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Portable Digital Backup Devices

by Eric Cheng Monday, May 31st, 2004

Article Summary:

Safari photographer and good friend Andy Biggs sent us a great link that compares various portable digital backup devices. Currently, 28 portable devices are listed and 14 of them matched up against each other by transfer speed and battery life. The author is a photography enthusiast named Frederic Houde.

Many thanks for this very useful review

I've been using a Nixvue Vista for about a year with both 512MB CF cards and a 1GB Microdrive. It is excellent - although, as suggested, the microdrives do drain the battery pretty quickly. I always carry out a "verify" after downloading the card to ensure that it has copied correctly. Two downloads and verifies of the 1GB Microdrive almost finish the battery.

I shoot Nikon RAW files (.NEF). Loading them for viewing on the LCD screen is very slow and almost unusable.
Posted by Tim on 2004-06-19 20:42:28 Nice to see that many listed side by side for easy comparison, but the consumer needs actual review information. I bought and used a Flash Trax on my Indonesian trip. I didn't want to trust it completely, so I also took the laptop. Sure enough, on one card transfer it would lock up after transferring the first 4 images. I tried it four times with no success while I had no problems transferring via card reader and laptop.
Posted by on 2004-06-01 18:01:30 I'm surprised the Archos AV300 series is not listed. It would be nice to have a device that has a large screen and can rip from DVDs.
Posted by on 2004-06-01 07:37:35