Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Well news to me that is...

I put my order info the Hyperdrive ColorSpace UDMA sans HD yesterday. A few hours later they called me to say that they didn

I'm not entirely sold on these devices, personally.

For the 300 + hard drive that you need to spend on this, just buy more cards, or better yet, a netbook.

I can appreciate the convenience it offers in the field vs. a netbook, but I'm not certain about how much more convenient it is (given the price) than more, or bigger flash storage.

-phil

A 500GB 2.5 inch drive costs $100- (less actually) and some people are paying that much for 16gig UDMA CF's. You do the math.

We easily filled 300gigs on our last vacation, and that was only 1 week.

Not many netbooks come with 500gig HD's, and if you use an external HD, you'll discover how much shorter battery life is, and how _long_ it takes to transfer 30gigs - I've done it, it's 1hr to an external USB HD. My Hyperdrive only took 20min's to download 32gigs.

For the typical photog on TPMG, this is overkill, but for those of us who have or need one, it saves a lot of time and worry.

I'm one of those people that brings their laptop on vacation, because I like to stay in touch, watch movies at night, blog, etc. So for me, leaving the laptop in a hotel and having multiple cards "in the field" is more convenient than lugging another device. The other good thing about having a laptop is using Lightroom or something similar to quickly pick out the good photos and not have to save 300GB of stuff in the first place.



Again, I'm only speaking for myself, but the only reason I can ever think of where this setup is more convenient than a bunch of cards, is if you are camping, or travelling somewhere remote without electricity. Basically anywhere where you're away from your laptop for extended periods of time, this works great, otherwise I'm not sold.

There are also cheapo units like this: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13576

This is not for everyone but for me I bought it to be able to backup my files at weddings as well as have my 2nd dump the files as well. I can backup several times throughout the day and at the end of the day I can just dump the Hyperdrive and not have to load up each card 1 at a time. So for me it

I've done the "cheapo" units... try 10 min's per GB.

I bring my laptop with me as well, and trust me, the Hyperdrive is a much superior device for off-loading.

Again, it works for me. YMMV.

I think $300 without HDD is overpriced since I don't need LCD, support for RAW files and etc. If the device just focused on the speed & reliability of the backup and got rid of all the features and lowered the price, I think a lot more people would buy them.

Keyword and primary usage, "BACKUP" I never run out of cards nor have I lost one or have one get currupted but if I ever do, I'll always have a 2nd copy on me.

Now if I ran around with two D3s then I'd just pop 2 64GB cards in and not worry about it. Acutally, no I'd still backup. $300 is a lot cheaper than having to explain to a couple why the ceremony photos are gone and refunding them in full.

I'm still using the original Hypedrive HD80

I can see that if you break it down to hard drive cost and what not it is fairly expensive compared to a netbook. However, it is a lot more reasonable than those Epson devices. It really is a niche device.

A classic...but you have your files "backed up" and that is key. Definetly niche! I have an 80GB drive sitting around so I'll use that until SSD's drop in price.

The new one uses SATA drives, not the older PATA drives. Don't get anything larger than 640GB either, they're physically too thick.

I still have my HD80 as well with a 120gig drive (the largest a HD80 can handle).

It is SATA....

One of the advantages of a device like this (or a laptop or a netbook) vs. buying more flash cards is the ability to make on-site backups, and not necessarily for more shooting capacity. I usually come home with 25 to 50GB of files from a wedding, so it's not difficult to have enough CF cards. I use an Epson P-4500 to copy each card as it fills up. Now there's one copy on the CF card (which I carry), and a copy on the Epson (which my assistant carries).

If you have the time and opportunity to set down a laptop, wake it from sleep, plug in a card reader (if there isn't a built-in one), and babysit it while it downloads, then that solution will work for you. But the Epson allows me to pop in a card, start the copying process, and be ready to shoot again in under 30 seconds. It goes back into a vest pouch or pocket while it copies away. No need to flip open a laptop or find a place to set it down, etc. I can literally be doing this while walking to the next location.

When I get home, I plug the Epson into my desktop and offload everything in one operation. There's no need to again babysit a dozen or more cards, or deal with a handful of card readers to do parallel downloads. With a laptop, I would probably have to do a double transfer: copy everything to an external drive, then copy from the external drive to the desktop. Or I could do it over the network, if I were to allow file sharing. Or in my case, with a Thinkpad, pop out the hot-swap second internal drive and drop that into the eSATA dock on my desktop. Still, it's more convenient just plugging a small device into USB.

When I'm on a trip where I am shooting for pleasure, I'll bring my laptop and offload images at the end of each day. I don't bring my Epson for that, unless I don't think there will be a safe place to keep my laptop during the day. I don't need on-site backups in that case, I won't be seeing my desktop until after I get home anyway, and it would be nice to do some culling and editing while on the trip. In that case, a laptop makes more sense.

for $320 all in and a $100 500gb hdd separately for my 3 week trip. i also bought a 16gb cf card for $100. i ended up filling up 120gb, an average of 5gb a day.

for me it made sense to buy a hyperdrive that i can use as a back up after and keep for future trips and it would not make sense to invest in a bunch of CF cards that i would otherwise never use.

i don't have a laptop personally, and if i did would definately find it excessive size and weight for my trip which also included about 8 flights to have to worry about. for the price of a netbook, i'd rather get the hyperdrive considering size & capacity compromises.

my only complaint about the hyperdrive is the lcd ain't pretty, and it doesn't cache thumbnails. if i could do it over again, i wouldn't hesitate to buy it again.

Funny, I posted this just as an FYI that there is a new model out before it's been officially announced and it turns into a debate about its worth.

Did that surprise you

I would love to hear a user review when you get it. Especially on how fast/slow it is when browsing RAW files.

Very true and will do!

But I may not actually get it this weekend. Sanho shipped it out a little late and Fedex nows says Tuesday delivery. But that's in MI and I'll be home back in Toronto. grrrr

When I first looked at the photo of it I thought it was a photoshopped version of the Epson P-xxx series. Going to the website confirmed that it is indeed a Hyperdrive Product, LOL!

If traveling on internal flights of a destination, sometimes only limited to 25 lbs total gear. I'd rather be able to carry this on my person and save the extra weight a laptop would cost me for camera gear (or even clothes) that I couldn't wear. Plus, being able to turn on this device quickly to do a back-up or just to review is much more practical.

I wish I could have waited for these cheaper devices (yes ... cheaper) then what I paid for my Epson P-3000 a couple of years back. One thing that this type of device does well is being able to pass to the client in the middle of a shoot (after card is backed up), it instills a reasurance of your worth with instant feedback. And it is easy for them to navigate through in the palm of their hand. I don't just look at this as a back up tool, but also as quick marketing device as well.

The new product has been launched:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1002/10022 ... ealbum.asp

[quote="SamObeid"]This is not for everyone but for me I bought it to be able to backup my files at weddings as well as have my 2nd dump the files as well. I can backup several times throughout the day and at the end of the day I can just dump the Hyperdrive and not have to load up each card 1 at a time. So for me it