Digital storage advice wanted

[Bushplane Ken]

I currently own an Epson P-2000. This unit has served me well but on a two week trip this past summer I managed to fill up the hard drive in about 9 days.

I am heading off to Alaska in the summer of 2008 for two weeks. We will be on a 7 day cruise as well as spending a number of days touring after the cruise. I am considering the need to purchase a new storage device and have spent quite a bit of time on the internet looking at various makes and models. There is a lot more of this type of product out there than I ever knew existed.

I don't really think I need a unit with a viewer so I am most interested in a unit for storage only. I have looked at Sanho HyperDrive; the HyperDrive Space; Wolverine FlashPac; Jobo Giga One; Digital Foci Phot Safe; Smart Disk PhotoBank; and a couple of Nexto models. I think a unit with about 100 - 120 GB of memory would be about right.

I would be most pleased if anyone could add some comments on their experiences with various units.

Thanks,

[ryant35]

I couldn't get my photobank to work while I was out of town shooting an off road race.

I was scrambling on a Sunday morning looking at the Epson products and found for a similar price a refurbished Compaq 15" laptop with 2 something GHZ Intel Celeron with 512GB of ram & 60GB hard drive for $450. Another $100 for 2 GB RAM upgrade and I'll all set.

Although it's not that fast, and I have to empty my pictures folder after each trip, but as a travel computer and a back-up for my desktop it works great.

Just an option.

[ryant35]

Even better! Google search "epson p-2000 hard drive upgrade"

Go buy the biggest 2.5" laptop drive you can find, I didn't read far enough to see if anyone found a limit to the HD size.

[toneyw]

I made a trip to China this past July and borrowed a friend's Hyperdrive Space. It worked flawlessly and was fast transferring the pics. I shot about 3,000 Raw images and saved them all to the Hyperdrive.

I've done alot of research after I came back from China because I'm in the market for a storage device. I've concluded that, after I save enough money, to get the Hyperdrive Space without the HD. It's cheaper to purchase your own HD and put into the unit. HDs are getting cheaper by the month. I figure that by Christmas, I'll have enough to get the Hyperdrive and a 120GB HD in time for next year's travel to Bryce Canyon, and hopefully, Yellowstone.

[tunin]

This is what I did with my p-3000 so I got a "p-7000" now. Mr.Cesar was the one that put this together http://juliuslagula.blogspot.com/2007/08/upgrading-hard-drive-of-p-3000.html

[Bushplane Ken]

I appreciate the Epson upgrade comments and I have read the instructions for a couple of different versions (P-2000 & P-3000 upgrades). I think I could handle the mechanical parts of the process (although I haven't done that type of thing before); the formatting of the hard drive is a mystery to me. I don't have those kind of computer skills.

[ryant35]

I appreciate the Epson upgrade comments and I have read the instructions for a couple of different versions (P-2000 & P-3000 upgrades). I think I could handle the mechanical parts of the process (although I haven't done that type of thing before); the formatting of the hard drive is a mystery to me. I don't have those kind of computer skills.

The computer part looks pretty well explained, you pretty much plug in your p-2000 HD into your PC & back up the software installed by Epson. Then plug in your new HD and reload all of the software installed by Epson on the old HD.
Then it should run exactly the same, just with more disk space.

[rklepper]

This is what I have (http://www.hypershop.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=46). I dropped a 160 GB Seagate Momentus into it. I really like it.