Any success with ipod as storage back-up while away?

[christophertravels]

I was thinking of buying an 80 Gbyte or 160 Gbyte ipod to use for music and photos. You can buy a camera connector to download photos while you're on holiday, using the ipod as a storage back-up. Currently I have no storage back-up while away. This connector bypasses the computer, you don't need a computer to transfer photos from the camera to the ipod. I only shoot in jpeg so there isn't any question of compatability.

The couple of reviews I read was that it is painfully slow and runs the batteries out on both the camera and ipod. That didn't sound promising. But I was wondering if anyone here has used an ipod as a storage back-up while away? Do you have any reviews? Or can anyone send me links to where I can find more information?

Or do you have any other devices that would be more suitable?

[sheila]

While not an iPod, I have a Vosonic 6230i which is an excellent backup for photos (and I believe it can store music). I have only charged the battery once (when I bought it) and have not yet needed to recharge since. I used it for a month in Europe backing up my snaps every night to its hard drive. I then transferred to my PC using a USB port when I returned home.

Cheers
Sheila

[christophertravels]

Thanks for the reply.

I have seen an advertisement for Wolverine ESP 5100 with a 100 Gb hard drive. It has card readers, so no USB connection to the camera, and it plays music and videos. And a large viewing screen. But it uses a spinning hard drive, not flash memory, so I am not sure how robust this is while on the road.

[thesilvertops]

I had no success whatsoever. It would start to download photos and then suddenly say it had finished, i.e. It would get slowly to photo 84 for example, obviously working well, and then suddenly say it had done them all - 300 photos, say. No way. I would then find that none of my photos on the Ipod were accessible and I would have to do a soft reset to access them again. Luckily I had access to the internet so I was able to find out how to do this. I tried 3 times, always had the same problem and gave up - just bought a pile more cards for my camera and took them all home. A pity really as this was partly why I bought the damn thing!

Use your Ipod for music but not as travel photo storage!

[alangrant]

Like a couple of other posters, I do use portable storage but not specifically an IPod. In my case it's an IRiver H340. I chose it at the time because it seemed to offer the best combination of an MP3 player (which was also important to me) with the ability to transfer and store photos. However that was a few years ago so things may well have changed since then, both in IRiver's model range and their competitors.

The transfer is quite slow, but I don't see that as a problem as I only need to back up nightly. Once I'm in my hotel room, it doesn't really matter whether the transfer takes 3 minutes or 30 minutes. Of course that would be different if you needed to transfer "in the field", but it's worth thinking about whether it really matters in your specific circumstances.

Usually I leave the H340 connected to mains power while it is transferring. Battery drain on the camera seems very small.

It does use a hard drive rather than flash, which as you say might not be the most robust solution. But 3 years later, and after being dropped several times on hard wooden floors, it is still going strong. Those three years included a year off during which I travelled all the time, so it has got a lot of use. I must have made a couple of hundred transfers, probably tens of thousands of photos, without a single problem.

You might try browsing the "Computers, Cameras, Phones" section of the Thorntree travel forums (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com) as there are quite a few posts from people who are experienced with both the photography and travel aspects.

[jchambers]

I look forward to the day when PDA's actually have a hard drive. How good would that be. A handheld PC which you can store your photos, view them, and even edit them when back at the hotel or on the plane or train.

As well as all the other features like GPS (perfect when shooting in a new town), wireless email and phone.

From what I have seen, they have all that today, just minus the hard drive.

I currently use an early Jobo and it's the most stupid thing I have owned. It takes an hour to transfer my 4gb card and you have to watch it the entire time. It often fails and then has a fail symbol for about 30 seconds before switching off, so if you upload and leave and it fails, you'll never know.

So many times I have started the upload, watched it constantly and then about 40minutes in my mind is distracted from boredom for a minute and I miss the "ok" or "failed" message and have to start all over again.

Stupid box and the reason I will never buy a Jobo again. I don't care how good the new ones look in the shops, if they sent out something so silly in the past they have lost my trust.

[whig]

I'm just going to Kenya soon and I will just have my MacBook Pro, Epson P-2000 and 25 DVD-RW's and about 13 Gig's of memory cards and hopefully that will be enough =)
And always remember to take backup of your photos (even when you are on the road).
I have also my 80GB iPod video with me but what I have read it will be soooo slow to copy photos there that I'm not going to use it for photos.

[marxz]

edit ... opps read wrong post as initial post....


try again....



firstly no, don't do it.

Sorry I don't like to post blunt answers like that but .....

it's a pain unless your just taking a few dozen snapshots in JPG a day. I've owned or tried a few iPod card reader setups and they all sucked (slow, chewed through iPod's battery too fast etc etc).

get something like a Epson P2000 instead.

[marxz]

I'm just going to Kenya soon and I will just have my MacBook Pro, Epson P-2000 and 25 DVD-RW's and about 13 Gig's of memory cards and hopefully that will be enough =)
And always remember to take backup of your photos (even when you are on the road).
I have also my 80GB iPod video with me but what I have read it will be soooo slow to copy photos there that I'm not going to use it for photos.

I used my 60GB (and probably will with my soon to get 120GB) iPod as LightRoom's import "backup files to:" location, it didn't slow down LightRoom's import speed at all.

[careysb]

...with loads of images on my EPSON P-3000 (40G HD). I am very happy with it and it handles the .CR2 raw files created by my Canon 5D camera. Speed doesn't seem to be an issue. Minor issue: it doesn't properly erase the CF chip after copying it. I have to put the chip back in the camera and select 'format'.
Carey

[peirceman]

You might want to check out http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/20dipadabapo.html. The Digital Partner is low priced and reliable, and it has a built in card reader like more expensive mobile storage solution.s

[andrewdavisphotography]

I wasted $40 on a card reader for my iPod-downloading a 2GB card to it is deathly slow, and the battery is drained by the end of it. Save your money, and buy more CF cards, or get one of the portable drives designed for downloading images.