[switch79]

I was having a flick through the K10D manual last night as I was curious about transferring files. We obviously can transfer to a PC with no issues, but is it possible to plug our K10D’s via the cable provided to a USB Portable hard drive like a 250GB? I couldn’t find any info on this

Is there a function within the K10D’s menu to transfer to this. I know there is a transfer to PC option, but will this work with a portable drive? Has anyone done anything similar?

If possible, this would be awesome for an upcoming trip of mine. A little peace of mind to shoot to my hearts content, and also be able to store a heap of RAWS.

Any feedback welcome,

Cheers,
Switch79

[SpecialK]

I think with just the camera hooked into an external hard drive, you would be missing the "brain" and software to make the transfer There are storage devices such as Wolverine, and others, that do what you are asking - for a bit more money than a plain HD of course.

Amazon.com: Wolverine 7120 120 GB FlashPac Memory Card Reader and Storage Drive: Computers & PC Hardware

[m8o]

yep, what SpecialK says. my HyperDrive space is a 2.5" [laptop] HD + rechargeable battery in a case slightly larger then the drive, and most importantly, it's got a mini-OS inside that reads and writes FAT32 on the disc. That's the key. Camera doesn't.

[Mark Castleman]

I bought the iPod camera adpater since I already have the iPod and that gives me all the storage I need. It is certainly not fast and you want to make sure that both camera and iPod have a full charge, but it is small and doesn't need another power supply.

[Lowell Goudge]

I was having a flick through the K10D manual last night as I was curious about transferring files. We obviously can transfer to a PC with no issues, but is it possible to plug our K10D’s via the cable provided to a USB Portable hard drive like a 250GB? I couldn’t find any info on this

Is there a function within the K10D’s menu to transfer to this. I know there is a transfer to PC option, but will this work with a portable drive? Has anyone done anything similar?

If possible, this would be awesome for an upcoming trip of mine. A little peace of mind to shoot to my hearts content, and also be able to store a heap of RAWS.

Any feedback welcome,

Cheers,
Switch79

There are devices that you can use to bridge between 2 USB compatible devices to transfer files.

These can run about $40cdn, BUT note you cannot see what you have transferred, and each device must be self powered, i.e. the camera, and the disk drive. The bridge cannot even power a card reader (I have tried)

The only thing I question is, WHY did I even bother to try this?

With memory at an all time low of about $15/GB (Canadian) just buy more chips.

If you are really serious about transfer, the image viewers with integrated hard disks are good and compact, (but expensive), or just pack a USB powered Hard disk, and rely on finding a computer along the way with card reader and USB ports. Many hotels now have computers like this in the business centers. or if travelling in a group, take 1 computer and share it.

In short When memory was $200 for 64MB back up solutions and transfer to hard disk was much more important. Now, why bother?

The only thing I have not tried, is to use my son's Video I-Pod with the bridge, as this might be a good overall solution, except you will burn the camera battery down with the transfer/ Perhaps a self powered USB card reader would be good for this.

[stewart_photo]

(snip) There are storage devices such as Wolverine, and others, that do what you are asking - for a bit more money than a plain HD of course. (snip)

Thanks for the heads up on this. At $140, the smaller 60GB Wolverine FlashPac seems like an especially good deal. It should be able to hold about 4000 RAW images, many more JPEG's, while costing roughly the same as four 2GB High-Speed SD cards.

The reviews seem to be pretty good as well. The only consistent complaints seem to focus on slower overall speeds, which is far less important than safely storing existing images while taking others.

stewart

[m8o]

In short When memory was $200 for 64MB back up solutions and transfer to hard disk was much more important. Now, why bother?

That's pretty much the case. Two conditions for needing a drive:
1) to protect -vital- snaps with back-ups, thus having them in two different places on two separate media [mediums?].
2) if you're shooting RAW and plan to shoot thousands of pix while off on a epic journey. If a 100 Gig drive is $200 and 1 Gig SD Ultra II card you can fit about 100 [10Meg each] snaps on is say $25, you reach break even @ 8 cards ... that's 800 RAW snaps. You can fit about 10,000 RAW snaps on a 100 Gig portable drive.

With these numbers thus, if you plan to shoot more than 1000 RAW snaps in an outing it pays to have a drive to d/l snaps to.

Why do I say 1000 not 800? Because you must have spent the $ to buy two cards so that you can both snap and fill, and continue snapping on the 2nd card while you d/l the previously filled cards to the HD. That adds another $50 to the equation, thus adding two more cards to the card-only way of doing it, increasing its pic count to keep it equal.

(yes I know that you can buy a 2 gig card for less money per byte; the math just isn't as clean using $35 as it is using $25... )

[and]

I frankly trust an sd card more than I trust a hard drive simply because I have had several hard drives fail on me up though the years but no sd card has failed yet.

also putting all your shots on 1 portable hard drive instead of on multiple sd card means u have 1 point of failure.

[Lowell Goudge]

I frankly trust an sd card more than I trust a hard drive simply because I have had several hard drives fail on me up though the years but no sd card has failed yet.

also putting all your shots on 1 portable hard drive instead of on multiple sd card means u have 1 point of failure.

I don't disagree. There was an article in a photo magazine about 1-2 months ago on how to back up your epic trips.

Some people said you needed 2 lap tops, others different things.

I think it depends on where you are going, for how long, etc.

I think the best answer I saw, was to have 1 lap top, plus one combined HD reader / viewer, like some of the products now available, since you could use the lap top as primary storage, the image viewer as a back up to the lap top (in case the laptop HD crashes) plus you could still back up to the viewer independantly without the lap top.

But as others have said, I would NEVER erase the origonals because hard disks all fail,

[dmdctusa]

Picking up on the point re low price of memory cards and the fact that you want to keep a back up as opposed to just more cards.....

Bushell makes a device that lets you transfer from one SD card to another and it as a veiwing screen so you can confirm the transfer (B&H photo carries them...see portable storage and viewers). I am considering getting one and and a couple more 4 gig SD cards reseved as backup cards. I am very wary of carring a hard drive on a trip where it may get banged around at airport security checks. I am far more trustful of solid state memory once its be formatted and tested a few times.

[Lowell Goudge]

Picking up on the point re low price of memory cards and the fact that you want to keep a back up as opposed to just more cards.....

Bushell makes a device that lets you transfer from one SD card to another and it as a veiwing screen so you can confirm the transfer (B&H photo carries them...see portable storage and viewers). I am considering getting one and and a couple more 4 gig SD cards reseved as backup cards. I am very wary of carring a hard drive on a trip where it may get banged around at airport security checks. I am far more trustful of solid state memory once its be formatted and tested a few times.

If this is all you want, then just get a PDA with both CF and SD slots, I have a dell Axim 50 and you can view JPEG (not RAW) with this, and use the file manager to copy from one format to another. I have done this using the CF cards from my *istD as back up to the SD cards for my K10.

[song_hm]

If this is all you want, then just get a PDA with both CF and SD slots, I have a dell Axim 50 and you can view JPEG (not RAW) with this, and use the file manager to copy from one format to another. I have done this using the CF cards from my *istD as back up to the SD cards for my K10.

Don't forget to consider whether the PDA can read SDHC format or not.

[stewart_photo]

I frankly trust an sd card more than I trust a hard drive simply because I have had several hard drives fail on me up though the years but no sd card has failed yet.

I cannot agree with that premise. Modern hard drives are fairly reliable, especially under conditions like that in these devices; operating only while moving files and off the remainder of the time. Under normal use, the hard drives in these devices will likely only be used for a few hours each month (less than even your SD card), while a drive in a normal computer is typically expected to operate hours each day over several years. In other words, the odds of the drives in these devices going bad is many, many, times less than that in a normal computer.

stewart

[m8o]

... I did take the HyperDrive SPACE to one of the dustiest places I'll perhaps ever go, Tanzania; specifically Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti, and moreso the ride there, about a month ago.

Through the airport, it just stayed in the inside front pocket of my camera bag and was never pulled out by security in NYC, Amsterdam or Tanzania. Security in Kennedy Airport in NYC continues to be about the strickest of all I ever pass through.

After reading the post just before mine, I thought I'd edit and add some support (not that any is needed)... HDs made to offload SD and other memory cards only operate while the Download off the card or Upload to the computer is happening. Off and drive heads parked in a safe position the rest of the time. The drive I have is said to be able to copy 100 Gigs of data on one charge or a Li battery just a bit bigger then a AA. So yes, +1 in agreement that it's -very- lightly utilized. I stick by saying if you're doing say a thousand RAW shots in one outing, stay with SD cards. If you know you'll be shooting many thousand RAW photos, card-reading HD is a necessity.

[Peter Zack]

I cannot agree with that premise. Modern hard drives are fairly reliable, especially under conditions like that in these devices; operating only while moving files and off the remainder of the time. Under normal use, the hard drives in these devices will likely only be used for a few hours each month (less than even your SD card), while a drive in a normal computer is typically expected to operate hours each day over several years. In other words, the odds of the drives in these devices going bad is many, many, times less than that in a normal computer.

stewart

I have to agree with Stewart on this one. I transfer everything (work, pictures, whatever) to a backup HD as it's only in use a few hours a month and the computer is in use daily. A portable will only be in use periodically for backups and transfers and should last a long time. I've never had a fixed HD fail (computer or backup unit) and have had computers at home and work since the days of 286's. I've had 3 flash cards (2SD and 1 compact memory) fail in just the past year. I have much less faith in the SD card than the HD (in any form).

My next purchase will most likely be a Wolverine or something similar to transfer in the field as carring a bunch of SD's, risks loosing one or having to carry too many.