Surely someone must have invented this.....

May 17, 2006 12:12 PM

Does This Exist: A standalone compact flash card reader that can copy (and then delete!) pictures from a camera onto a hard drive for later retrieval?

A friend of mine is a semi-professional wedding photographer, and he would like to be able to move pictures from his camera to another storage medium without having to bring his laptop everywhere. Ideally, this unit would have some sort of built-in hard drive that could store a few gigs of pictures, and then could plug into a computer for later retrieval.

So, basically, I'm looking for a USB hard drive with a Compact Flash reader built in.

posted by fvox13 to computers & internet (16 comments total)

Many examples of this exist. Vosonic makes a whole line that you can buy from fine retailers such as Newegg.

Epson also makes a very expensive but apparently somewhat nice version.
posted by selfnoise at 12:15 PM on May 17, 2006

Wolverine
posted by DandyRandy at 12:15 PM on May 17, 2006

The Creative Zen Vision might also work for these purposes, although that isn't really it's purpose.

Here's the Epson model I was thinking of.

AFAIK the Wolverine photovaults are just rebranded Vosonics, but you might want to check on that. If so, you could just buy whichever was cheaper/more available.
posted by selfnoise at 12:18 PM on May 17, 2006

You can also get devices that write directly from memory cards to CD-R or DVD-R.
posted by Mitheral at 12:19 PM on May 17, 2006

The P-2000 and P-4000 are here, along with some other options.
posted by TedW at 12:26 PM on May 17, 2006

The trick is to find one that's good quality. This is the kind of thing that random Hong Kong manufacturers crank out with dubious results.
posted by smackfu at 12:28 PM on May 17, 2006

The ones with nice displays are kind of picey, but review well. I've used an Epson P-2000 (like TedW mentions) and it seems well built and friendly.
posted by aubilenon at 12:46 PM on May 17, 2006

If he's already got an iPod, he can use the Belkin Media Reader and Dock Connector for iPod.

From the Manufacturer:
Now you can store more than tunes. The innovative Belkin Media Reader for iPod gives you a great way to back up digital images to your iPod, and take them with you on the road. Your iPod's abundant storage handles thousands of digital photos and frees up your camera's disk space so you can take more pictures.

Simply connect the Belkin Media Reader to your iPod, and insert any of the six supported media types into the Media Reader. Using software support that's already built into your iPod (software version 2.1 or later), your pictures transfer easily via ultrafast FireWire technology. Now, you're ready to start shooting again! When you get home, just link your iPod to your computer to retrieve the images. The Media Reader for iPod gives you virtually unlimited storage space for all your photos.

NOTE: iPod not included; not compatible with iPod mini
posted by seymour.skinner at 1:13 PM on May 17, 2006

I was going to say (that seymour said...)...
The belkin media reader.

So you connect your card to your belkin to your ipod. You can now copy the data from the card.

Get back to the camera....now delete all the pictures by refomratting the card which is the fastest method.
posted by filmgeek at 1:24 PM on May 17, 2006

A somewhat "cheap and dirty" solution if you've already got an iPod with enough gigabytes would be to buy a Belkin camera connector or media reader, depending on the iPod model. By the way, you don't need an iPod Photo for this to work, but of course you cannot take a look at the photos on the earlier models.

- On preview: The media reader was already mentioned, but for some models there are Belkin connectors (here, here) so you don't even have to remove the Compact Flash card.
posted by amf at 1:25 PM on May 17, 2006

I've heard that the Belkin/iPod solution is veeeeerrrrrrryyyyyy slow.
posted by DandyRandy at 3:43 PM on May 17, 2006

I realize that this doesn't directly answer your question, but why move the files if you don't need to? CF cards are cheap enough that you can just buy more, and worry about copying the pictures after you're done.

If the goal is to be able to get the pictures onto a computer, just buy a $20 USB media reader instead, and buy more CF cards.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:52 PM on May 17, 2006

If you go the iPod route, don't get the Belkin Media Reader (it's slow and bulky and expensive), get Apple's own iPod Camera Connector. You either have to plug a USB cord between the camera and the iPod, or I believe you can use a generic USB card reader instead.
posted by cillit bang at 6:12 PM on May 17, 2006

Search for "USB OTG" on Google or Ebay. I just bought an Aleratec model off ebay, you can transfer your pics to ANY USB powered device, PLUS there's a screen that lets you know what you're actually doing. Aleratec is a company that OEMs much of Memorex's electronics, FWIW.

(p.s. I spent $8 + $8 shipping for the aleratec, even if it doesn't work for what I'd like, it's a cheap USB Card Reader)
posted by hatsix at 7:21 PM on May 17, 2006

I've got a 60 GB one of these mediaGear Flash HD devices. I haven't had any problems with it thus far, and it transfers fairly quickly from compactflash and xd cards.

That said, if your friend just needs a "few" GB of storage, I'd go with a 4 GB or so microdrive. Easier than fiddling with an external drive, and it should work with most CF readers.
posted by pmann at 11:07 PM on May 17, 2006

More, more, and more.
posted by Caviar at 10:53 AM on May 18, 2006