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Battery-Powered USB Enclosure

Posted by CmdrTaco on 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.

14 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Re:iPod ? by bamf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Good for Photos on the move by KiwiSurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. I get it by Ever+Dubious · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Why? by mumblestheclown · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    1. Re:Why? by random_rabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

      when you get back, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it to your slideshow.

  5. Pointless "commentary". by bamf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Pointless "commentary". by Tim+C · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
  6. Here is the why. by baryon351 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  7. 'Why' part of the equation? by infinite9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    struggling? well, y = mx + b of course!

    --
    Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
  8. This is actually useful! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Informative
    USB is a "Hub and Spoke" technology designed by Intel to keep a PC at the "hub". There is no equivalency to the Firewire/iLink/IEEE1394 negotiation between peer devices.

    What does this mean?

    Well, if you want to dump Photos from a USB camera, the HD must be attached to a whole PC and OS! A battery-powered device that manages to maintain a USB root hub, and have an HD attached is a pretty nifty trick, and offers many (not all) of the Firewire advantages. It is certainly compact and lightweight, and I doubt you wait for it to boot...

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  9. I want a battery-powered hub by fo0bar · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:AA is kinda low on power by rmarll · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The last AA powered hard drive based MP3 player I had ran about 7 hours under continuous use(spinning up every minute or so). I would suppose that if the drive were spinning continuously 1.5 - 2 hours would be reasonable figure.

  11. For digital photography... by Animaether · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

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

  12. Re:link already broken by eclectro · · Score: 4, Funny

    already /.'ed.. The power of Slashdot.... :)

    Actually the AA batteries probably died.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"