Sanho crams 640GB of memories into your pocket with HyperDrive Album photo viewer

Photo viewers have been around for centuries (give or take a few score), but few have offered the capacity and speed found on the HyperDrive Album. Produced by none other than Sanho -- the same dudes and dudettes responsible for those spectacular HyperMac batteries -- this here device is essentially a 640GB pocket hard drive meant to suck down photos from your SD or CF card (it plays nice with both formats) as you shoot; it can either lighten the load on your memory card or act as on-site backup, and it's reportedly capable of downloading 2GB per minute with full data verification. Better still, it's capable of decoding and displaying RAW images on the 4.8-inch display (800 x 480 resolution), and the internal battery will last through 200GB worth of transfers. It's available now for $599.99 (or less if you opt for a smaller / empty model), but don't even bother if you're looking for SDXC compatibility.

[Brent1700 Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:24PM]

$600? Not worth it at all.

[Nick Nelson Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:06PM]

@Brent1700
I had a CF card fail one time before I downloaded the photos. The shoot cost almost $150 to set up after paying the model and would have been worth nearly $600, effectively putting me out $750. With a drive installed it might be a little pricey, but I'd gladly pay for this kind of piece of mind and install my own drive. ($299 for the enclosure + $125 for 500GB HDD)

[Brent1700 Posted Feb 24th 2010 8:21PM]

@Nick Nelson
or, for $600 you can hook up a tether system and shoot directly onto your computer. I get why this would be useful but, just seems wayyy too expensive.

[69camaroSS Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:27PM]

Price is a bit steep. If it was in the 300's, I'd be sold.

[godsAngryTesticles Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:45PM]

But can it run Crysis?

[godsAngryTesticles Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:46PM]

Back on topic, this gadget is pointless without SDXC compatibility.

[roxstar7 Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:22PM]

@godsAngryTesticles: "What's SDXC?" asks guy who shoots with pro camera.

[Alexpeegs Posted Feb 24th 2010 8:29PM]

@godsAngryTesticles
at 0.001 fps YES IT CAN

[Javindo Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:54PM]

So much potential with that amount of storage, but they chose photo viewing...

[Jayratch Posted Feb 24th 2010 8:16PM]

@Javindo Yes, they chose photo storage because it's a market that craves it. You are free to make a device wth a laptop hard drive to serve a different market if you prefer. May I suggest a Palm Lifedrive or maybe a Creative Nomad?
Or could it be that those products failed the market being unnecessary. I can't really think of a better thing to do with this type of device, especially considering that it's probably quite usable for most consumer HD camcorders as well as for pro cameras including 40 megapixel Hasselblads.

[dragonfli Posted Feb 24th 2010 6:59PM]

This seems like it's being marketed towards an average photographer. For some reason looking at it and then the 640 GB hard drive brings this one, simple, key thought:

"*drops it* - there goes $600 and all my precious memories I've just dumped into it while on honeymoon/vacation/family event I will be now chastised for for dropping and now losing said photos once the wife finds out"

[jafoman Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:04PM]

@dragonfli It's a BACKUP of your files... Hopefully you weren't dumb enough to erase your memory cards then take absolutely piss poor care of your one copy of your precious memories.

I usually backup all my files to my COLORSPACE 0, and when I run out of space, then and only then do I re-use my CF cards. Of course I have far more CF card space than I could possibly make use of (I have a Nikon D300 and 28GB of total CF cards) so that doesn't happen often. I almost always have two copies of every photo.

You might be able to install a 2.5" SSD in these things... As long as it's the same form factor as a normal 2.5" HD...

[jafoman Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:00PM]

The base price is $299. You can buy your own 2.5" drive and install it easily. I have an older generation COLORSPACE 0 model and installed my own drive. Never buy from them with a pre-installed drive as you can always find a cheaper (and probably better quality) drive yourself.

[ran Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:18PM]

Had an older model and used it to back up my CF cards on the go. Very useful.

[NCase Posted Feb 24th 2010 7:42PM]

I don't think I would ever have 640gb of photos... My "My Photos" folder is barely half a gig...

[ngko Posted Feb 24th 2010 8:23PM]

Wait 640GB only for photos! Thats a first

[OCEAN CLAK Posted Feb 24th 2010 9:25PM]

If only this included video watching along with photos viewing

[baizhangg Posted Feb 25th 2010 2:10AM]

why don't such gadgets producers make these e/i/albums with a little bit bigger screen? 4.8 is too small to make these albums substitution for pc/notebook as photos keeper box. 7 inches would be great.

The idea is to keep all photos not in ps/notebook but in these gadgets; with 7' screen you can easily use the gadgets as real albums to show photos to people.

[Middleman Posted Feb 25th 2010 5:57AM]

Epson P6000 KIRF?

[ChrisK15 Posted Feb 25th 2010 9:29AM]

Is Sanho the Portuguese equivalent of Sanyo?

[uberdisco Posted Feb 25th 2010 11:09AM]

I was going to buy the Colorspace Hyperdrive UDMA when going on vacation. I realized that I could get a decent netbook for the same price. After looking at this I think the same remains true.

[napsterlover2375 Posted Feb 27th 2010 11:07AM]

HyperDrive Album (casing only)
$299.00

HyperDrive Album (160GB version)
$349.00

HyperDrive Album (250GB version)
$399.00

HyperDrive Album (320GB version)
$449.00

Epson P-3000 (40GB)
$360

Epson P-6000 (80GB)
$535

Epson P-7000 (160GB)
$718

It seems like the Sanho products are a pretty good deal compared to the Epson ones.