X's Drive VP-2030

Steve's Digicams Review

Check it out. It's very cool -- and cheap! If you buy from compgeeks (the link from the review), use the "SCOREADEAL" promotion code for 10% off.

I've just ordered a 12Gb model from eBay to use on my upcoming trip to the Red Sea. I'll let you know how it goes.

John

Woody -- please let us know how it works out for you!

I just ordered one to replace my Minds@Work Digital Wallet. Smaller, and better built. No fussy PC card adapter needed.

Of course... I DO also have a 2.1 lb notebook computer that works just as well.

Perhaps I just like gadgets.

Hi Guys,

I brought the "Image Tank" with me to Hawaii last month (it's the predecessor to the X-drive). I used it for all of my image storage and didn't even bring a laptop. I did bring a card adapter too so that I could "bum" my friend's laptop from time to time to check fine details on my exposures.

Dell peripherals sometimes has deals on the IBM Travelstar HD's. They are the most reliable hard drive in my opinion. I got my 40gig HD for $117 delivered.

I did over 20 transfers from both Microdrive and CF cards while in Hawaii and never had a single problem.

HTH

James Wiseman

40 gig for $117? That's incredible!

I just ordered a 20 gig for $83 or so. It would have to be a loooong trip to fill a 40 gb drive.

Yeah, I found that deal from techbargains.com. It's not an everyday price I think - so I snapped it up.

Here it is:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/product...&customer_id=19

Looks like the normal price is still a low $120. If you can catch Dell when they have a free shipping thing going, that is a darn good price.

Cheers

James

For those in the UK, Dabs.com are the cheapest supplier of the travelstar 40gb drive that i could find at £109.

Dell has a free shipping thing going on right now:

http://www.coupon-code.com/dell.com/dell.php

Click on " FREE Shipping w/ $99 Software and Peripheral purchase"

I just used it to get a 40gb drive for Fleetham, because I have to assemble the thing for him.

Tell Fleetham that he can mail my commission to:

718....ROFL

Glad you guys could "cash in" too Eric. 40 gigs goes a long way and the Travelstar is a great drive.

Cheers

James

I wrote up a "First Impression" piece:

http://wetpixel.com/reviews/xs_drive/

Excerpt:

When I flipped the drive back over, I noticed that it had been powered on. It turns out that neither the "power" nor "copy" buttons are recessed, so any flat surface that comes in contact with the top of the drive will effectively toggle the power on and off. Simple flipping the drive over and placing it upside-down on a table often toggles drive power.

...

I walked over to the neighborhood hardware store, picked up a couple of nylon washers, and used epoxy to attach them around each of the buttons...

I found (actually someone else found for me) this Australian site that have a deal for X-Drive + IBM MicroDrive and its look like good prices:

(the package include extra battery & car charger)

X-Drive + 20 GIG HDD: 185$

X-Drive + 40 GIG HDD: 226$

that's quite good. It cost me $177 to assemble my 20gb x's drive and $207 to get a 40gb x's drive (for someone else).

A quick note for you all who are planning on getting X's Drives. DO NOT get a drive larger than 32GB. It uses FAT32, which limits you to 32GB partitions, so a 40GB drive will have to be physically installed in a notebook for partitioning. (you lose the extra 8GB). You won't be able to partition or format it via the USB connection.

I found out the hard way while setting up Dave Fleetham's drive.

Maybe there is an easier way, but I couldn't do it without using a notebook computer.

Yeah, I had to use a notebook. Good pt Eric. So - either order it with the 40gig drive or be prepared to hook it up to a notebook for formatting.

Eric, by "use a notebook," do you mean you hooked it up to a notebook via USB and formatted it that way, or did you have to actually hook it up to IDE as a slave drive??? All I had to do is hook it up to a notebook via USB - I better check that I got all 40 gigs!

Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm talking about my Image Tank - I hooked it up to the laptop via USB and formatted the imagetank drive as Fat32 that way.

Cheers

James

Win XP Professional wouldn't let me partition the drive through USB. I had to physically remove my notebook hard drive, install the new one, and partition it that way.

Not sure if it is because of the USB controller used in the X'S drive, or if it was just my system.

The laptop was one I borrowed from work - it uses WinME (YUCK!) but it did the job.

Cheers

James

I think the problem is that all Win XP machines cannot format the drives when installed in the X'S Drive unit. the manual says that Windows 2000 won't do it, but I've gotten e-mails from some others who say that their Win XP machines don't work either.

So, it's Win 98/SE/ME only, or you have to take it out and hook it up to a notebook!

Wonder if macs can format the drives through that USB interface.

You guys got every last one of them.... =/

First of all, Happy Christmas all!

I'm back from my Red Sea trip and had an opportunity to test the X-Drive. I use a CP995 with a 256Mb card, so I get to store some 250-300 shots taken at the highest possible JPEG quality.

The way I worked was like this. Once the card was getting full, I trasferred the images to the drive. Not being that confident that all was working OK (I had only received the drive the day before I left on the trip, and there is no way to view the images on the drive), I left the "keepers" stored on the camera's memory, and deleted the rest to make room. I did this two or three times, each time obviously having to be a bit more selective. In all I shot some 500 images, not all u/w.

Once back home, I transferred the images, but aaargh, I discovered that a few jpegs (10-15) which were stored on the drive were corrupt. Luckily I did not lose anything serious, as all the images I thought were the better ones were still on the camera.

I dug around a bit and discovered that the problem is a known one. Basically there is a bug in the drive's firmware that kicks in when images are fragmented on the camera memory. For more info see http://www.dp-now.com/Features/Peripheral_....html#important. I have emailed Vosonic for the firmware fix, and I'll keep you updated with the way this progresses.

The irony is that had I formatted the memory card each time I transferred, I would not have experienced the problem! On the other hand, no harm done luckily, and now I know about the problem I can try to get it fixed.

Apart from this, the little machine worked "as advertised"!

The diving was super by the way - Southern Egyptian Red Sea on a great liveaboard the Coral Queen - but I had some equipment probs which screwed up many of my photos. I have emailed Aquatica and will post an update once I hopefully have a satisfactory resolution.

John

a a