Digital Foci's Photo Safe II takes the load off of your flash card

Digital Foci didn't go out of its way to drastically redesign the original Photo Safe, but we 'spose that's alright in the grand scheme of things. Essentially, the Photo Safe II picks up where its predecessor left off by including a multicard reader (now with 100% more MS Duo and miniSD support) which automatically transfers photos from your flash card onto the built-in 80GB / 160GB hard drive. The integrated display tells you at a glance how much space is remaining and how much battery life is left, though it won't show your stored photos in slideshow (or any other) fashion. A touch steep at $139 (80GB) / $189 (160GB), but that's convenience for you.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

[Phoenix @ Jul 18th 2008 4:42PM]

...This is actually a bloody good idea. Especially if you're on holiday or something. Does it automatically remove the pics from the card or just copy them?

[kenny @ Jul 18th 2008 4:43PM]

I'd rather buy a WiFi camera.

[CraigJ @ Jul 18th 2008 5:39PM]

How would that help you in the field?

[iEye @ Jul 18th 2008 4:49PM]

a 512 MB card goes for what now? $5 max!

this thing costs $139, hmm....

[makishima @ Jul 18th 2008 4:54PM]

You must have missed the part where this is convenience. So your telling me you'd rather carry around 160 or 320 SD cards rather than this? Also this is still cheaper per gig as opposed to getting that many SD cards. Now do you need that much space to carry around with you? Eh....prolly not. But if you do constantly run out of space and need to carry a bunch of cards with you, this is a nice way to replace those in one convenient package.

[Spyvie @ Jul 18th 2008 5:14PM]

I have a 4 gig card in my 10mp Nikon, at highest quality thats good for 808 images, I keep a second 4 gig card in my camera bag and my laptop has a 250 gig HDD.

I'll pass on the "convenience" of automatically transferring photos without any way to confirm what has been stored, other than space remaining.

[ScOObyDoo @ Jul 18th 2008 5:37PM]

Just wait till your card craps out on you :(

8GB sells for under $30 nowadays. And with the huge drop in price, came a huge drop in quality.

It's a pain in the ass to lose all your photos.

[Samo @ Jul 18th 2008 4:50PM]

Personally, I just take my lappie with me too. Now that I've got an Advent (Msi rebrand), it just makes more sense, both value for money-wise, and practicality (can also view pics, surf, etc).

[Boarderwoot @ Jul 18th 2008 4:53PM]

It'd be nice if you could at least cycle through the folders to see the dates or some sort of recognition that it's working properly

[bryan @ Jul 18th 2008 5:03PM]

Um, these things have been on the market for years. I used one on a cruise back in 2004 - how is this news?

Of course, you could always just buy the empty case for $33 and add your own drive...
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DIGIMATE-III&cat=CSE

[shakeboy2k @ Jul 18th 2008 7:13PM]

Nice find! Thanks for the link.

[CraigJ @ Jul 18th 2008 5:41PM]

I'm just pissed that the iPod camera connector doesn't work with the iPod Classic and the iPhone. I got a classic 160GB to have an iPod with a color screen and for data storage.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9861G/C?fnode=home/shop_ipod/ipod_accessories/extras&mco=MTcwNDE

[shakeboy2k @ Jul 18th 2008 7:13PM]

I bought one of those connectors way back when for my 40gb iPod Photo for this exact purpose and was thoroughly disappointed. Biggest waste of $30 ever. It took forever to copy and drained both my camera _and_ iPod batteries.

[Taylor @ Jul 18th 2008 5:56PM]

"now with 100% more MS Duo and miniSD support"

Again, i am amused... 100% of zero is still zero... 100% more of zero is still zero...

This came up before when that multi-external hard drive dock got updated, and the writer claimed it had 100% more of some port it had none of before...

It's totally a silly point but it is still so wrong it's hard not to notice... It started an amusing thread of comments last time.

Or maybe he's right? Did it have half a miniSD port before? ;)
-Taylor

[Palatable_Doughnut @ Jul 18th 2008 6:15PM]

I hear ya, but how about:
100% of the mini-sd ports are new. ie, more than it had before. So 100% of the final total, not the initial total...

[sinai @ Jul 18th 2008 7:16PM]

i was going to post the same comment as op, but now that i see how much of a douchebag i would be, i won't.

[kody Willnauer @ Jul 18th 2008 6:02PM]

I've have something like this now and I really appreciate it being able to just throw all my stuff on there and move on. It's gone all around the world with me and acts as a computer hd but making it less appetizing to steal

The one problem I have with one of these is that sometimes the copy process doesn't always succeed so you have to do it multiple times.

I don't need the gratification of seeing on a tiny LCD picture of my shots. I shoot and fix up later.

[hp540 @ Jul 18th 2008 6:05PM]

A decent idea...except the pricepoint isn't acceptable. 160gb is also a decent size, assuming shooting on raw, the file sizes on my 30D come out to ~8mb/photo so that would be over 18,000 photos. The battery life on the drive also better be decent.

For some people that say bring laptops...it's not an option if you're out on a multi day trek or out in the wild where lugging a laptop is either impossible and/or inconvenient.

[marc @ Jul 18th 2008 6:21PM]

A product like this would be REALLY great if it could also store also .raw/P2/ Flash 1080 HD.

[DarkLight @ Jul 18th 2008 6:50PM]

Stop complaning about the price..

I don't know if the utility of this thing is worth it and I'll not discuss that, but I work at a workshop where sometimes we design custom electronics, and for one project we were thinking of using a 160GB microdrive...

Needless to say, the price stopped us. Those things are not cheap like their big brothers. Unless they are making this thing in really massive amounts (I doubt so), I can tell you that almost half the price comes from the drive... And then you have the other costs, so at the end, $190 is fair for the work they did and the parts they used..

[DaMaDo @ Jul 18th 2008 7:12PM]

I have a Hyperdrive which, although almost twice the price, shows me thumbnails, fullscreen, exif data and histogram. These types of backups are very useful for trips. I went to DC for a week with a friend and we took over 2000 RAW pictures. Sometimes the 4GB flash cards each camera had wouldn't last the day so I took less than 10 minutes to download it all to the Hyperdrive. I calculate i would have needed 2x 32 GB cards just for my camera and would have been worried about running out of space.

I never had any errors in copying. I also thought these types of devices were worthless until I was in this position and now think they are a must-have for myself. It's not for most people though.

I'll add one nice thing about the Hyperdrive is that you can put in any laptop sata drive in there easily so you can expand or carry extra HDs etc. They just came out with a new model right after I bought mine which is kind of annoying but that's just my luck =/.

[CaptSaltyJack @ Jul 18th 2008 11:12PM]

The price isn't bad, at all. How is that steep?

An 8GB SanDisk Extreme III, which is what many pro photographers use, runs for about $100. Or I can drop $140 on this thing and just keep copying photos over from my 2GB as it fills up. Hmmm.... do the math. Even the 4GB SanDisk Extreme III is $61 (4GB Extreme IV is $81). So you see, for people who have a 2GB CF card who sometimes run out of space, this is a nice option.

[CaptSaltyJack @ Jul 18th 2008 11:13PM]

Woops. Beware bad reviews on Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B001AM5E1M

[Scott @ Jul 18th 2008 11:28PM]

I have the original Photo Safe (40gb) and it cost me around $100. It was perfect for my trip to Europe when I traveled with friends. It's nice to be able to back up photos in case you lose a card, a card gets corrupted, or god forbid, someone steals your camera. Then at least you don't lose everything. Also, I was able to quick copy their SD cards so I got all the pictures they had taken too without the hassle of trying to get them from them later.
Speed isn't amazing, but copies quick enough. I used a 4gb card and I'd plug the card in, go brush my teeth and when I came back it was almost done.
As far as removing the pics, the Photo Safe will just copy them, but there is a setting to delete the card also.
And in response to the question about storing .raw, mine backed up anything on the SD card, so you could use it as a portable hard drive too as far as I can tell.
But as much as I like it, I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. I'd recommend it mostly if you're going on a long vacation and/or with a lot of people and plan to take a lot of pictures.

[Ethan @ Jul 19th 2008 2:31AM]

I'd find it difficult to trust, but maybe just me.

[Brian @ Jul 19th 2008 2:34AM]

Unless you can actually view your photos on it, this is worthless. Fail

[alan @ Jul 19th 2008 7:28AM]

this is the first time i have seen something like this, and i have to say im very impressed, it may be a little overpriced but i suppose you get what you pay for, i will be investing in one of these in the near future

http://www.gadget-mania.co.uk

[Schuckert @ Aug 4th 2008 2:44PM]

Remember the Digital Wallet from 1999? Same, same, but different.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/digitalwallet/