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I thought I’d never miss DV tapes since I purchased the Sony CX7 HD camcorder. It took me only a week or to until I had this awakening ………… I’m going on 2 weeks of vacation and I’ll need….. HOW MANY 8GB OF MEMORY STICKSPRO DUO’S????? 
One 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo (it has to be the Pro Duo to sustain minimum write speeds of 15 Mbps, so it wouldn’t choke my camcorder down). This is going to cost more then my new camcorder alone!!! The first one o got was over $110, they got a bit cheaper now but still….
Since I don’t want to carry a laptop with me I was looking for a way to be able to back up the video on the road somehow.
Didn’t care for Sony External DVD burner, expensive, over $200 for the burner alone, plus blanks, big and heavy too.
So I found this:
the PhotoBank
The other day I was in Office Max shopping and I saw it on the clearance shelf, 80GB PhotoBank for $89. Since I had 20% Off on anything that fits in a brown paper bag…. I’m thinking this is just too easy. No way is it going to work for me. But hey, 14 days return policy……
It looks and feels just like my tape player Walkman I had 20 years ago, same size too ( or the first generation Ipod Photo for those younger kids if they don’t know what I had in mind).
And the most important thing is…. it WORKS!!!!! Painfully SLOW, but it WORKS! All I had to do is use the Memory Stick Pro Duo Adaptor, Stick it into the card reader on the side of this drive , push the ON button, then the Copy button and walk away for a looong while.
OK, on the 8GB Memory Stick I had 6.7GB in few pictures and the rest of it in HD video. It took around 54 minutes to copy the entire content, including the whole directory structure with all the supporting files. So continues recording shouldn’t be a problem later on, if copied back to Memory stick and transferred back to PC using Sony Software. For comparison, using Sony software and PC to transfer the same files to a PC took only 14 minutes. But I don’t mind as long as I don’t have to carry laptop on my vacation.
Also, I did this transfer using the build in battery only! I lasted enough plus I had some more power left to (I assume) copy the whole loaded 8GB Memory Stick and have time to safely shut down the drive and maybe a bit more. But not much. As long as the battery is new at least
Also, after I hooked it up to the charger I started a second copy process (using the same Memory Stick as before) to see if there is any time difference but hell no, same time. They say it’s 5400 RPM drive but who knows…. . The thing is, starting the same copy second time around it didn’t complain about that it already existed. It just started the copy right away after creating a new folder for it. And unless hooked up to the PC, you can’t tell what’s on it (what is copied already or not), it just tells you how many Free GB it has left.
When hooked up to the PC it can double as multi card reader, it shows up as 4 different drives when mounted.
For under $78 total paid with tax, I can’t be happier. And yes I know I can’t bump it, drop it, etc, but so I couldn’t do it to my laptop. Much lighter than laptop or the Sony External DVD burner, not to mention the price of those DL blanks, etc.
Now I can go anywhere with 3 8GB Sticks and this drive….
Andy.
PS. It can be used to back up any type of card or data, including pictures, video, etc.
.
http://www.smartdisk.com/staticpages..._photobank.jpg
One 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo (it has to be the Pro Duo to sustain minimum write speeds of 15 Mbps, so it wouldn’t choke my camcorder down). This is going to cost more then my new camcorder alone!!! The first one o got was over $110, they got a bit cheaper now but still….
Since I don’t want to carry a laptop with me I was looking for a way to be able to back up the video on the road somehow.
Didn’t care for Sony External DVD burner, expensive, over $200 for the burner alone, plus blanks, big and heavy too.
So I found this:
the PhotoBank
The other day I was in Office Max shopping and I saw it on the clearance shelf, 80GB PhotoBank for $89. Since I had 20% Off on anything that fits in a brown paper bag…. I’m thinking this is just too easy. No way is it going to work for me. But hey, 14 days return policy……
It looks and feels just like my tape player Walkman I had 20 years ago, same size too ( or the first generation Ipod Photo for those younger kids if they don’t know what I had in mind).
And the most important thing is…. it WORKS!!!!! Painfully SLOW, but it WORKS! All I had to do is use the Memory Stick Pro Duo Adaptor, Stick it into the card reader on the side of this drive , push the ON button, then the Copy button and walk away for a looong while.
OK, on the 8GB Memory Stick I had 6.7GB in few pictures and the rest of it in HD video. It took around 54 minutes to copy the entire content, including the whole directory structure with all the supporting files. So continues recording shouldn’t be a problem later on, if copied back to Memory stick and transferred back to PC using Sony Software. For comparison, using Sony software and PC to transfer the same files to a PC took only 14 minutes. But I don’t mind as long as I don’t have to carry laptop on my vacation.
Also, I did this transfer using the build in battery only! I lasted enough plus I had some more power left to (I assume) copy the whole loaded 8GB Memory Stick and have time to safely shut down the drive and maybe a bit more. But not much. As long as the battery is new at least
Also, after I hooked it up to the charger I started a second copy process (using the same Memory Stick as before) to see if there is any time difference but hell no, same time. They say it’s 5400 RPM drive but who knows…. . The thing is, starting the same copy second time around it didn’t complain about that it already existed. It just started the copy right away after creating a new folder for it. And unless hooked up to the PC, you can’t tell what’s on it (what is copied already or not), it just tells you how many Free GB it has left.
When hooked up to the PC it can double as multi card reader, it shows up as 4 different drives when mounted.
For under $78 total paid with tax, I can’t be happier. And yes I know I can’t bump it, drop it, etc, but so I couldn’t do it to my laptop. Much lighter than laptop or the Sony External DVD burner, not to mention the price of those DL blanks, etc.
Now I can go anywhere with 3 8GB Sticks and this drive….
Andy.
PS. It can be used to back up any type of card or data, including pictures, video, etc.
.
http://www.smartdisk.com/staticpages..._photobank.jpg