Travel backup drive?

[drmarkf]

Hi. Can anyone please recommend an economical and reliable portable backup drive & image viewer for travel?

I'd like something that can display .orf files, take CF cards or a usb plug from a card reader, and be usable whether or not I've taken my Vista Business laptop with me.

I've had recommendations for the Hyperdrive Colorspace which comes in at about UK£150 plus the cost of a 2.5" SATA drive (from £60 at Maplin for 80Gb).

Any comments and other suggestions would be most welcome.

[korman]

If you want to display the images, you're probably best off with a netbook. You can take the Linux versions, add Picasa and you're ready to go to display Olympus raw files.

Korman

[korman]

Duplicate for some reason.

[NickP]

I have a samsung netbook (NC10) that, to me, seems the ideal. you can use whatever software you use on your main computer (Bridge, Lightroom, or other) you get a decent screen compared to just-storage devices, ability to do basic raw conversions, e-mail, etc. for not much over the epson, Wolverine, etc. the 160gig drive is plenty for me and I have a 120g portable drive for backup. All fits in my camera bag on trips and the netbook hides comfortably under my car seat when I wander.

[drmarkf]

Yes, I agree the cheapness of netbooks helps a lot - I've sent my 701 Asus through as hold baggage quite a few times.
I'm really looking for a solution when I'm just taking cabin baggage and I want the smallest/lightest option.

I've not managed to get Picasa to display E-620 raw files (although I haven't tried for a couple of weeks - maybe there's an update?)

Regards, Mark

[NickP]

I use a Tamrac System 6 bag, if only because i've been too cheap and lazy to get a better one, but it does fit all my gear. I just lay one of those microfiber cleaning cloths over everything and put the computer on top of that. Because i use the netbook as well for e-mails, etc. It's always handy and i never put it in checked baggage so I can use it while i wait. It's certainly better to watch videos than my ipod.

When I'm out with the camera, I have 2 8g cards, 4g cards and the 2g xd as backup. With 2 batteries, I could never get past the 8g's anyway. so the computer stays in the car/room/home.

I don't know about Picasa. I've only used it briefly a long time ago, but lightroom works. The only issue is that since the screen is short, the import screen gets cut off and you can't see the bottom so you just hit the enter key. I also have oly software in it and tethered shooting works, and it's slow because of the software, not the machine; it's just as slow on my 3.0Ghz/8g home computer but I experimented because I can foresee shooting some architecturals that way, it's pretty much the only time I would use the oly software anyway. You'd figure if they can work with CAD to design the lenses they'd be able to design better software but no.