New Photo backup device - any opinion ?

[Pascal]

I was window shopping when I came across this device which looks a lot like the Epson P-5000 but seemed much more robust.

http://www.digitalfoci.com/picture_porter_elite.html#

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OSEI06/...6&linkCode=asn

At about $500 for the 120GB flavor, it seemed like a decent deal. I tried it with RAW and was quite impressed with the quality of the screen. However, I am fishing for opinions before I spend the $500 to get one of these.

What I would like to know is how good is the battery life and how rugged are these devices. Any opinions would be appreciated.

[Pascal]

Does anyone on here use photo backup devices ??

[jeffkohn]

To me the devices with color LCD's are just way overpriced. I have a CompactFlash PDX70, which is extremely fast, has file copy verification, excellent battery life, etc, and costs a fraction of what the color screen models sell for. Maybe it gives some people a sense of security to be able to review the images, but in the case of shooting RAW all that really tells you is that the embedded JPEG preview isn't corrupt.

Now that flash memory is so cheap, I have enough cards to get through even the longest day without need to dump images. For multi-day trips I take my laptop and PDX70, downloading the day's images to both devices at the end of the day so that I have redundant backups. And since I can review images on the laptop, I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not having image review capabilities on the PDX70.

[shutterdrone]

Originally Posted by Pascal

I was window shopping when I came across this device which looks a lot like the Epson P-5000 but seemed much more robust.

http://www.digitalfoci.com/picture_porter_elite.html#

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OSEI06/...6&linkCode=asn

At about $500 for the 120GB flavor, it seemed like a decent deal. I tried it with RAW and was quite impressed with the quality of the screen. However, I am fishing for opinions before I spend the $500 to get one of these.

What I would like to know is how good is the battery life and how rugged are these devices. Any opinions would be appreciated.

What is your primary purpose for such a device? For actually "backing up" your images, or for extra storage space and viewing on the road? The reason I ask is because if you're looking to "back up" your images to avoid loss, such devices are generally a bad choice as they are no more likely to be effective than your local hard drive.

If you're looking to spend around $500 and want more secure "backup", I would suggest an external SATA bay with two hard drives in it, of equal size. Then, use software RAID10 to assure that you have two copies of each block stored (raid 10 stripes across both drives, and duplicates the stripe on two drives - meaning if you lose one drive, you can re-build from the other - it's also quite fast to read from as you can read both drives at the same time.) If you want to spend a little more, I would suggest an external SATA enclosure with a built-in hardware raid controller.

Personally, the best backup, IMO, is off-site, live backup. For a moderate price, you can use services such as mediamax or amazon s3 to copy your files off remotely and download them whenever you need them (MM is fairly cheap for hundreds of GB of data). That way, if a disaster were to happen (flood, fire, etc.) and you lose everything - you can still retrieve your images when you get a new computer.

If you're just looking for some extra storage on the road, unfortunately, I'm afraid I don't have much knowledge about such devices - and sorry for talking so long about the wrong subject =)

!c

[jeffkohn]

If you're looking to spend around $500 and want more secure "backup", I would suggest an external SATA bay with two hard drives in it, of equal size. Then, use software RAID10 to assure that you have two copies of each block stored (raid 10 stripes across both drives, and duplicates the stripe on two drives - meaning if you lose one drive, you can re-build from the other - it's also quite fast to read from as you can read both drives at the same time.) If you want to spend a little more, I would suggest an external SATA enclosure with a built-in hardware raid controller.

RAID-10 requires 4 drives. With 2 drives you can have RAID-1 (mirroring), or RAID-0 (striping), but you can't have both.

Personally, the best backup, IMO, is off-site, live backup. For a moderate price, you can use services such as mediamax or amazon s3 to copy your files off remotely and download them whenever you need them (MM is fairly cheap for hundreds of GB of data). That way, if a disaster were to happen (flood, fire, etc.) and you lose everything - you can still retrieve your images when you get a new computer.

I see the potential benefit of these services. The only downside (and it's a huge one), is that it would take forever to back up several dozen GB of images after a photo-intensive trip.

Regardless, if the original poster is looking at a portable storage device with card reader built in, I would think they're looking for a backup solution for on the road or in the field, not just backing up a computer hard drive. So an external drive bay probably isn't what they're looking for.

[johnastovall]

I'm with Jeff on this I just don't see any reason to have an LCD display. I think the best deal for card back up is now the NEXTO (replacement for PDX70). Buy the case and add your drive from newegg.

[burksports]

I have two of their devices, the Media Buddy and another they no longer sell. Battery life is good and the units have always been reliable. The only complaint I have is that their menus seem to be a bit "criptic", but after using for a while I became accustomed to them.

[Pascal]

I have a laptop that I can carry around when I travel. However, along with the laptop comes 4-5 lbs additional weight and valuable space that gets taken away. Plus laptop batteries last about 2-3 hours.

With a smaller backup device, the files could be downloaded and I don't have to worry about accidentally erazing the images or CF card corruption or CF card filling up. I am using Lexar 8GB cards on the 5D and 1Ds which can take around 350-400 images. So when travelling (2-6 day trips), it would be nice to back up images as well as free some CF card space for more shooting.

The NEXTO looks like a reasonable solution, but for $50 more, I get additional 40GB storage space on the digitalfoci backup device and a source for review of the images when I am not using the camera.

Thanks for the input.

[jamesw]

Unlike the others, I CAN see a reason for the LCD screen. If you go on a photo trip and can't bring a laptop then the LCD storage let's you check your focus and see the photos on a bigger screen.

My wife and I took one on Safari (giga vu pro evo) and it let my wife know that she needed to increase her shutterspeed after the first day's shooting as all her shots had motion blur.

I haven't used the device in the OP so can't comment.

Cheers
James

[Jim Victory]

I have the PDX70 too and it has worked good for me. I don't really have time in the field to check an LCD screen anyway. I use my laptop later when I download to it.

I have never lost a file using the PDX70 in 10's of thousands downloads.

[billbunton]

I use one with an LCD. I don't use the LCD in the field, but in the evenings can use it to review the images since I don't always take a laptop.