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Author Topic: Firewire Portable Drive+Card Reader?  (Read 2062 times)

doubledark

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Firewire Portable Drive+Card Reader?
« on: January 06, 2008, 07:37:26 pm »

Hi all
I want to speed up the card-->computer transfer speed; does anyone know of any portable storage devices that use Firewire? (I have a USB device (Hyperdrive) which I find far too slow)

thanks
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JoanneMead

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Firewire Portable Drive+Card Reader?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2008, 03:23:52 pm »

I don't know of any portable storage devices that use Firewire and some have internal drives that are just 5400 rpm as this (supposedly) makes them more robust.  Most modern units do use USB2, which isn't that slow.

As for fast card to computer transfer, you want the latest UDMA reader such as the new Lexar Professional FW 800 UDMA CF Reader, but you will need to invest in the fastest CF cards to get the benefit.  There are two factors:  connection speed (Firewire 800 being the fastest) and the actual read/write speed of the card.

Identify what your bottleneck is and go from these.  There's no point buying UDMA cards without the reader or vice versa and you will probably need to add firewire 800 to your computer - Firewire 400 is the norm.  It's a different connector.

As a workaround, you could get some extra cards and download when you're back at base rather than trying to do it in the field.

What are you using at the moment?
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Jo

Herts, UK

Hank

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Firewire Portable Drive+Card Reader?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2008, 04:26:10 pm »

I've been delighted with the new SanDisc firewire readers we got a couple of months ago from B&H.  They are so much faster than USB2 that it's not even a race.  Came packaged with file recovery software that's dandy, too.

We usually buy our firewire portables through Wiebetech   They're competitively priced, and we've never had a failure in over six years with them.  I recently bought a USB 2 drive from Western Digital, and what a mistake.  They're reputed to be super reliable, but I'm already fed up.  It is soooo slooooooooooow compared to our Wiebetech firewire units.  There are probably others out there, but I'm back in the Wiebetech fold for the foreseeable future.  And no, I'm not affiliated with them.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2008, 04:28:10 pm by Hank »
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PTeeCee

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Firewire Portable Drive+Card Reader?
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2008, 04:13:37 am »

As a low cycle user I have found the NEXTO products (USB and firewire (AND V fast with the FW)) a good solution. Although the model I have used is the CF model a multicard adapter have enabled relative exotics such as xD cards to download OK. I bought the empty housing and put in a Samsung 5400 RPM 100G laptop HD in a very painless 5 minutes. There are newer models about (and higher capacity HD's). A fellow countryman of mine has a novel emergency power solution   http://www.burren.cx/photo/nexto.html. This is a no frills units without a pixel-fondler screen, just a basic text screen. It has done service in Antarctica and other less exotic locations.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2008, 04:19:00 am by PTeeCee »
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