cary999

Saying back-up to "hard drive" is not entirely accurate. It is a hard drive, in a little case, that has a battery(s) -and- a built in card(s) reader. With a tiny screen to feedback when it is working and finished. Here's one sold by Hyperdrive -
http://www.hyperdrive.com/HyperDrive...tions-s/36.htm

Typically the units use a laptop drive so it comes with, or you can install yourself, various size drives. It has an USB interface so you plug it into a PC and it appears as another drive (letter) on the PC. The cost is around $100-$200. Why not then just get a tiny "Netbook"? This HD80 drive is much smaller and weighs 12 ounces with AA batteries. Other similar devices are much smaller and lighter.

True as the techie said, you can't simply plug a card reader into a (external) hard drive even though both are USB devices. You need another interface between the them. Can be a PC or some other circuitry like built into the Hyperdrive. (Google USB OTG is you are more curious).

I've found it easier to wait and do all culling at home on fast PC. So agree that I may have 10% of the shots badly blurred/exposed, obviously useless. But the vast majority of them are multiple shots of the same subject. And it's those I need to look at slowly to decide on the ones to use. Bringing them up on large monitor screen as large thumbnails for comparison.

regards - tom

cary999

Oh, wanted to also mention the forum on dpreview that discusses "Storage and Media" - http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1023

regards - tom

shelleyk

bookmarking

sf7307

<i>hardware - you would use either use a card reader and attach that to your pc through your USB port or could upload directly to your pc from your camera through the USB port. My Asus it has a built in card reader that reads SD,SDHC and MMC memory so if your camera uses that type of memory you could just stick your card into the PC. </i>

GreenDrake, you're still missing a piece. Software - no problem, actually with Windows you don't need any special software to <i>load</i> photos, yes, of course you need special software such as Photoshop to <i>edit</i> them. But as for Hardware - what you've described is how you upload them to.....what? I have an Asus netbook. I stick the memory card in the slot and SAVE my photos (I don't edit) on my 160GB hard drive. Then I upload them to picasaweb, but I keep them on the hard drive, too, until I'm sure I've printed or uploaded those that I want to save. In other words, you've described how you <i>upload</i> them (separate or built-in card reader), but not what you </i>do</i> with them after that (a 20GB solid state drive as in the $199 HP netbook won't hold many full-size pictures from a 10 MP camera).

GreenDrake

sf7307 - Your process is similar to what I do. I highly recommend that people should have a back up at either their home or office location and also a offsite backup. This way you are protected if you had a fire or other natural disaster at your home or office.

I back up my photos and other personal files on an external hard drive and for my photos upload to a web based site.I have used Kodak and PBase in the past and have now switched to Zenfolio.

On safari I just don't ever nap. I would take my camera and binoculars in the afternoons between game drives and find a good spot in camp for a cold beer that offered a good spot for potential wild life viewing. I would use this time to review my photos and delete obvious bad photos and make sure I had not erroneously used out of whack settings. Doing this off your camera LCD is tough to do, so I think doing this with a net book will be much easier plus the fact that I will now have a back up instead of playing roulette as I had done in the past. I would not do any editing until I returned home. I travel very light with a minimum of lenses so I can handle a couple of extra lbs, but I can see for others that adding even something this light may be too much.

Rizzuto's idea of upgrading to a 6 hour battery is a very good one. My ASUS is only good for about 3 hours. Not sure if a 6 hour battery is available. I prefer remote bush camps and charging both cameras and a PC could be a problem in some camps and I would probably not take my ASUS to those camps unless I could get a longer lasting battery.

sf7307

<i>My ASUS is only good for about 3 hours. </i>

The battery that came with my Asus eeepc, which I got a month ago, is "rated" 7 hours --- in reality, because I do not dim the backlight, and use it mainly to surf the web (an energy hog, as I'm sure you know), it lasts 4+ hours, which is still pretty darn good.

Oh, and I forgot, I save pix on an external "travel" hard drive too (I use the Seagate FreeAgent Go -- I like the form factor!)

debwarr

cary999, I've just had the opportunity to really check out the Hyperdrive Colorspace unit, and it seems like a great option. I can get 500GB and a viewing screen for less than the Epson 6000. I'm just trying to find a reliable backup with less weight than a mini laptop. Does anyone have this new Hyperdrive?

cary999

Re Hyperdrive Colorspace, I went to dpreview.com forum "Storage and Media", and searched for "hyperdrive colorspace". Came back with many hits, here's link - http://tinyurl.com/n8q2ey
Some may be for an older unit of colorspace?

regards - tom

dutyfree

Love my Asus Aspire ONE for travel!