external hard drive that takes a beating...?

[grizzly7]

hi
i have recommended this before on the hubb and i will again!
i initially had problems with a hard drive you could write raw files straight to, having lost money due to high street and duty free assistants not quite knowing what they were talking about!! even that some hard drives will copy raw files, but not necessarily from your camera, or they will from a compact in jpeg, but not from an slr even in jpeg regardless of pixels- a different form of file??? not sure on that, just that i would check carefully the files you want from your camera will write on the hard drive you choose!

the extreme is expensive, but you can copy straight from the sd/cf etc card review delete etc, as well as store. you can also backup onto one of the screenless cheaper jobo's, and it checks there are no errors in its copy. it has a rechargable battery which does about 5*4gb cards before needing a charge.

more info, and a review on here:-

Computing & Software - Hard Drives - Portable Drives - Warehouse Express

j

[biggles0449]

judging by how top end laptops are now running solid state hdd's and the capacity is slowly creeping up, i think it will be very soon, that we will see this:

Solid State Disk, Flashdrive, Flash Solid State Hard Drive, ATA-133, PATA, IDE, Parallel ATA E-Disk Altima

being mainstream. this is currently available, my research shows that it has been on the market since 1st quarter 08, but i couldnt find a price....any comments!?

400+gb solid state hdd... the future but at what cost?!

[grizzly7]

or this? kinda ruggedised, low power consumption, good size, not toooo expensive, actually buyable i think?

HP EliteBook 6930p first with 24-hour battery life News - PC Advisor

although the review i had read said it needed the led screen option to reach 24hour operating, but that it also had a solid state hard drive. now i cant find any mention of ssd anywhere! sorry

[Thermal]

Another option to consider is paying for an account on flickr or something like that, then upload every now and then from internet cafes. Computer backups are supposed to be stored off-site, so when you get stuck in a river and your waterproof cases aren't(waterproof), the backups are still safe.

[teflon]

Having more than enough memory cards for a full days shoot, then copying to dvd at the end of each day, is probably the safest and easiest option.

I'm guessing you're already doing this. Just my thoughts.

[Hindu1936]

I have used a 250gb portable HD from Ibank and download the cameras each evening in the tent. We have ridden some pretty gorky roads with a lot of corrugation, construction, and potholes and never had a problem with the laptop or the hard drive. I put some loctite on the screws for everything that looked like it might shake loose. No problems. Admittedly, we only rode 13000 miles last year and only about 1000 on non-tarred surface, but the road through wyoming and nebraska was enough to rub the shine off your teeth. For Normal field trip use, the 4gb chips in the camera hold a gawdaful bunch of shots, but I still download and burn a disc each night just in case the camera gets nicked or soaked. We are only waiting for springtime to arrive to begin the RTW and have bought all gear with longterm use in mind.

[Bjorn]

Decided to go for a ToughDrive from FreeCom. Comes with USB or FireWire cable attached to the drive, so less packsize for cables.

Despite some tough roads (i.e. Tajikistan), the hard drives held up 100%. Other things that DID break: rear shock, 1 lens (Sigma - the Canon ones all stayed fine), right indicator & flyscreen

That said: the hard drives are so well-cushioned (above my sleeping mat) and they can't bounce around inside the panniers either (hard luggage). I believe ANY half-decent drive would be no problem.

The only ones I'll steer clear off forever are the LaCie ones. Had 2 drives refuse service on me within the same week. (Desktop machine, never dropped any drives). Not much fun trying to retrieve information from a physically corrupt drive...

Bjorn

[colebatch]

I am a big fan of Transcend products in general and always use their memory. They are as good as anything else and often a fraction of the price.

Storejet 25 MOBILE range

320GB Transcend StoreJet 25 Shock Resistant External Mobile HDD for Notebooks and Desktops

[gixxer.rob]

Having worked in IT in secondary and Tertiary for a while now you soon find out what lasts and what doesn't, basically coz they don't care.

An external HDD is the biggest portable capacity you will get cheaply. Yes the platters are thinner and therefore more fragile. But the whole drive is made to be portable and with this in mind, more robust than it desktop brothers. The main vulnerability with HDD is when they are powered up (spinning) this is where they die very quickly if treated harshly. Rapped up in clothes in a pannier they will be fine.

SSD is better again but still very expensive per Gb when compared to external HDDs. Great if you can afford it. The cheapest way to get solid state is a USB pen drive. They have 64Gb drives now at fairly reasonable prices.

Uploading photos straight to a web store (cloud technologies) like microsofts live mesh is great if you have access to a net connection with a fast uplink. Most don't and if you are dealing with large files it going to be a pain.

If you want to be computer less you can get external HDDs that act as a host so you can plug your camera directly to it and copy the photos across. Or another funky device that allows you to plug your memory cards in and copy the photos across.

I think the cheapest and most redunant way would be, big memory cards, a visit to an net cafe or if you have a laptop copy off, burn to DVD and send home. That way you have the photos in at least two different places.

It all depends how geeky / organised you want to get.

I my self will take a Western Digital 500Gb passport drive, some 8cm 1.4Gb DVD discs, big memory cards and burn then send home at a net cafe.

Sorry to go on.

Cheers

[stev0]

I see they selling 80gb memory sticks now, dont know if that will help?