Hi,
another concern of mine about these devices is that most of them
seem to not be well shock protected. The devices I was able to see
insides of (the ones that have user-changeable HDD and somebody
posted photos on internet), do not have any shock protection for
either the PCB with electronics or the harddrive itself. I assume
2.5" notebook drives have reasonably rugged mechanics inside, but
still, the makers of rugged, drop-proof notebooks like Panasonic
Toughbooks and others _all_ use shock-proof-mounted HDDs in them,
not just normally screwed on. And PCBs with electronics can
desolder from shock. I have seen enough damaged notebooks this way,
where a chip has partly separated itself from the motherboard by
some shock. This usually meant dead notebook or whole motherboard
replacement.
What I would like to see in such an unit would be:
1) shock-mounted innards. Electronics AND hdd.
2) in the best models, dustproof and spilllproof
3) easy and reliable verification of transfers
4) running on interchangeable batteries (rechargeable (secondary) AAs seem to
be the best, as you can get longlasting primary Lithiums when you
can't recharge the NiMHs, _with_ voltage regulation (so for 5V
HDDs, running from 5-6AA cells _with_ regulated voltage down to
stable 5V. The Compactdrive is unregulated, sadly.
Is that asking too much ;-) ?
I guess it's again the old quality vs. quantity...
Or wait until solid state memory cards are big and cheap enough to hold
all the photos without need for separate HDD.
Or for somebody with money-no-concern attitude, get a rugged tablet
PC with built-in CF slot or external USB/firewire reader... that's
a lot more expensive than these standalone storage devices
though...
Good light!
fra
