[minfred]

Hi, I'm going on a long trip and was wondering what is the best way to store my photos once my card gets filled up?

Hopefully something that is not too expensive. My camera uses compact cards.

Nice site by the way

[shuttertalk]

Hey Minfred,

Thanks for the compliment

Something like an X-Drive would be my suggestion. It's like a portable hard disk you carry with you, with built in slots to read your memory cards.

When your card is full of photos, put your card in, copy them to the portable drive, and then you're free to start shooting again.

Other more conventional methods:
- If you're near an internet cafe, you can upload them to some online storage space
- If you've got access to a laptop / or can borrow one, then download your photos at the end of each day

Any other suggestions, shuttertalkers?

[dave]

I was just about to say the X-drive too but you beat me to it shuttertalk!

[minfred]

Thank to you shuttertalk and dave i will check out xdrive now

[adam]

X-drive is good as it is portible, but I'd prefer a laptop (though it's more expensive).
It'll let you look through the pictures again (on a bigger screen as compared to reviewing on your camera), and can also function as an internet-machine, mp3 player, video player, gaming machine.... haha Then you can write your images to a CD when you feel like distributing or running out of space on your laptop. If you run out of space on X-drive, you can delete some pictures already there, but then, you can't see which pictures you are deleting (or am I wrong about this?)

Well, that's just for my case where I need to store and sort my images while I'm away.

[shuttertalk]

Good suggestion adam, I've often thought about doing that, but dissuading factors have been weight/size and also risk of loss/damage/theft.

[angelphotographer]

see my poston another part of this forum. at smugmug you can get an unlimited amount of storage. of course this is only a practical solution if you are going to somewhere with highspeed internet. which i often do.

[wayney]

I have a X drive VP-3320 and I use it in situations when I'm not going to be carrying my laptop, I then dump the contents of my x-drive to my latop when I get to it (ie back to the hotel etc.)

Make sure you get one of the latest generation x-drives, they have much better stability and longer battery life. The one I've got is great, lasts 7 hours of continuous use (low capacity battery) or 11 hours of continuous use (high capacity battery), has a mains (110v-240v) adapter, 12v car adapter, charges through usb, fm radio, mp3 player, records off radio, records voice off internal mic and line-in and few other functions I don't use.

It dumps my 1GB CF card in around 5 mins to a 40 GB drive of my choice, so far (1 week), I've had no issues with the unit, performs better then I expected.

[shuttertalk]

1GB in 5 mins is pretty good....

I remember when doing a wedding shoot - I used the USB 1.1 interface on my laptop, and it took over 30 mins! There were some anxious moments, but good thing I did it in the car travelling between locations...

[Peted]

I have an X's drive 3310 40Gig, does not last as long as the 3320 but is still pretty good, 2 hours and has car and mains adapter, and plays mp3's and wma's . Only cost me AU$250 for the complete unit so I am happy, also bought a 1Gig SD card today, the kodak shop in the local mall is closing and has memory cards at half price, 1Gig for AU$94, not bad.

Also got a smallish "ProAm" camera back pack for AU$34 marked down from AU$85.