[Leica] new to DMR - now image storage

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 3:39 PM +0100 3/25/06, Fred Hess / Phenix Visuals NL wrote:
>Hello Doug,
>
>Buy yourself a Xs-drive such as the Vosonic VP2160 with a capacity of 40 or
>80GB. And 'drop' the entire content of your SD-card  in this device, when
>your SD-card is full.
>
>I use the VP 2160 /80GB now for several weeks and I am very pleased with it.
>
>Fred Hess.
>
>Phenix Visuals, the Hague, NL
>

The Vosonics have the virtue of being the cheapest, in general, but 
they are slow and you can't download very many images on one charge 
(about 3-4Gb worth). I've used two different Vosonics for the past 3 
years.

I recently got a Nexto CF unit, which was slightly more expensive, 
but is approximately 15x as fast, and the way I have it set up, with 
a small external battery, will accept the full 100Gb (I installed a 
low power Fujitsu 100Gb drive) worth of images on one charge. The 
internal battery alone allowed me to download 35Gb of images on the 
very first charge.

http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD_Main.htm

has some info, including download speeds on various units, and has 
links to additional reviews.

There is no North American source for the unit at this time that I am 
aware of, so your choice is getting it direct from Korea, or there is 
apparently a German and/or British dealer. I got mine in a couple of 
days via Australia from:

http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au/

with excellent service.

I wouldn't consider any other unit at this time. One that could be 
considered is the Jobo Giga Vu Pro Evolution, a unit that is just as 
fast, somewhat larger, more versatile, has a nice screen, not 
available yet, has unknown battery life, and will be a _LOT_ more 
expensive.

The Nexto has been a revelation for shooting digital. I'm thinking of 
getting a second unit so that all images can be downloaded to two 
drives. Initially I was going to use my Vosonic as the backup drive, 
but the difference in performance is so immense that it would drive 
me up the wall.

On the related topic, I haven't yet lost an image due to card failure 
(various CF cards, SD cards and XD cards). Most have been Sandisk, 
with some Lexars, Olympus and two Microdrives. I make a point of not 
reformatting them (the best way of clearing the previous shoot) 
before the images are in two other locations. So far so good.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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