Traveling to India - what portable storage to take?

Laptop is even a worse target, not to mention size and weight considerations on flying. I can stick a lot of cards in my pocket and know they are safer than a laptop / Colorspace in my hotel room.

Mark H

Interesting discussion. I depend entirely on my cards and have been buying a few more before every longish trip. My second most important activity after shooting on a holiday is in-camera culling in the evening. If a bird is perched in front of me I shall keep shooting till it flew away. Obviously I don't need all of them. I free up space in the evening back in the hotel or even in the restaurant.
I am interested to read a long-term user's review of the Hyperdrive (I got to learn about it from this thread and find even Amazon doesn't have a user's review yet). How dependable are they? Am inclined to stop investing in cards and buy one of them.

sudipto_roy wrote in post #15551500
I am interested to read a long-term user's review of the Hyperdrive (I got to learn about it from this thread and find even Amazon doesn't have a user's review yet). How dependable are they? Am inclined to stop investing in cards and buy one of them.

The ColorSpace 2 has only been out a few months - hence the dearth of reviews.

I've had a ColorSpace from the launch of the UDMA (2009??) version. My friend owns the previous version from 2007(guess?). No problems with either.

Having said that - they do contain ordinary hard drives which aren't the most reliable devices in the world. My friend discovered this when her Jobo GugaVu died while we were in Namibia and she lost 5 days of images. We're pretty sure it died of heatstroke - being asked to backup while sitting on a coach seat, in the sunshine, in the Namib desert. The drive was resistant to every attempt to recover the images (my friend is a director of an IT security company - she knows all the right people).

That's when we developed the strategy of backing up to each other's ColorSpaces. Of course, there's been no further drive problems. In another few years SSDs will have dropped in price sufficiently to make it worth using one of them - just for the added security, they're no faster according to my testing.

hollis_f wrote in post #15551711
...In another few years SSDs will have dropped in price sufficiently to make it worth using one of them - just for the added security, they're no faster according to my testing.

For the travel application, the shock-resistance would be the big deal with SSDs. And, with Colorspace (or even more so with the less expensive similar devices), I wouldn't expect an SSD to improve performance to any real extent, since the devices are performing well below the specs of the hard drives already. I suspect this lower performance is to improve battery life.

However, a designed-for-SSD version of Colorspace could take advantage of the lower power requirements of SSDs compared with hard drives and use that power savings to boost the clock & overall performance of the device. However, Colorspace is already such a niche product I wouldn't hold my breath for a Colorspace 3 very soon.

RTPVid wrote in post #15551932
However, Colorspace is already such a niche product I wouldn't hold my breath for a Colorspace 3 very soon.

I think you're right. I reckon we'll soon have something like the Seagate Wireless Plus (a 1TB battery-powered drive with inbuilt WiFi) with USB input so you can copy data from cards onto the drive and view the data over WiFi on your tablet.

Thanks for your input Frank.

hollis_f wrote in post #15552382
I reckon we'll soon have something like the Seagate Wireless Plus (a 1TB battery-powered drive with inbuilt WiFi) with USB input so you can copy data from cards onto the drive and view the data over WiFi on your tablet.

Exactly.

If and when SSDs of large capacity become reasonable in cost this will be a very-much "hardened" answer. Rotating media will take quite a shock IF it's off and IF there's some sort of mitigation in the mounting (anything, really, even if just a couple of O-rings between the drive chassis and the screw mounting holes!) as the entire game is to reduce the acceleration enough so the heads and sliders are not damaged.

Sounds like a market for a new device.

A card reader, with a USB powered port, small display for feedback, and a button. Click the button, and it copies everything off the memory card onto whatever hard drive you have plugged in.

It needs a battery powerful enough to run the HD, but that's about it.

starkyrulz wrote in post #15514823
a small laptop with enough storage would be handy - i just got back from India last week and between 2 cameras and over 70 GB of data my CF cards (3x16gb) and SD cards (1x32gb, 2x16gb) served me well. I had a laptop as well which finally crashed with a lot of data but thankfully I had not erased any of the cards.

Learning - carry enough cards with me that last me the travel duration.

CF cards can be lost/damaged as well so i wouldnt rely on that.

best way is to have multiple sources of backup.

i am going philippines for a whole month and so, i would need a hell of a lot of space for my pics. i used over 70gb when i went florida a few months back and that was only for two weeks!

P51Mstg wrote in post #15551322
Laptop is even a worse target, not to mention size and weight considerations on flying. I can stick a lot of cards in my pocket and know they are safer than a laptop / Colorspace in my hotel room.

Mark H

10 16gb cf cards will cost u a laptop.

u see this is why i hope the surface pro is the ideal solution for our needs

You must use a low end laptop..... Mine was a lot more than 10 16GB cards..... Probably on the line of $1600 about 18 months ago... Plus more memory, SSD, etc.....

I looked at the Surface Pro, and personally I'd rather carry a pocket full of cards......

Mark H

jonneymendoza wrote in post #15556820
10 16gb cf cards will cost u a laptop.

u see this is why i hope the surface pro is the ideal solution for our needs

Er, yeah. $1000 for less storage than a single 64GB card. I don't think so.

hollis_f wrote in post #15542713
Well, for a start I don't want to shoot with slow cards when I'm on safari. That's when I'm most likely to be shooting long bursts and want the buffer cleared quickly. So, forgetting your cheap cards, lets compare prices.
[LIST]

Hyperdrive ColorSpace UDMA 2 - $250. 500GB 2.5" HDD - $50. Total - $300

Would this Hyperdrive work with electric voltage in India? I hope it does not get fried!

csondagar wrote in post #15557510
Would this Hyperdrive work with electric voltage in India? I hope it does not get fried!

India uses 230/240V @ 50 Hz - the same as here in the UK.