card and start over. I got burned once because many image viewers only look at the thumbnails, which were ok, but the full size images were corrupted.

Now I just buy more cards so I don't have to clear any.

I had two cards that were bad, one (SimpleTech) was bad from the start, another (Viking) went bad after about 6 months. Both were replaced for free but I did lose some images due to the Viking card.

 

[handicap18]

Right now I have 8GB in SD cards. 2 2GB cards and 4 1GB cards. The 2 newest one's I got on sale. CompUSA had SanDisks on sale about a month ago for $20 and that same week I found a 2GB for $25 with shipping online. There is a thread about it here somewhere, I'll see if I can find because I don't remember where I got it.

Right now buy.com has a Kingtson 2GB Elite Pro SD Card for $36 w/free shipping and a 1GB Elite Pro for $18. The non-Elite Pro 2GB is $28.

I have an external hard drive that also doubles as a 9 in 1 card reader. I got the case from geeks.com for $30 and then got a 250GB HD (maybe also from geeks.com) for $80. I though when I got it that it could be used with and without a computer. I was wrong, you need a computer to transfer. However, geeks.com does have a decent selection of portable card reader/hard drives that don't need a computer to transfer. I should have gotten one of those. They are usually a laptop HD and go from 20GB to 80GB depending on how much you want to spend. There was a thread about it late last year. A few others have gotten them.

 

[photo_chick]

anyone use a camera connect with an iPod for extra storage? I already tote my 30gb iPod video in my bag and thought about the camera connect. I have yet to talk with anyone who has actually used it though.

 

[RitchG]

I don't know the SmartDisk FotoChute 20GB Digital Photo Storage Unit or the SmartDisk FlashTrax units first-hand; but it looks like the FotoChute connects to the camera via USB, so you probably can't take pictures during the download. The FlashTraxx has a Compact Flash slot, you need an adapter for reading other memory cards. It seems a little pricey, too, at $442 from Amazon; although it says it can do RAW (the reviews on Amazon are, erm, unfavorable for this device).

Here's what I usually do:
-bring a whole bunch of 1 GB cards (my camera uses the Compact Flash type), around ten but at least three. They're small and alot more rugged than any hard drive. If one goes south, I lose at most 60 images or so (less wailing and gnashing of teeth than if I lost images on a larger card)
-bring along a mass storage device with a good-sized hard drive and image preview. I use a Creative ZEN Vision 30GB (the newer model is 60GB and around $350) because it has a CF slot built-in, can preview the JPGs (not Canon CR2 RAW, unfortunately) and store some music and some movies.
-bring a small computer (I use a Toshiba Portege-very light) and copy the files from the ZEN to it, and use it to verify RAW images.

So I fill a card, then move it to the ZEN and let it transfer while using another card in the camera, and keep switching cards during the shoot. At night, make a copy of everything on the computer. (And, if I'm being a pro on this shoot, use it to start catalogging right away.) If I have to move image files off the ZEN, then make a back-up on DVD-R. The general rule-of-thumb here is to never, ever have an image file on only one storage unit for any length of time.

This may be a little too anal for you, but it works for me (and remember: even if you're not paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you).
HTH.
---Ritch

 

[AndrewWG]

Ritch,

Good points! Thanks. That may be a bit anal for me to do however I am one to do some sort of the same thing with the exception of I usuually handle it like this:

1. Shoot the photos onto SD cards
2. When card is full, slide the write protection tab down and put it away. Use an empty card for the next photos.
3. At end of day, transfer from cards to computer.
4. Transfer from computer to either CD-R or 1GB flash drives.
5. E-mail the best of the best to my home e-mail account. This takes awhile because the files are about 3mb each, but that is why I choose the absolute best photos for this.

So, I guess with the exception of the ZEN storage, I probably am just about as anal about my photo storage/protection as yourself afterall!

Thanks again for your advice. I will just buy a bunch more 1GB cards when I can find them on sale throughout the year. Makes more sense that way, I suppose.

Andy

 

[Groucho]

This is a topic that comes up pretty regularly, and every time, I say the same thing...

Remember that hard drives - especially 2.5" drives like in portable storage units or 1.8" drives like in MP3 players - are absolutely the least reliable way to store data. Redundancy is the key word - if you're going to store to a hard drive, play it safe and buy two hard drives. Dump the same data to each.

The hard drive will go bad, it's just a question of when. And I think it's be pretty upsetting to have 25 gigs of photos (hey, I had about that many on the last trip, thanks to shooting raw) disappear because the hard drive that held the only copy of them decided to die on the way back home.

I like the "bring laptop, dump pictures to laptop, burn duplicate DVDs each night" method myself, but that does require a laptop with DVD-burning capabilities and a little bit of time, though not too much.

 

[DueyDooDah]

I too bring along my Zen Vision. I dump all photos to the Zen each night. I do not bring a laptop. After much research on packing light, I prefer to go anywhere with only one carryon bag. The Zen allows me to store and review my .JPG photos, and also provides me with entertainment for the plane, such as movies and music. If I start running out of disk space, I delete movies I've already watched and continue loading up with my pictures. We normally go to WDW for 2-3 weeks at a time. My DW also has her Zen and we've never come close to running out of room. Once we are home, it's a quick (well, not necessarily quick) upload to the home file server and we then burn the DVDs for archiving. We can then edit then ones we're interested in, printing those we feel are worth it. The only downside is that I have started shooting only .CR2 images, which the Zen does not display.

 

[photo_chick]

I only consider a hard drive (be it portable storage device or an mp3 player or in my pc) for short term storage. When we travel I end up taking the entire PC with me so DH and I can to edit photos and video on the road. All my photos get backed up to archival gold disc pretty quickly. When I am traveling they are ALWAYS backed up before the computer is moved. Never know when an idiot DH might drop it. (good thing I build them or I would really be ticked about when that happened!)

When I am out an about during the days though I can burn through my 4 gb worth of memory cards pretty wuick. I too shoot only RAW. I am looking to supplement my stroage during my outings with my iPod. But I have heard that the camera connect really drains the batteries fast so I will likely just buy more memory cards. I also do not like downloading the data and praying it is safely there. I think I need that confirmation of viewing it on my pc at 100% to know it is good. (yes, a touch of ocd there)

I agree with above though. Hard drives are not a good means for long term storage. Neiter are "normal" cd's and dvd's as they are subject to disc rot. Flash drives and memory cards are magnetic as well and not a good long term storage solution either. THat leaves just the archival gold disc. Kodak has sold me a great many of those things!!!!

 

[AndrewWG]

Well, there sure are alot of opinions on this one and it seems like we all have a little OCD in us when it comes to storing photos. 2 questions that I have from all of this are:

I would like to know what an archival gold disc is?

What is meant by shooting RAW photos? I guess I understand that it is a huge file size and it is digitally untouched in any way (other than it's very being), but what is it exactly? I am assuming this is a DSLR thing as I don't believe that my S2 IS has such a feature. Or does it?

I am thankful to all for answernig this question in the many ways that you all did. It has given me many things to think about regarding this. For now, I am going to continue to buy the Kingston 1GB SD cards as often as I can afford them to maximize my storage space and dwonload them to me computer and CD nightly while on vacation. I may even transfer those to archival gold when I figure out what that is.

Thanks again.

Andy

 

[photo_chick]

Archival gold use a gold layer instead of another material like aluminum. The gold layer is not prone to the oxidation like a normal disc so disc rot is not a concern.

RAW is a file format that saves the data right from the sensor. it doe snot run it through the camera's image processor and make it a jpg file. You take it to the pc later (or mac if you are so inclined) and then process it. It gives you a much greater degree of flexability for editing things without degrading the image quality. I don't know if the S2 does RAW. Some EVF cameras do, check the manual but I wouldn't bet on it. But yes, it is generally a DSLR thing.

 

[Groucho]

I agree with above though. Hard drives are not a good means for long term storage. Neiter are "normal" cd's and dvd's as they are subject to disc rot. Flash drives and memory cards are magnetic as well and not a good long term storage solution either. THat leaves just the archival gold disc. Kodak has sold me a great many of those things!!!!

I agree with almost everything that you've said... except that flash drives and memory cards are not magnetic. They're solid state, ie no moving parts, and are not affected by magnetic fields at all. They're not 100% but are probably going to last you longer than a hard drive will.

As for the archival discs, I just can't stomach paying those kind of prices... I'd rather burn a pair of regular CDs/DVDs. They don't have to last forever, just long enough until a bigger/better storage solution comes along!

For example, I'm currently moving much of the stuff I've burnt to CDs over the past 10+ years onto DVD. I just pretty much finished one category of stuff (games), it took me about 87 DVDs to store them all. One DVD holds as much as seven CDs, so that's well over 600 CDs of stuff (probably more - many commericial games don't fill up the whole disc), and I had, IIRC, only one disc that was completely unreadable, and maybe 5 or so that had tiny areas of them unreadable. Those are pretty good percentages for so many CDs, some of them recorded on pretty dodgy blanks. (I try to usually buy the good stuff, but occasionally I'll go cheap. )

For really important stuff, I'll burn two copies - it's so fast nowadays that it's not a big deal at all. (I remember taking 45 minutes to burn a CD, and don't even BREATH on the computer when the burning was happening!) I also have "verify" turn on for every burn. In a few years, all my DVDs will probably be moved to BluRay or HD-DVD blanks, when those get cheaper "per meg" than DVDs. A few years after that, who knows what will be available?

 

[MassJester]

I like the "bring laptop, dump pictures to laptop, burn duplicate DVDs each night" method myself, but that does require a laptop with DVD-burning capabilities and a little bit of time, though not too much.

Yes, that's my general inclination as well. However, I did notice a PC in the room I stayed in during my last trip--I wonder if bringing the DVD R/W drive and leaving the laptop at home is an option?

 

[photo_chick]

Many hotels have a business center in them with a pc if there is not one in the room. One could always inquire ahead of time about that. THat would save some laptop or pc toting.

Though I am spoiled and need my own pc so I can get on the Dis when I can't sleep!