alex.moskalyuk

Recently a friend of mine asked me about portable hard drives capable of downloading the images directly off the digital cameras. She was going to London with a sweet Canon EOS-10D 6.3 MP camera and a 1 GB CompactFlash card, which would not suffice for a three-week trip. Can I download the images off the digital camera directly to a portable hard drive? - she asked, and at that point I got kinda stunned, since I never really travel without my laptop around, which eliminates the need for additional storage. As far as I understand, the downloading process requires the presence of a USB host, which should be achieved with some embedded CPU and some additional RAM for buffering, so at that point you’re paying for CPU, paying for RAM, paying for storage, which amounts pretty close to buying a cheaply configured laptop from Dell with the largest drive you can find.

Engadget talks about Welland USB hard drive that’s capable of processing USB clients on the go, meaning that a digital camera can be connected to it and images downloaded without the need for a PC. Peter Rojas claims this might be the first portable drive with such capability, but it’s not.

Quick Froogle search reveals a product called Nixvue Vista, capable of storing 60 GB in its most expensive configuration, which is 60 GB. It costs $600, which is within the range for a cheap laptop, although from the looks of it lugging something the size of an iPod definitely beats laptop. Delkin Devices e-Film PicturePad, 60GB is another unit they have for $589, and turns out there are some products from Alera capable of recording to CDs, so it’s a portable CD-RW with some smarts to get the data directly off the digital camera. An 80 GB SmartDisk FlashTrax, 80GB is another one from B&H, capable of storing 80 Gigs of photos off the flash cards, and Froogle finds Buy.com selling it for $615.