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Battery-Powered USB Enclosure 230

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-can dept.
An anonymous reader pointed us to a story about a battery-powered USB disk enclosure. It operates on AA batteries. It's aluminum, and is sorta meant to offload data from cameras. It's only 2.5 inches, so that's not totally unreasonable, but I'm still struggling a bit with the 'Why' part of the equation.
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Battery-Powered USB Enclosure

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  • iPod ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mirko ( 198274 )
    An iPod would be a battery-powered USB device (and Firewire) so what has this that the iPod hasn't ?
    • a smaller price tag.

    • Re:iPod ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bamf ( 212 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:49PM (#11194073)
      so what has this that the iPod hasn't ?

      The ability to connect it directly to a camera, and copy all the data across at the press of a button.

      Something that's very useful to people taking lots of pictures and storing them in Raw format.
      • Nope, iPod's got that already [belkin.com]. With a pricey gadget from Belkin, though...
        • You missed the point that it connects to the camera, and does not have a media reader (which is what you linked to). It means you don't need to worry about what kind of media your camera uses, does that it can act as a remote storage device (most do).
      • Just for those who care, Belkin has two different accessories for the iPod to address that need. The first one to market was the media reader, where you had to remove the memory card from the camera and insert into the reader. The second one was a direct link, where you transferred data directly from a supported camera via USB.

        I own the latter, and I've used it to transfer about a dozen "rolls" totalling over 400 shots with no problems. The major drawback is battery consumption on the iPod (the connector

    • Re:iPod ? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:57PM (#11194183) Homepage Journal
      Could it be (and I'm stretching for the terms here) that this can act like a USB "master" (or host controller) and the iPod can't?

    • Re:iPod ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by svnt ( 697929 )
      so what has this that the iPod hasn't ?

      The iPod is a USB slave. It can only ever connect functionally to a USB master, such as your PC. This device would function as a USB master device (i.e. the PC side), by which you could copy data from any (I assume FAT-based) USB mass storage devices.

      So this means camera, USB drive, MP3 player, anything that uses the USB Mass Storage driver. What would be interesting to know (I can't get the article) is whether or not it provides for the capability to write back
    • The iPod is completely different. This is for offloading storage from digital cameras and other flash memory based devices. It allows the user to plug that device directly into it and with one press of a button, it copies all of the data on that flash device to itself. This is VERY useful in the realm of digital photography and a large percentage of digital photographers are already using technology that is similar called FlashTrax [smartdisk.com].
  • Peripherals: Alpha-Data battery-powered 2.5" HDD case

    HDD cases for both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives are a dime-a-dozen these days. Alpha-Data tries to separate themselves from the pack with the "Copy BANK Case" - a 2.5" HDD case that supports battery-powered operation and can be used independent of a PC as a storage device for digital cameras and mp3 players.

    [IMAGE] [techjapan.com]

    Alpha-Data will release a USB2.0 external 2.5" HDD case that can operate on dry cell batteries, the "Copy BANK Case", in mid January 2005. It
    • Ok, thanks- it was already slashdotted by the time I saw it. But that's OK- saw this in real life (or at least, a cheap Chinese knock-off of it with a bit more functionality) with hard drive and multiple-format card reader for $99 at CompUSA over the weekend. I already have a multi-format reader for my PDA, so I wasn't terribly interested.
    • "A dozen a dime"

      I beg your pardon... the last I checked these devices were sold for $50 apiece, if not more. They are bountiful, but still expensive. What I'm waitinh for is a $5 IDE-usb enclosure, with a $10 CF2-usb adapter (CF being the master). While I applaud these devices' innovation, they are going in the wrong direction (bells and whistles instead of reliability and affordability).
    • The case is made of aluminium. Think about your breathing. It measures W80 x D140 x H14 mm in size and weighs 80 grams.

      [inhale]
      Whoa, aluminum. It will match my powerbook.
      [exhale]

      [inhale]
      It's not really that big either. It's about the same size as a HD based audio player.
      [exhale]
    • Any idea how long a 80 gig hard drive will run on 4 AA batteries?

  • Good for Photos on the move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KiwiSurfer ( 309836 ) * <{james} {at} {pole.net.nz}> on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:49PM (#11194087)
    There are times when I want to go on holidays and just leave the laptop home (or in the hotel room) and just take lots of photos. This HDD would enable me to just copy the photos to a HDD whenever I max out my memory stick. I think this is a great idea, espcially for people who don't use computers when they are on holiday - which is the majority of the digital camera users I know.
    • Got an iPod? Try this [belkin.com]. Much nicer.

      -WS

      • Got one. It works, but it's dog slow. But this will work for people without iPods. And $60.00 is a lot cheaper than $300.00 + the cost of the Belkin device. And just how do you know it's "much nicer"? Have you used this new device? No? Didn't think so.

        And yes, I do like my iPod very much and it was very nice to be able to backup my photos and not worry about filling up my camera. But not everyone has (or, as shocking as this may sound) wants an iPod. And some people's iPods are *gasp* full!
        • Hmmm.

          Ok, I said Got an iPod? Try this (link ommitted). Much nicer.

          For the RatBastards of the world, that is a conditional statement. It would say "if you ALREADY HAVE an iPod".

          Now, as to the rest, I don't see how your unsubstantiated opinion is any better than mine. If you saw something totally amazing about that device, I certainly will not stop you from buying it.

          Not that I really care, but here are some differences:

          1. The Belkin device (going for between $50 and $100) is already available.
          2. The iP
    • This HDD would enable me to just copy the photos to a HDD whenever I max out my memory stick

      There are plenty of devices designed for this, such as the Nikon Coolwalker [europe-nikon.com] that are better suited to the task.
      • "There are plenty of devices designed for this, such as the Nikon Coolwalker that are better suited to the task."

        That's a nice looking device, but the machine featured in this /. story is expected to sell for 6,000 yen, which is roughly US$60.00. That's a lot cheaper than the 399 British pounds (about US$600) your linked machine goes for.

        Chuck

  • I get it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ever Dubious ( 686307 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:50PM (#11194089)
    You're out with a digital camera and without your laptop. And you've filled the camera memory, or exhausted all the removable storage (flash) you're carrying. Connect the camera (or the media adapter) to the disk drive and hit the "copy" button and you're ready to take more pictures.

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:50PM (#11194103)
    It's aluminum, and is sorta meant to offload data from cameras. It's only 2.5 inches, so that's not totally unreasonable, but I'm still struggling a bit with the 'Why' part of the equation.

    Because for my two month trip to Kerbleckistan, I'd rather a) not bring my laptop and b) not buy 40 1gig memory sticks at USD $300 or whatever the heck they cost for the journey despite wanting to take 40gig of photos.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by random_rabbit ( 647072 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:56PM (#11194177)
      when you get back, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it to your slideshow.
    • so 1024 MB in a gig. 40 x 1024 = 40960 MB. Assuming each picture is 2 MB in size, you plan on taking 20480 pictures? Doesn't that seem a bit high, even for a one month trip to a strange land. What do you plan on doing, taking a picture of every square inch of Kerbleckistan?

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

        by adamfranco ( 600246 )
        The when shooting in RAW (unprocessed) mode each image from the Canon EOS-1Ds is approximately 11MB.

        40960MB/11MB = 3700 photos

        While 3700 photos is quite a lot, its definately not rediculous for someone who is shooting a lot for a month, especially if they are bracketing many of their exposures. Since you can't really see which one were just right until you get them into Photoshop, something like 2/3 might be later trashed. This leaves you with about 1300 good-quality photos from Kerbleckistan and neighbor
        • It's not hard to rack up photos when you're somewhere interesting. I took 400+ on one day in Spain while visiting the Alhambra and Generalife.

          One of the great things about digital photography is being able to take loads of photos and then cull the weaker ones later. It saves you getting home only to discover the two photos you took of AttractionX were blurred or were oddly lit by a flash going off from another camera.
  • How long will a HD last on AA batteries? with the chip to be powered also this could put quite a drian on those litttle duracels and energizers. I would hate to see the batteries fail while the drive was writing data, or updating the FAT.

  • Pointless "commentary". (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bamf ( 212 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:53PM (#11194128)
    but I'm still struggling a bit with the 'Why' part of the equation.

    Just because you can't see a need for it, doesn't automatically make it pointless.

    It'll copy the data off of a camera at the press of a button, and takes standard AA batteries which means you can carry a bag full of spares and not have to worry about running out of power in the middle of an important photo shoot.

    • Re:Pointless "commentary". (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @05:15PM (#11194819)
      It's Taco. He has something of a history of not seeing the point - eg the iPod, which he described as "lame" when it was first released.

      It's not entirely his fault though - most new technologies and techniques get slammed here. This is unusual in that none of the +5 rated comments (currently) are negative.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • you'd expect the largest group of nerds on the net to embrace technology rather than bash it.

          They do, when something is actually new and useful. But when old, inferior, or gimmicky stuff gets hyped up as "new", then you can expect the largest groups of nerds on the net to show little mercy.
      • eg the iPod, which he described as "lame" when it was first released.

        The iPod was lame when it was first released: a late "me too" product with poor battery life, Macintosh-only connectivity, and no recharging through USB. (After several product cycles, it has now become a credible, if still somewhat overpriced, MP3 player.)

        It's not entirely his fault though - most new technologies and techniques get slammed here.

        That's probably because most technologies that are advertised as "new" aren't actually n
    • Just because you can't see a need for it, doesn't automatically make it pointless.

      Just because you think you see a need for something like a comma doesn't mean that you can put one in the middle of an otherwise perfectly good sentence.

  • Here is the why. (Score:5, Informative)

    by baryon351 ( 626717 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:55PM (#11194161)
    It's only 2.5 inches, so that's not totally unreasonable, but I'm still struggling a bit with the 'Why' part of the equation.

    This drive isn't JUST a drive like other 2.5" USB external drives. It also has the ability to talk to other USB devices, such as a camera (or sound recorder, or what have you). It can mount the USB device - let's use a camera for argument's sake - and copy files from it at the press of a button. Normal USB drives do NOT do this. the iPod doesn't either, without extra hardware.

    So the point is - you can run around with your brand new EOS 1Ds Mark II spitting out 10MB RAW 16megapixel images all day long, and not have to worry about a maximum of 4GB on your (expensive!) compact flash card. You can shoot a bunch of images, connect to the drive, press a button to transfer to an 80GB drive... ...and your camera is quickly free, ready to shoot some more. It sits in between the capability of a laptop for storage, and a mere HD for size convenience. When you're running around with a Camera and camera bag and need to get hundreds of photos done, carrying around even a 12" laptop is extremely cumbersome. slip this device inside your camera bag and you're running at an advantage.

  • 'Why' part of the equation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by infinite9 ( 319274 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:55PM (#11194163)
    struggling? well, y = mx + b of course!
  • wallwarts get really tiring for removable storage. i can only imagine how annoying replacing batteries all the time would be.

    are there any bus-powered usb / firewire enclosures?

  • The reason of "Why" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gato_mato ( 572107 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:58PM (#11194196)
    You ask why? I here is my $0.02 worth. Because I don't want to have to cary my laptop with me when I go on vacation. I take my laptop because I can then take all the pictures I want and then offload the pictures at the end of the day to my laptop. If you don't have a way to offload the pictures you take then you either have to have tons of memmory cards for your Digicam or are limited to the number of pictures you can take.
    I take my laptop with me on every vacation I take because I have to - not because I want to.

  • Two words: African safari

  • A light-weight commerical (non-homebrew) wireless access point that has a rechargable battery I can throw in any RJ-45 port would be the best of all worlds for me. Great for traveling or working in offices without wireless networks without dragging Cat5 all over the place.

    Yes this is a little off-topic, but I think there definitely needs to be more battery powered solutions for day-to-day electronics that otherwise require us to carry along a heavy ac adapter.

  • The point is this. CF memory is more expensive that hard drives, so if you fill your CF card, you can dump it to this and keep going.

    So, if you have a usb card reader, and this thing, and you're shooting video on a 1 gig CF card, you can then dump that gig to this, and keep going with your video. That way, if you're on vacation, you have a nice little enclosure to carry, instead of a notebook, and you can piece the bits together when you get home.

    Not a lot of use if you're carrying a notebook anyway, bu
  • ...but it really depends on how much actual work time one can get out of a set of batteries. If you have to change batteries with every coupld of offloads, that could get pretty annoying.

  • I want a battery-powered hub (Score:5, Informative)

    by fo0bar ( 261207 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @04:07PM (#11194287)
    I'm really surprised that none of the manufacturers have tapped this. I want a little 5-port hub that takes a couple AA batteries, that I can throw in my laptop bag and use to do diagnostics (tap an ethernet line, etc). I've tried doing this myself, but most hubs I've found are either insanely high voltages (18.5 or something), or weird tollerances (3.2v, where it won't tollerate 3v or 4.5v), or huge wattage consumption.

    I came close with a 5-port linksys "hub" that didn't consume much power and took 7.5v, so I chained 5 AA batteries together in a harness and mucked together a connector. It has a decent battery life (about 3 hours normal use), but the 5-port linksys "hubs" ARE ACTUALLY SWITCHES. Stupid linksys.

    Anyways, if you happen to work at a networking manufacturer, lightly suggest to them to produce a small hub with a built-in battery bay that takes 4 AA batteries or something.
  • Reminds me of the Clik drive. You could offload your SM/CF cards onto 40MB cartridges back when 8MB flash cards were expensive. Unfortunately they never took off. Wonder if this product is doomed to repeat that success. :)

  • Looks like some people get it. . . (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Check out http://www.usb.org/faq/ans6#q1 for more info on "USB On-The-Go" (AKA USB Host Mode).

    It will allow connection of USB devices (pretty much digital cameras) and will act as host, allowing uploading of all the files. You could then reformat your memory card (stick, whatever) and snap more pics.

    Certainly a lot cheaper to buy one 40GB HD than 40 1GB CF Cards (a lot less space too).

    Great for vacations, short trips, etc. The fact that it runs on regular batteries is a plus. If your batteries die on
  • I saw something similar a couple weeks ago. It not only had USB but also included slots for compact-flash, memory-stick, sd, etc. One model included an MP3 player as well. Just add your choice of hard drive.

    It would be great for storing vacation photos without having to take/find a computer or buy expensive extra memory cards. I think that you would be able to get the enclosure + and 80GB drive for roughly the cost of a 512MB xD card.

    They also have a device that burns CDs directly from camera cards (with

  • The iPod can do this also, with an accessory (Score:3, Informative)

    by Radi-0-head ( 261712 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @04:25PM (#11194436)
    The click-wheel iPods can be used with an accessory by Belkin (F8E477) which allows USB transfers of photos from a digital camera right into your iPod.

    It's about $80 on Belkin's site, probably cheaper elsewhere:

    http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process ?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=201526&pcount=&Product_Id =173207 [belkin.com]

  • For digital photography... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @04:29PM (#11194460) Journal
    Okay, it's cool. However, it may not be the best pick if you want to offload pictures from your camera / camera's card.

    There's lots more options here :
    http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD_Main.htm [fhoude34.free.fr]

    Most are going to be a good bit bigger, but have more functionality as well.

  • Other simillar products (Score:3, Informative)

    by enosys ( 705759 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @04:39PM (#11194544) Homepage
    Several Archos [archos.com] products can read CompactFlash. With an adapter they can also read other flash menu formats. Most of the Gmini series has this capability built in. Some other products support accessories which allow reading of CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MMC and Memory Sticks.

    The Innoplus PhotoTainer [innoplus.com] also does this, plus it runs Linux.

    All of these can be used as MP3 players. Some can even play video. The Archos Gmini 120 [archos.com] would be the most economical choice.

  • Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kesh ( 65890 )
    I can answer that.

    A few years ago, I was a salesman at a small computer shop. We had a guy come in who wanted to buy a digital camera and a hard drive for offloading the photos to. However, they both had to be powered off standard alkaline batteries. Why?

    Because he was going gold-mining in Siberia for three months during the summer. That means zero ability to recharge the camera, and he'd fill up a CF card pretty quick. Can't take a laptop... no way to recharge it. So, he needed a HD he could just take

  • What about Bluetooth (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SirLanse ( 625210 )
    Can I get this and a camera with Bluetooth? Have it automatically download to the drive in my wife's purse or out in the car. (patent pending)

  • Better Solution (Score:3, Informative)

    by richardtallent ( 309050 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @05:03PM (#11194731) Homepage
    As a semi-pro photographer, I can see the benefit of connecting a headless hard drive to a camera, but I wouldn't like the idea of waiting for USB-speed transfers from my camera.

    Instead, I use a similar device (the X's Drive Pro), which is an external hard drive (USB) that includes several built-in card readers. Connected to the PC, the card readers and hard drives are individually mounted, but when not connected to the computer, the device itself can copy everything on the connected memory cards to the hard drive with a single button click.

    This workflow allows me to fill up a CF card, put another in the camera and keep shooting, and put the full CF card in the drive and let it make the backup copy while sitting in the camera bag.

    I then *only* reuse cards if I run out, thus protecting against a hard drive drop/failure, errored-out copy, dead hard drive battery, etc.

    When you are serious about photography, having an hard drive backup with automated copy capability is a MUST. I just got a call this morning from a friend whose photographer accidently lost some wedding ceremony pictures due to a failed copy to his laptop--he reused the card for Christmas before realizing it, so 15 shots couldn't be recovered (I was there as well in a non-pro capacity and got a few keepers). It's also a heckuva lot cheaper than having an endless supply of CF cards to travel with.
  • And it works very well :)

    This was one of two features that stopped me from buying an iPod... the other being that the iRiver is just a USB mass storage device and that the music is stored in a vanilla file system... no database to update if you choose not to use it (meaning no software required to use it (meaning that your use of the hardware isn't limited to the software))
  • but I'm still struggling a bit with the 'Why' part of the equation

    Hey! I've come across this device that is completely useless, but I'd like to tell you about it because I like the sound of my typing. Of course, even this is dumb, because the thing has obvious uses for photographers that don't want to lug around laptops everywhere they go.
  • Come on. These things have been around for 5 or 6 years, at least. The first were from a company call Minds@Work, but they're out of business now.
    Currently the top runners are the Tripper, the Image Vault, and a few others I can't think of.
    Belkin makes a device that snaps on the iPod and does this. There's an add-on for at least one of the Archos players that does this.

    In other news, I've heard that there are these things that you can put in your pocket that carry data around. They're called "floppies"
  • I have a notebook that can power a 2.5" external HDD through the USB port. The same drive cannot get enough juice to run off my desktop PC's USB ports. It spins up, but doesn't completely mount on my PC. I have to plug in the stupid 110V power brick. A dual-powered enclosure would solve that problem, and let me throw away the brick.

    The only thing I can think of to improve this device is if it had a internal battery, which could be recharged when it was powered by the USB port.
  • The ability to copy data from any USB device that will mount as remote storage is a nice idea. It's cool you don't need to worry about what media your camera supports, just that it mounts as a storage device.

    However, for camera use it has a few drawbacks. Firstly, most cameras are USB Full-Speed - that's the slow USB. I think even the D70 which is supposed to be high-speed (faster USB), is really full-speed. (USB 2.0 does not imply high-speed). That means copying some of that larger cards (1GB plus, be
  • Err, sorry the site went down; wasn't expecting anybody to really care about that article.

    I had forgotten to turn Xanthia caching on, too, which doesn't help.

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