Review: Digimate II Photobank

[dieterich]

So, I recently received my Digimate II external drive for use with my D50(or any other digital camera). It can transfer data from many different types of memory cards without needing a PC. Per GB, it's cheaper than dozens of memory cards. Buy a few of the fastest cards you can and pull the images off when they get full. No need to carry that huge laptop to shoots(or on vacation) anymore!

It's a $34 kit that supports a 2.5" HDD up to 80GB and setup is about as easy as it gets. Just remove 4 screws on the back cover, pop it off, and drop the drive in. Put the cover back on and the screws back in, bang, done.

As you can see, I'm using an old 60GB Hitachi I had lying around the house. Though the kit comes with a driver disc, it's unnecessary on all Windows systems except for 98. I'd imagine Windows 95 or 3.1 would need drivers as well but I can't confirm that. ;) I digress. You plug the drive into your Windows box, partition the drive, and format as either FAT16 or FAT32. When connected to the PC, the kit has dual functions. 1) It's a USB 2.0 external storage drive and 2)it's a memory card reader. It reads your typical cards, CF/MS/SD/MMC/SM/MicroDrive.

The kit also comes with an A/C adapter to charge the internal battery. The battery can also charge directly off USB, which is nice as well. From empty, the battery will fully charge in about 3 hour's time. In my initial testing, I transferred an entire 1GB SD card about every 10 minutes. To transfer data from a memory card, you just drop it into the appropriate slot and push the "play" button on the side. It copies the data from the card onto the drive in the kit itself. On battery alone, I could transfer about 3GB before the display would show only a single battery bar left(from full). The battery seems to be more of a convenience thing since it doesn't seem to have much life left after keeping the hard disk running for 30 minutes. While it's transferring your first 1 or 2 memory cards, you need to be digging through your bag to find the A/C adapter. Yes, it's yet another piece to carry around but it's still much smaller than any laptop you'll find(for now anyway).

All in all, it's the best $34 I think I've ever spent. Well, that and this one time when I was down in Mexico...... :whistle: I think it's going to be a great addition to my gadget bag, allowing me to be much lighter on vacations since I won't need to hump the laptop around everywhere I go. I'm going to try to do some further testing with additional memory cards as I really only tested the drive with SD. I also tried a CF and memory stick but didn't have time to clock them and see if the transfer times were any better/worse. If I find something crazy, I'll be sure to post it here. If any of you have questins, feel free to post them. I'll do what I can to answer or would be glad to test out anything you might have in mind(provided I have the time). :D

[fuel925]

Excellent thanks, it certainly would be handy to back up images in the field!

[Xtremist]

only 30min the batt lasts for? thats a bit crap aint it? I mean what if you are on an all day shoot and not near a plug to plug it in. What do you do then. I was actually interested in this till you said the batter life. Cant you just turn it off an turn it on when you want to use it surely it would last all day that way?

[Kerm]

only 30min the batt lasts for? thats a bit crap aint it? I mean what if you are on an all day shoot and not near a plug to plug it in. What do you do then. I was actually interested in this till you said the batter life. Cant you just turn it off an turn it on when you want to use it surely it would last all day that way?

Same here. It's unfortunately pointless for me because of that. It would be much more beneficial for me to just buy another 2GB Sandisk Extreme IV.

[hotdog666al]

What you want is a Camera with an HDD in it :p

If only..

Here's for the progression of Flash Memory! Wheey

[dieterich]

only 30min the batt lasts for? thats a bit crap aint it? I mean what if you are on an all day shoot and not near a plug to plug it in. What do you do then. I was actually interested in this till you said the batter life. Cant you just turn it off an turn it on when you want to use it surely it would last all day that way?

The fact is that it's only going to work for so long with a standard laptop drive in it. Yes, if you turn it off, it would likely go a whole day without recharging. However, the max battery life you'll get out of it will be 30-40 minutes(it's transferring the entire time). Turning the drive off and on will actually decrease battery life more because of the spinning up/down of the hard drive each time you switch the unit on or off. You'd basically want to fill your cards and then transfer them all at once to get your maximum "bang for the buck".

Same here. It's unfortunately pointless for me because of that. It would be much more beneficial for me to just buy another 2GB Sandisk Extreme IV.

That's true as well. However, I've effectively doubled my memory for a $34 investment. I have 3, 1GB Sandisk Extreme III SD cards that I can transfer to this device, wipe, and then use again. I basically have 6GB now instead of just 3GB. I'm not sure that I could get 3 more 1GB cards of that type/speed for $34....

Basically, I'll likely be fine with the 1,000+ pictures I can take on my 3 SD cards combined with this little drive. No, it's not a perfect device, but I've not yet found that one anyway. :rolleyes: The best one would be like this except with a flash-based drive instead of a spinning disk (or the use of removable batteries). It just usues too much power. I'm likely going to use my USB solar charger or USB AA charger in combination with this little drive to get me even more use out of it. I've also got the other option of viewing my images on any PC/Mac/Linux/Xbox360/PS3/etc. once the pictures are on the drive. No need for the PC to have a card reader, it only needs USB and I can view my pictures. :shifty:

Edited February 5, 2007 by dieterich