HyperSpace Color Card Reader/Storage Device

I am looking at using this to save time at events that I shoot. It would allow me to change cards after each stage and upload the data to it as I am shooting the next stage. If a customer wanted to look at the images I have shot so far I could let them view them and place orders between runs when I am not shooting using a paper order form. Also at the end of the day It shoudl save me 30-60 minutes of time transfering the images from the cards to the laptop. I can just hook it up to the compute and use it as an hard drive and copy the images off it for processing. I have a one man deal and like to provide onsite images and prints plus some other products for sale. It looks like the best solution and is cheaper than hiring someone to run the cards, transfer images from cards, and displaying the images, and taking orders. There is enough down time during th eevent that the interuptions will not prevent me from shooting during the runs, swapping cards between stages, and taking orders after the above is completed.

Does anyone here have one and what are the pros and cons of the Hyperspace Color device and what are the cons of it.

Do you think my plan is workable?

I have the original Hyperdrive. It's very limited by the speed of USB 2.0. It can take 5 hours to transfer 40GB of data!

Personally, I do not like portable hard-drive temprorary storage devices. I would prefer instead to buy large CF cards. A 32GB CF card is available from newegg for $99. They're lighter, less fragile and you're not putting several cards onto one hard drive (which can fail spectacularly).

What happens if your 32GB card fails Rhys?

IMO, (and the way I do it) a much better solution would be a number of smaller (2-4GB) CF cards which are backed up to a hyperdrive providing additional security.

jbanbury wrote in post #4559756
What happens if your 32GB card fails Rhys?

IMO, (and the way I do it) a much better solution would be a number of smaller (2-4GB) CF cards which are backed up to a hyperdrive providing additional security.

Given that CF cards can go through a washing machine unharmed, be dropped, stood on, driven over etc and come out unscathed, I'll go with the CF option. I'd like to see you try all that with a pocket hard drive!

The advantages of CF over a pocket hard drive -

1. They take up less space
   
2. They weigh less
   
3. Less susceptible to physical damage
   
4. Don't need batteries/external power in order to make them work
   
5. Photos aren't all risked on a single storage device - they can be spread over as many CF cards as you wish simply by changing CF cards every X photos.

I have one. I bought the shell and put in a spare 40G drive I had about. It can transfer a full 4GB card in a few minutes; I really haven't timed it.

As a USB drive it's as fast as any other USB drive I've used.

I use it on shoots to download the cards immediatly after I fill them. I like having the images in two places, and uploading to my PC is faster from the HD Space than from a card reader. DownloaderPro sees it as a REALLY BIG CF card, so my workflow is the same as when I'm downloading from the card directly. I know I've downloaded 20GB of images in well under one hour.

Here is one recent review. I share his opinion:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com …essories/hyperd​rive.shtml

BUT... in reading your post above, I would *NOT* recommend it to view images. It's fine for you to confirm an image, but it's very slow to render the image in good quality, and very slow from image to image speed.

If you really want to view images on site, you'd be better off investing in a ultra-portable laptop and downloading to the laptop hard drive (or external drive) with a conventional card reader.

Or, if you have the 1DmkIII or 1DsMkIII, you might look into the WFT-E2A WiFi transmitter. I have one with my 1DmkIII and it worked really well on the last shoot I did. It was great that the parents could see the image within a second or so on my 21" monitor. I know I made more sales because the mom could see their little precious' expression and had to buy the print. Maybe next year I'll get an assistant and try selling prints on site.

rhys wrote in post #4560051
Given that CF cards can go through a washing machine unharmed, be dropped, stood on, driven over etc and come out unscathed, I'll go with the CF option. I'd like to see you try all that with a pocket hard drive!

I dont understand the mentality of why you would put all your eggs into one basket.

I guess it depends on how much you value the data you have shot ... I personally cannot afford to loose my images whilst on location and therefore back them up at the earliest opportunity.

You're set to loose an awful lots of images should that card go pop. Chances are that it wont, but why take the risk?

jbanbury wrote in post #4561431
I dont understand the mentality of why you would put all your eggs into one basket.

I guess it depends on how much you value the data you have shot ... I personally cannot afford to loose my images whilst on location and therefore back them up at the earliest opportunity.

You're set to loose an awful lots of images should that card go pop. Chances are that it wont, but why take the risk?

I agree, but I'm not so worried about the reliability of the card as formatting the wrong card (DAMHIKT). Until I get the files to my RAID server and backed up to DVD, I want them in two places: the card and the Hyperdrive.

jbanbury wrote in post #4561431
I dont understand the mentality of why you would put all your eggs into one basket.

I guess it depends on how much you value the data you have shot ... I personally cannot afford to loose my images whilst on location and therefore back them up at the earliest opportunity.

You're set to loose an awful lots of images should that card go pop. Chances are that it wont, but why take the risk?

You missed my 5th point in which I said that images could be spread over as many cards as one deemed necessary for safety. Plus, if you use the 1D you can save to both CF and SD simulteneously.

I didnt exactly miss your 5th point ... It just kind of contridicts your original post where you 'recommended' a 32Gb card.

If your changing cards after x number of shots for safety reasons doesnt buying a greater number of smaller cards instead of one large one make more sense?

Not sure your comment regarding the 1D is applicable as Blackey has a 300d, which last time I looked couldnt write to more than one card

jbanbury wrote in post #4562269
I didnt exactly miss your 5th point ... It just kind of contridicts your original post where you 'recommended' a 32Gb card.

If your changing cards after x number of shots for safety reasons doesnt buying a greater number of smaller cards instead of one large one make more sense?

Not sure your comment regarding the 1D is applicable as Blackey has a 300d, which last time I looked couldnt write to more than one card

To be honest, I would either not worry about CF card failure or I'd use smaller cards and span the images over a greater number of cards which means that less images will be lost if a card goes bad but which increases the risk of image loss.

Incidentally, I tried transferring images from CF card to my Hyperdrive and examined both cards and drive images later to find that an image had been corrupted in the transfer and could not be opened. Fortunately I had not deleted any images from my cards. I just remembered that. It's probably why I no longer use the Hyperdrive.

RHYS, what you want for it? It will fit my needs if nothing else the rapid transfer of images to it then using it as an harddrive to pull the images off or reference from. I think it will fit in to my workflow perfectly, although withotu ever seeing one in person I can not comment on if it will work as a viewer.

Blackey Cole wrote in post #4563745
RHYS, what you want for it? It will fit my needs if nothing else the rapid transfer of images to it then using it as an harddrive to pull the images off or reference from. I think it will fit in to my workflow perfectly, although withotu ever seeing one in person I can not comment on if it will work as a viewer.

I have the HD80. It doesn't have a display other than a very crude number of files counter. It is fairly slow but I do use it for file transfer - I don't trust it for CF cards as that part of it seems a bit faulty. I backed up my laptop to DVDs and to the HD80 before I reformatted it. I keep it for that kind of thing. It seems OK for that. I just don't use it as a card reader though.

Rhys

I have a compact-drive PD70X (AKA Hyperdrive).

I have numbered my cards (indelible ink) and their boxes, so I use then sequentially, I then copy to the PD70X -and wait for the smiley face to appear!

Later, I transfer directly from the CF cards (via a Internal reader - which is connected to USB pins on the computers M/Board) to 2 separate HD's in my PC and a EHD. when I am sure that they are all there - I mass delete them from the PD70X - without even transferring them from that.

I only format directly prior to using any card again - then it is in the camera.
All in all - this negates your point 5.
But doesn't your Laptop oppose the previous 4 https://photography-on-the.net …ages/smilies/ic​on_lol.gif


BTW
Do not believe CF cards are indestructible - I have had corruption troubles with 2 CF cards - I was not able to do a thing with them - they couldn't be read or formatted. In the end Sandisk replaced them FOC.

willowtree wrote in post #4574425
Rhys

I have a compact-drive PD70X (AKA Hyperdrive).

I have numbered my cards (indelible ink) and their boxes, so I use then sequentially, I then copy to the PD70X -and wait for the smiley face to appear!

Later, I transfer directly from the CF cards (via a Internal reader - which is connected to USB pins on the computers M/Board) to 2 separate HD's in my PC and a EHD. when I am sure that they are all there - I mass delete them from the PD70X - without even transferring them from that.

I only format directly prior to using any card again - then it is in the camera.
All in all - this negates your point 5.
But doesn't your Laptop oppose the previous 4

BTW
Do not believe CF cards are indestructible - I have had corruption troubles with 2 CF cards - I was not able to do a thing with them - they couldn't be read or formatted. In the end Sandisk replaced them FOC.

I don't carry a hyperdrive with me. I carry solely CF cards.

I have the ColorSpace. It is best hyperdrive I've owned. Previously, I had the HD80 and the pd7x. All have been very fast and reliable. The CS is extremely fast and holds its charge for 60 gb+ (at least that's how long I've gone before stopping. It still showed 3/4 charge left).

It is handy as a quick viewer. But, I would not bank my business on it, especially as you described your intended use. It takes about 8 seconds a render an image that will allow for zooming.

On the other hand, it is faster than my cf reader in downloading files to my pc.

I highly recommend it as a backup/storage device with the ability to view your images at your leisure. When shooting sports events, it is invaluable. Typically, after filling up a card, I use it to download while I'm shooting with another card. I'll have multiple cards so that I don't need to reformat. Then I'll have 2 copies of the images, one on the original card and the other on the CS. However, I've never needed to go back to the original card because the CS has been 100% reliable.