[LRflex] Disaster in Paris!

All:

After reading all the "bumph" on the Hyperdrive HD-80, and after hearing Doug's
sasisfaction with the unit, I bought one, with a 60gb hard drive in it.
Naturally, to test it, after trying all the usual .jpg and .dng files, I put the
new, compressed DNG files from the M8 onto it (see "M8- A users report" sent
from Alex Hurst's computer) and everything worked out fine.  The unit is,
indeed, a slick piece of gear. 

However, when I went to turn it on, in Paris, it wouldn't work!  The screen 
indicated full battery power (I'd brought the recommended Lithium AA's) but
nothing else.  After much testing, and repeated trying, we got a whiff of the
acrid smell of a burning electrical part!  The Hyperdrive was hyper no more!

Xavier to the rescue!  :-)

He took us to a district where, for several blocks, there is little but small
shop after small shop - all Chinese run, and all selling computer parts and any
other electronics you can think of, from China.  In the third shop, we found a
small, generic PHOTO BANK for a mere 49 Euro's, or about US$60 (CAD$75). The
60gb drive from the hyperdrive slipped into it (Xavier had checked it, earlier)
and away we went!

The unit (a Cenda C-201. See: www.cenda.com.cn) is compact (1/2 the size of the
Hyperdrive and much ighter), well made but very slow. The price included a
litium-ion rechargeable battery which is supposed to run the unit for 3 hours. 
No tests on this, yet, and for the duration of this trip, I'll use the mains
adapter (provided) to be on the safe side.

Transfers are painfully slow, with 2gb of DNG files taking about 10 to 15
minutes.  However, if it's that, or not taking photos, I'll not complain. 

When the Hyperdrive is fixed, under warranty, I still think it will be my main 
"photo bank", but the Cenda is so small and light, that it will become a backup
unit.

This has been a great lesson, that in digital photography. That one break in the
chain of gear can lead to disaster.  Fortunately, in this case, with Xavier's
help, disaster was averted.

Anyone wanting a low cost, slow but reliable digital photo bank might do well to
considr the Cenda series of units. Mine accepts SD, MMC, MS-pro, CF and
micro-drivs, mini-SD and MS-duo cards without adapters. Operation is dead
simple.  Two buttons. Turn it on, with the flash card in a slot and it becomes a
cardreader.  Press the other button and it copies the card.  If you turn it on,
with no card inserted, but with the USB wire connected to a computer, it becomes
an external HD.  There are no other controls.

However, the displays show the remaining capacity of the Hard drive, the amount
of memory used on the card, and a graphic display showing the copying actions,
and the percentage of the card that has been copied.  About 45 seconds after the
display reads 100%, the unit turns off, and you can remove the card.  What could
be simpler?

Cheers!

David & Rose (in Cork, Ireland)


PS: in the same shop, I purchased a fine, 2GB, 133x, SD card for a mere 39 Euros
(US$50)!
 

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