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PhotoFast's i-FlashDrive HD: a quick way to share files between iOS devices and Mac or PC
PhotoFast's i-FlashDrive HD is an interesting device that combines a USB flash drive, a 30-pin Dock Connector, an Apple Lightning to 30-pin Dock Connector adapter, and a free app to make moving files between iOS devices and a Mac or PC fast and easy. Design Think of a USB flash drive with a 30-pin Dock Connector on the other end, and you have the basic design of the i-FlashDrive HD. That base design lets the i-FlashDrive HD work with most generations of iPad, iPod touch and iPhone. Add to that a stock Apple Lightning to 30-pin Dock Connector adapter, and it works with the newest members of Apple's iOS family. The i-FlashDrive comes in four different sizes: 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Pricing ranges from $99 for the 8 GB model to $329 for the 64 GB device, and many of the i-FlashDrive HD models are available for sale on Amazon. %Gallery-178654% Functionality The free i-FlashDrive HD app runs on your iOS device and serves as a gatekeeper between this device and the files stored on it. The device comes with a pile of files of different types preloaded so that you can easily see how the files are visible on your Mac or PC and your iOS device. For example, here's what I see in Mac OS X Mountain Lion: When I plug the i-FlashDrive into my iPhone 5, fire up the app, and tap on "External Storage", I see this: The i-FlashDrive HD supports a number of file types; the above image shows .jpg, .xls, .pdf, MP4, and MP3 files. There are actually 33 supported types from .aac to .xlsx, with Numbers, Keynote and Pages thrown in for good measure. In addition to this file manager, the i-FlashDrive HD app has more functionality. It also acts as a backup for your contacts file, providing a one-tap solution to copy a clean version of the file to the flash drive in case iCloud decides to erase or modify your contacts. Restoring the file is also a one-tap process. Since the contacts information is stored on the i-FlashDrive HD, you can move it to your Mac or PC for safekeeping. There's also Dropbox functionality built into the i-FlashDrive HD app. Let's say that I want to copy that contacts backup to my Dropbox account. I simply tap on edit, select the backup folder, tap the Move button that appears at the bottom of the iPhone display, and then select the folder on Dropbox where I want to copy the file. If you happen to want to move items to Google Drive, that's not a problem either, although the process is a bit different. Since you can view supported files in the app, opening them not only shows you what's in the file, but also reveals a share button. Tap that to open the file in Google Drive (using the iOS Google Drive app), or any other app that supports that file type. In the case of Google Drive, you're asked if you want to upload the file to that service. One of the other functions that the i-FlashDrive HD provides is that of added storage for your iOS device. Instead of taking up loads of space on your iPhone or iPad with big video files, you can store them on the flash drive instead. I copied a number of 1.0 - 1.5 GB video files from my iMac to the drive, unplugged the i-FlashDrive from the Mac, then plugged it into my iPhone. Opening the file on the flash drive started the playback. What a great way of storing a library of movies without filling your iPad or iPhone! Speaking of libraries, this is a wonderful way to back up photos from your iPhone or iPad as well. When I'm on vacation trips, I often take photos not only with my DSLR, but also with my iPhone. The i-FlashDrive HD provides a conduit to back up those photos on my Mac quickly. But wait, there's more! There's also a voice recorder as part of the app. Once again, this allows you to record meetings or long lectures to the flash drive instead of your iPhone's internal storage, and makes for extremely easy syncing to your Mac. Conclusion I scoffed when I first saw this little device, thinking that it was yet another great idea that wouldn't work. But the Taiwanese company that manufactures this device really has a great idea and has done a wonderful job of implementing it. Pros Can be used with almost any modern, updated iOS device Makes transfer of documents and files between Mac/PC and iOS device a snap Contacts backup feature is useful Supports a huge number of file formats Free app is surprisingly bug-free Cons Availability of the device in the US may be limited (via Amazon) Pricing is a little ridiculous, considering that a 16 GB flash drive is available for less than $10 yet PhotoFast charges $150 for the same capacity. Who is it for? Anyone who wants a way to store a vast number of documents, video files, or photos for viewing on an iOS device but doesn't want to fill that device's internal storage. Also excellent for anyone who needs to move files between iOS devices and Mac/PC on a regular basis.
PhotoFast iFlashDrive now available to pre-order in US and UK
We previewed the PhotoFast iFlashDrive back in June and it's a neat concept: a USB flash drive that also packs Apple's 30-pin dock connector, so you can increase the storage on your iDevice. If that piqued your interest, you'll be glad to know it's available to pre-order in the US and UK. The 8GB flavor will cost you $99.95 (£65), 16GB $149.95 (£95) and for users with a serious need for mobile storage, a 32GB stick is $199.95 (£130). iCloud? Who needs it.
PhotoFast i-FlashDrive does USB on one end, 30-pin dock connector on the other
Apple's iOS devices may lack native memory expansion, but PhotoFast has now come up with solution that just about bests the official camera connection kit. What you're looking at here is the i-FlashDrive, a memory dongle that sports both a USB plug and an Apple 30-pin dock connector, and it comes in three flavors starting from 8GB at $95 up to 32GB at $180. What's more, the drive also works with a free Cupertino-approved app that provides both external and internal file management (for music, photos, movies, and more), contact backup, and native MP3 playback. Want one? Then head over to Taiwan for a mid or late June launch, or watch out for its US debut shortly afterwards. Demo video after the break. %Gallery-125290%
Apple kills PhotoFast 256GB MacBook Air upgrade kit
Easy come, easy go. Apple has reportedly asked (politely, we assume) PhotoFast not to sell the 256GB MacBook Air SSD upgrade kit we were so eager to get our hands on. In fact, the product page is throwing a 404 this morning. The kit looked great, and it included the 256GB upgrade chip as well as a USB 3.0 housing for the 64GB chip currently in the 11.6-inch Air. Plus, it could read and write at 250MB/s while Apple's SSD clocks in between 150MB/s and 160MB/s. PhotoFast is currently licensed with Apple to make Apple accessories through the MFi Program, a privilege that would be a bummer to lose, to say the least. Cheer up, MacBook Air users, and imagine what could have been. [Hat tip to 9to5 Mac and Engadget]
Apple forces PhotoFast to abandon 256GB upgrade kit for MacBook Airs
Remember that peppy aftermarket 256GB SSD upgrade from PhotoFast that easily smoked (on paper anyway) the SSD found in Apple's latest MacBook Air? It's been halted upon Apple's request before it ever went on sale, similarly to those HyperMac batteries before it. 9to5Mac first reported the news based on a source close to the company and we just confirmed it directly with the PhotoFast GM2_SFV1_Air product manager. The risk of losing access to Apple's product licensing program was just too grave a threat to ignore. So, enjoy your 160MBps max SSD transfer rate and 128GB top-end capacity MBA 11 owners, you'll get your storage and 250MBps sequential read/write speed bumps only when Apple's good and ready to provide it themselves -- possibly sooner, we're told, if PhotoFast is given the green light to start sales after Toshiba's SSD modules (Apple's MBA partner) are available for purchase.
PhotoFast's AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car
3.5mm auxiliary inputs and stereo Bluetooth used to be good enough -- but that was before Apple announced AirPlay a few months ago. Now, everything else sounds like someone is stabbing you in the ears; the world looks black and white, and food no longer has any taste. AirPlay, save us! Taiwanese firm PhotoFast is playing the superhero role here today with the AP1000, a little black module with WiFi that accepts incoming AirPlay streams and routes them through to your car's stereo. From the demo video, it's obvious that you're probably going to want to get a professional car audio installer involved to make this happen -- and before you ask, no, it won't do video -- but if you've got an Apple logo sticker on your rear window, we bet this is exactly how you want to roll. Follow the break to see the AP1000 get surgically implanted in a Mercedes.
Photofast AP1000 brings AirPlay audio streaming to your car
Now that iOS 4.2 and AirPlay are officially available for our Apple portable devices, we're starting to see third-party devices that can take advantage of the new capability. Among the first of those is the AP1000 from Japan's PhotoFast. The AP1000 is a Wi-Fi host that gets wired into a car audio system to receive AirPlay streams. The little box supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi signals, and once it's connected to 12 volt power and an input on the audio system, it should appear in the AirPlay connection screen on the iOS device. It's probably just as well that there doesn't appear to be any in-vehicle video streaming support with the AP1000, although it could be handy if you have a rear-seat entertainment system for the kids. For many new vehicles that already have built-in support for Bluetooth audio streaming, the AP1000 doesn't really seem to provide any additional functionality, although the audio fidelity may be somewhat improved. PhotoFast is currently seeking a distributor outside of Japan, so we have no idea when the AP1000 will be available in the U.S. or how much it will cost. Check out the video of a sample installation in the second part of the story.
PhotoFast offers MacBook Air upgrade
While the MacBook Air is turning heads with its good looks and surprising performance, the paltry 64GB of storage on the base 11.6-inch model has some disappointed. Fortunately, PhotoFast has produced a module that boosts capacity to 265GB and tosses in USB 3.0 to boot. Here's how it works. The PhotoFast GM2 SFV1 Air Upgrade Kit for the MacBook Air comes with a 256GB module and a USB 3.0 housing. Once you've swapped the 64GB internal module with the new one, just pop it into the USB housing and presto! You've got 64GB of external storage. There's no word on pricing or availability yet, but we're guessing it won't be cheap. Still, it's a nifty little device. [Via Engadget]
MacBook Air upgrade kit bumps capacity to 256GB, turns old module into USB 3.0 SSD
Sure, the only remotely user-replaceable component on the 11.6-inch MacBook Air are those tiny Toshiba SSDs, but PhotoFast's got what might be one of the most elegant upgrade solutions we've ever seen. The Air USB 3 Adapter gives you not only a brand-spanking-new 256GB module with a Sandforce SF-1200 controller, but a speedy USB 3.0 flash drive too -- which smartly doubles as the mechanism by which you move your old files over, as you can just transfer everything through the USB port. Once you're done swapping modules, the company says you'll see a 30 percent speed boost over the original drive, with reported transfer rates of 250MB/s on both sequential reads and writes. Shame the Japanese company didn't specify any sort of estimated release date or price.
PhotoFast's PowerDrive-LSI PCIe SSD screams past the competition at 1400MB a second
Usually we find overwrought product names, ostentatious paintjobs, and flame decals tacky, but all's forgiven with this PCI Express 2.0 SSD. CompactFlash stalwart PhotoFast has unveiled its all-new PowerDrive, which claims it can read your mind data at 1.4GBps and write it at an even faster 1.5GBps. That's the rough equivalent of reading two full CDs' content every second! Need we say more? The PowerDrive's speed puts the stinking fast Fusion-io ioXtreme to shame, humbles PhotoFast's own 1GBps G-Monster, and matches OCZ's otherworldly Z-Drive. The supported OS list includes a nice selection of Linux flavors as well, and sizes stretch from 240GB up to 960GB. Pricing? One word: unaffordable.
iPADock overachieves in the best sort of way
Yeah, it's iPAD, not iPad, for this dock. PhotoFast's iPADock can be configured to handle dual iPads, four iPhones, or two iPhones and one iPad, thanks to its modular design. Of course, you have to thread your own iPad or iPhone charging cables through the dock, and then jack into one of the plentiful powered USB plugs in the back (three regular, four power-only), but that's only a minor detail. The back also harbors memory card slots galore and a stash for your iPad Camera Connection Kit dongles, so quit whining. You'll be able to score the iPADock in Japan at the end of next month for 5980 yen (about $71 US), and PhotoFast is on the hunt for a US distributor.
PhotoFast GM-7300 SDXC-to-CF adapter gives your pro DSLR another storage option
You're probably wondering how you'll get 2TB or so into a single CF slot of your D3S. Or even if you're not, you're probably wondering how you can strap a trio of CF cards together for a 6TB slab of flash storage. So far as we can tell, PhotoFast's the first with an adapter that enables devices with CompactFlash slots to accept those minty fresh SDXC cards, which would theoretically allow anything that understands CF to now recognize. The GM-7300 SDXC-to-CF adapter is expected to ship next month in Japan for ¥2,980 ($35), but there's no word yet on when it'll be headed up over the Bering Strait and down into the US of A.
PhotoFast makes iPad work with a Microsoft webcam, cats and dogs live together
We're still thinking there's an integrated camera coming for the iPad, but there's one company out there who must surely be hoping that's not the case. That company would be PhotoFast, flash storage gurus turned to iPad video chat enablers. The company's early prototype is simply a Microsoft LifeCam bodged into the dock port, but when it releases toward the end of the year will be a fully custom two megapixel webcam that manages VGA video and, supposedly, will be compatible with at least some IM apps. PhotoFast is also working on an iPad TV tuner and a dock that reads flash memory, which will also be made available for the iPhone/iPod whenever it is released. As for the cats and dogs thing, no firm date was given there, either.
SSD shootout, round III: OCZ, Corsair and PhotoFast butt heads
Like clockwork, we've stumbled upon yet another updated SSD shootout almost a year to the day since the last one, and nearly two years since the first. Since 2008, we've seen OCZ introduce a new "garbage collection" algorithm for its Vertex Series 120GB SSD, Corsair introduce its P64 and PhotoFast make waves with its supposedly speedy G-Monster-V5. The benchmarking gurus over at HotHardware had the patience to sit 'em all down and break out the rulers, and the long and short of it is this: the Vertex Turbo and G-Monster V5 bested the Corsair, with the PhotoFast drive in particular showing remarkably strong performance in read / write tests. Of course, all of the units were quite a bit quicker than traditional HDDs, but the folks at HH maintained that SSD pricing is still way out of reach for many consumers. But hey, if you've got the means to lay down $3 per gigabyte, feel free to tap that read link and ingest.
Video: PhotoFast CR-7000 SDHC to CF adapter takes on 5D Mark II, lives to burst about it
While we love those fast, high-capacity CompactFlash cards guaranteed to capture every frame of HD video shot by modern DSLRs, occasionally it would be nice to process those pixels to an SDHC card. The convenience of SD or the fact that you likely have more than a few unused cards lying around is enough justification to switch, at least temporarily. Fortunately, Akihabara News did a quick hands-on demonstration of the PhotoFast CR-7000 doing the SDHC-to-CF adapter thing inside of Canon's ultra-quick 5D Mark II. Sure, it won't capture 1080p video, but it seems to handle bursting reasonable well in a pinch. Check the full read over at Aki after peeping the video after the break.
PhotoFast GMonster SSD gets wrestled open, found to contain compact flash cards
Looks like those crazy kids from PhotoFast are putting out another do-it-y'self SSD kit, as this charming hands-on proves. Inside its unassuming shell, the GMonster Quad holds up to (you guessed it!) four 32GB CF memory cards, and a JMicron controller described by our man in Taipei as "awesome fast." No word on price yet, but we're sure to find out before this bad boy goes on sale in the next few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy the award-winning video after the break.
PhotoFast CR-7100 MicroSDHC adapter helps obsolete CF cards
That noise you hear is the sobering death rattle of the CompactFlash memory format. Allegiance to the now decidedly less than compact memory sticks seems to keep crumbling away bit by bit. The latest assault comes in the form of this here converter, capable of utilizing a MicroSDHC card in the high-end camera of your choice. The CR-7100 is available in Japan now for ¥2,980, or about 31 greenbacks. Here's hoping this agent of memory interoperability nirvana shows up in US and European markets sooner rather than later.[Via Akihabara News]
PhotoFast G-Monster-Promise PCIe SSD does 1000MB/s read and writes
Just a month after dropping the 750MB/s G-Monster PCIe SSD RAID card on us, PhotoFast is back with the G-Monster Promise, which jacks read / write speeds to 1000MB/s. Not the fastest we've ever seen, but we'll take it. It'll be available sometime this month in Japan in sizes from 128GB to 1TB -- just make sure you've save a lot of pennies, cause it ain't gonna be cheap.Update: Our friends at Engadget Japan have chimed in to tell us they're on sale in the Akihabara district to the tune of USD $1,600 for 128GB, $2,000 for 512GB, and a whopping $4,500 for the 1TB model. [Via PCLaunches]
PhotoFast intros 256GB to 1TB G-Monster PCIe SSD
We Americans have Fusion-io's ioDrive and OCZ's Z Drive to look forward to when it comes to slamming down a PCIe-based SSD solution in our lightning fast rigs, but what about the savvy Japanese? Enter PhotoFast, who has just revealed a luscious PCIe SSD of its own, ranging from 256GB to one whole terabyte in size. The unit includes a couple of SSDs hooked together in a RAID0 setup in order to provide up to 750MB/sec read rates and 700MB/sec write rates. As with most SSDs, this unit also boasts a 1.5 million hour MTBF and should work perfectly within Windows XP and Vista machines. Those in and around Osaka can expect these to land around mid-April for about the cost of a new TV -- seriously.[Via Engadget Japanese]
DIY SSD adapter takes 6 SDHC cards, the cake
Seems everyone is coming out with a cheap, do-it-yourself SATA adapter to convert all your extra flash memory cards into a makeshift SSD. This time, we're looking at the ¥10,000 (about $91) PhotoFast CR-9000. The 9.5-mm tall, 2.5-inch, 3Gbps SATA adapter accommodates up to 6x SDHC cards and should fit into most slim laptops. That's enough slots to make a 192GB SSD (using 6x 32GB cards) for a bargain $900 or about $270 for a 48GB SSD based on a quick calculation of SDHC cards found on-line. While performance depends upon the weakest card of the lot, Impress Watch was able to squeeze a respectable 111.4MBps reads and 55.17MBps writes from their RAID 0 setup using class-6 rated, MLC-based, SDHC cards. That's nothing like the performance of the latest MLC-based SSDs but not bad for what you pay. Still, with SSD prices in freefall, these DIY adapters are quickly becoming less and less attractive.
