XS-Drive 2 Smart 2300 offers up digital photo storage

When lugging around dozens of unlabeled flash cards just won't suffice, there's nothing better to have around than a memory card-lovin' portable hard drive. Joining quite a few others in this growing arena is the XS-Drive 2 Smart 2300, which rocks anywhere between 40GB to 160GB of internal hard drive space, a swank OLED display, two hours of battery life, USB 2.0 connectivity, and a "simplistic two button control scheme." Additionally, you'll find support for CF, MicroDrive, MSDuo, MSPro, SD, miniSD, microSD, SDHC, MMC, MMC, xD, and a host of lesser used flash card formats, and you can also utilize the built-in GUI to delete unwanted pictures before slapping it back in the digicam. Best of all, the XS-Drive 2 Smart 2300 is purportedly available right now, and considering the relatively low £99 ($197) asking price for the 60GB rendition, it doesn't look like a half bad option for consolidating.

[Via PhotographyBlog]

[Dustin @ Apr 19th 2007 3:54AM]

Sounds like a smart choice for the avid traveler. I'd dream about something like this when digicams first started to pervade the market.

[benjamin @ Apr 19th 2007 6:37AM]

perfect,, i cant believe its taken so long, & the price is good too.

do you think it could be used as an MP3 player, phone & gps too?

[LinkDJ @ Apr 19th 2007 7:34AM]

Did anyone else notice this was made by umbrella corp?

[ScooterDe @ Apr 19th 2007 8:19AM]

A 2hr battery life is rubbish. Unless it takes AAs or AAAs, forget relying on this while you are out and about.

[Guy @ Apr 19th 2007 8:29AM]

But:

1: What is its transfer speed like, X-Drives in the past have been terribly slow.

2: Does it confirm the last copy process finished successfully, even if it turns off before you see the result. You gonna sit there watching it for 30min waiting for the finished successfully notice? not me

[jason @ Apr 19th 2007 9:01AM]

Did anyone actually look at the product specs.. there is no image preview on this, its basically a status screen.

LCD-OLED Panel
LCD Panel to display the working status (no picture preview).

1. Battery power level
2. Capacity of Hard Disk storage left
3. Origin and destination folders
4. Back up status

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 19th 2007 5:48PM]

These have been around for ages now. Xs-Drive has always taken the tact of cramming as many features they can into the box without addressing the shortcomings of the main feature of the device: namely to offload picture files from your flash cards while you're out in the field. Consequently, their devices have always had slow transfer and low autonomy (the number of megabytes that can be transferred on a battery charge.)

In the past 1GB file transfers on the XsDrives have taken up to 15 to 20 minutes to complete with an overall battery run time of around 1.5 hours (so you do the math, how many 1GB card transfers can you do before the batteries run out?) On the other hand devices like the NextCF or PD70X have been able to do 1GB card-to-drive transfers in around 90 seconds.

[Craig @ Apr 20th 2007 3:25PM]

Given that flash media prices are insanely low and falling every day, these devices seem like an idea whose day has past. For $200, you can grab four 8GB CF cards. Who takes more than 30GB of photos without having access to a PC at some point? Beyond that, 4 CF cards weigh a fraction of what this does, take up less space, and are much less likely to be damaged -- all important issues when traveling. This device would have to be half its price or less to be compelling, if even then.