External Drives

[SheriG]

Hello,

I am looking to purchase a small external drive for travel that will be compatible with both my MAC and Sony Vaio (laptop). Yes, confusing but what I can work with now.

This is important as overloading my VAIO recently caused a crash of Zoombrowswer (now going to Breeze!).

I want to be able to just store items while on the road to access when I return home from shooting.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Sheri

[TwoBuells]

Sheri, I just ordered a Hard drive case from
Dirt Cheap Drives
http://dirtcheapdrives.com/Itemdesc.asp?CartId={3BDD43E8-F0C5-4F21-9CAE-58C620719B67}&ic=USB2%2DEB%2D25S&Tp=

the USB case holds 2.5" Notebook drives and works with Mac and PC. I also have a 3yr old Vaio notebook and just purchased a new Vaio ( PCG-FRV28 )

the case is $61.00 and a 40GB 2.5" drive is $157.00 from Dirt Cheap Drives. I've bought a few drives from them and seems like a cool Co. to deal with.

Mike
Canon D60 ...also

[TwoBuells]

paste the whole link to view.

here is a discription on the HD Case

What better way to transport, share and back-up your data on an ultra slim high capacity USB hard drive? The FireXpress 250SX is the smallest and fastest FireXpress yet.

Designed to support the latest and fastest ATA133 (IDE) hard drives, this external 2.5” ATA hard drive conversion kit provides the USB 2.0 interface to connect to both Mac and PC. The data stored on the hard drive is fully accessible with either OS, and do not require separate partition. With maximum transfer rate of 480Mb/s on USB 2.0 interface, you are guaranteed superior performance with any system.

The compact design offers portability and simplicity of use. Just connect the drive to any USB port and immediately you have hi-speed access to thousands of music, video, programs and even an entire operating system. Whether you are extending the life of a current notebook drive, or putting in a brand new high capacity drive, FireXpress 250SX is the blazing fast portable storage solution.

The conversion kit includes a premium USB cable, driver software, carrying pouch and international AC adapter.


Features
- Provides IDE to USB 2.0 conversion in ultra slim external enclosure
- Supports 2.5" Notebook size IDE hard drive (9.5mm height, such as Toshiba 60GB)
- Supports IDE ATA100/133 protocol
- Transfer Rate: Up to 480Mb/sec USB 2.0 (backward compatible with USB 1.0/1.1)
- Hot-swapping capability
- Easy installation, no jumper or ID setting
- Dual LED: Indicate power and driver activities
- Driverless Plug-n-play on new OS, support legacy OS
- Bootable on supporting OS/BIOS
- Light-weight aluminum enclosure

[SheriG]

Thank you for the quick reply, I am rushing out the door, I will take some quality time with this tonight and will likely have questions to post.

THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!

Sheri

[CyberDyneSystems]

You need to be sure that both PC and laptop have a connector that they share. I presume they both have USB but probably only USB1 (the slow one)

Most Sony VAIO laptops come with firewire as do most Macs's

If they both have Firewire that would be the preferred method.

Then you should decide on size. An external case that uses a samll laptop hard drive is FAR more portable than one that uses a standard desktop case.

I have two external drives I got from www.compgeeks.com

here are two choices
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=500291-N

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=B-M720-60-SK2

The first one is USB and it takes a samll laptop drive.

The second is a larger desktop drive (more storage too) and it is both USB2 AND Firewire compatible.

Both claim to work with Windows and Mac

[TwoBuells]

My Sony Vaio has 3 USB 2.0 ports and a 4-pin IEEE1394 port. Most of the Firewire cases I looked at needed a 6pin 1394 port, so I went we the USB style, but I would love to go Firewire but don't want the hassles of finding a connector or right cable to work with my Vaio. + I can go to any computer with a USB port. Also I like the small size of the 2.5" drives for traveling. Plus I have a few 2.5 drives laying around.

But hey thanks for the different look, thats whats cool about forums, lots of opions

Mike

[Phil Hall]

When i had a Viao I purchased and external CD-R drive and saved the photos to CD. If you did this you could also read the CD with the Mac.

[ashforth]

I bought the Image Tank G2 with 20 gb drive and used it on vacation with my 10D. Worked great!

Check it (and other):

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/default.php?cPath=74

Herb

[SheriG]

Hey all, Thank you for the WONDERFUL replies. I am going to take some time with them and will respond again soon. Will write more tomorrow. What a great forum!

[SheriG]

Mike, is this the FireXpress you meant? http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf_id=DR15754&blind=no&BCID=13010878

I think I have a problem in the fact that my USB might not be "high speed" This seemed to be an issue when I tried a MAXTOR which I returned. Do you know more about this?

As for CD-rom. Yes this definately works. I do want the external also for ease of travel and downloading. The VAIO I have burns them. Does anyone know a good program for my MAC OS 9 that will read PC seamlessly. I use Printshop for my greeting cards and my MAC does not like the format.

I am going to read on and write again...

[SheriG]

PS: Mike the Dirt Cheap link would not connect...

[SheriG]

Hey,

Mike, still can't pull up the item at DirtCheap. Can you send me an item number and product name so I can look it up. The link won't go to the page.
Thanks

[TwoBuells]

Sheri,
try this,
go to http://dirtcheapdrives.com

under Categories
click----Cases and Enclosures
Click---Peripheral Cases and Enclosures
Click---USB Cases
Click---FireXpress 250SX Ultra Slim 2.5" USB 2.0

if you go back to Peripheral Cases and Enclosures you may choose between Firewire/USB, USB, etc.......

[SheriG]

THank you, I will go there now! Have a great day

[SheriG]

Herb,

I don't know if your still out there in forum land....but I also checked out Image Tank and it looks interesting. What computer platform are you using. I am going to decide between this and FireXpress. You all have been great!

[mavi66]

Hi
I'm using Innoplus Phototainer. It works just fine and I'm happy with it. If only the monitor would be better (higher resolution) and the battery (rechargeable) would last longer, i would consider it as perfect!
For technical information’s see:
http://www.inoplus.com

[mjordan]

I bought a 40 gig Image Tank G2 3 weeks ago to take on my 2 week trip to shoot a dog show. I was going to have a laptop but didn't want to lug that around with me at the show sites (there were 3 about 40 minutes apart). I shoot with a 10D in raw mode and didn't want to buy 4 or 5 more 1 gig cards to have, so I got the G2. In the week of shooting I dumped about 20 gigs of files into the G2 without a problem. Each evening when we got back to our trailer I'd dump the G2 to my lap top and external Firewire hard drive and check them with Breeze Browser. That way I had the files on 3 seperate hard drives.

The G2 is a USB 2 device but my laptop is only USB 1, so the transfer was not the fastest. When I got home I dumped the G2 to a computer with a USB 2 port and it was a lot faster.

The G2 fit in the side pocket of my Domke camera bag or I could put it on my belt. Although I bought the external AA battery adapter I never had to use it after a day of dumping. When I dumped it at night I put on the AC adapter.

The one quirk I had with it was that if I did a CF dump and hit EXE again, it would dump to another folder. So I ended up with a couple of duplicate folders because I didn't see it hit 100% on the dump (it shuts itself off about 2 minutes after a dump if thee is no activity).

While I'd love to have something that I could view the images with after dumping them, those are about twice as much. So far I've been happy with my G2.

Mike

[SheriG]

Mike from Oregon..."sittin pretty" and also the response from Switzerland (how cool!) Thanks for the great info. Last question. Mike, how would you rate the ease of user friendliness? I am really bad at the tecno stuff, it takes me forever to figure these programs out (why I LOVE my D-60, simple). Do you us MAC and PC? I will be using both, does not seem to be a problem according to them. Thanks again. Sheri

[defordphoto]

I have had my Xs Drive I for about a year now and it has performed flawlessly and without a hiccup at various racetracks and in various conditions and temperatures. It gets tossed in the backpack, the photovest and jostled about. It gets tossed into the back seat of the car and we've also transferred files while traveling from one site to another and not one missed file.

I also have the car adapter which helps quite a bit as the battery will dump about 1000-1500 pics before it dies, which is a half-day's shoot for us. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.

[SheriG]

Jim-Xs drive?? Firexpress?

[Hatem Eldoronki]

Depending on your budget, here's what I'd recommend if you weren't worried about cost:

http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500542.html

I have the Multimedia Jukebox 20, but the screen is not really that big enough to make out details. It's cheaper, and I really like to use it to empty out my CF card when I'm shooting outdoors. Here's the link for that:

http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500375_specs.html

[hawg]

just a thought but you might have compatibility issues...... I have a 2 PowerPCs running OSX and several PCs running XP. I also use a Maxtor external drive. Since I originally used the external drive with my PC, I cannot used it with my Macs without reformatting it. It might be my own ignorance. At any rate if you want to use your external drive interchangably between the 2 platforms, this issue is something you want to research.

[ashforth]

Hi SheriG-

I'm using Win XP on an Athlon 2400 based machine with 1 gb memory.

Herb

[defordphoto]

SheriG wrote:
Jim-Xs drive?? Firexpress?

X's Drive: http://www.xs-drive.com/

[gudac]

Just one point that you probably already know since you are using both Mac and PC. If the drive is formatted in a PC format both the Mac and PC will be able to read and write to it. If the drive is formatted in a MAC format the Mac will have no problems, but the only way a PC will be able to see it is via a third party software add on. The Program that the PC needs I believe is called Drive XX, determined by the version of Windows you may be using.

Also, the firewire ports on the Sony Viao's usually is the 4 pin, which doesn't give power to a device like a Hard Drive. Where on the Macintosh the Firewire ports are 6pin and do provide power.

I have a portable drive that I put together and it is both Firewire and USB 1.1. Use the Firewire on the Mac with out any power supply. On the PC I got some kind of jumper power supply that gets power from either a keyboard or USB port.

I purchased the kit for about $40 for the case and the drive was about $100.

Regards,

Joe Gudac
gudac@mac.com

[tarves57]

RFM Sports, I have an XS Drive, love it, but because it's new I try to be careful with it and always lay it down flat to transfer. Can it be used vertically or sideways? e.g. while you are wearing it on your belt?

SheriG, the XS drive so far has proved to be excellent, apart from an initial problem installing it on my Windows 2000 computer.

Susan

[mjordan]

SheriG wrote:
Mike from Oregon..."sittin pretty" and also the response from Switzerland (how cool!) Thanks for the great info. Last question. Mike, how would you rate the ease of user friendliness? I am really bad at the tecno stuff, it takes me forever to figure these programs out (why I LOVE my D-60, simple). Do you us MAC and PC? I will be using both, does not seem to be a problem according to them. Thanks again. Sheri

You are welcome, Sheri.

As for user friendlyness... it's about as easy as you can get. You stick the CF card in the slot on the side (sometimes it doesn't go in square so I did have to jiggle it a little sometimes to make sure it seated. Mostly this was because I had my camera bag on, I was still shooting with my 10D and 70-200 2.8L IS and trying to start the card dump at the same time), turn it on (it can be on before you insert the card as well), hit the EXE button and wait for it to finish coping.

To dump to the computer, connect the USB cable to your computer. If you have Windows 2000 or XP the computer will detect the USB device, give it a drive letter. Open up that drive, select all and drag and drop into your computer hard drive folder. Go have dinner or something because that part is not the fastest. That's also why I connect the AC power when I dump just so the batteries don't run down in the middle. But I never got below a half charge the whole time I was using it. And besides the 10D raw images I was dumping to it, I was also dumping the cards to it from the D30 that my wife was using. She wasn't shooting in raw so her dumps went a lot faster.

Mike

[defordphoto]

tarves57 wrote:
RFM Sports, I have an XS Drive, love it, but because it's new I try to be careful with it and always lay it down flat to transfer. Can it be used vertically or sideways? e.g. while you are wearing it on your belt?


I have laid it every which way and it has not been a problem. Not sure about transferring while being jostled around on a belt. Most HD's get kinda tweaky of they're being tossed about while writing. I would not suggest it as may cause a head crash which is pretty much unrecoverable.

In spite of my post I am pretty careful with the drive, but I don't baby it too much.

[SheriG]

WOW! Everyone who wrote and provided info THANK YOU! I think there is more than enough to begin to sort through and make my decision. I especially appreciate the reminder of MAC to PC and how they read each other. I tend to forget that. I am going to make my decision this week...that will likely be the hard part. It looks like there are some great machines out there so it will be hard to go wrong.

What a fantastic resource this site is. Now that I am off the road and can acutally use my modem as long as I want I will be checking in frequently. Cheers and thanks again! Sheri