Robert’s Photography Blog

With the release of Canon’s new media storage device, I thought it would be useful to review the CompactDrive PD70X portable storage device. More than a year ago, I purchased the PD70X (case only) here in Singapore and installed a 40GB Fujitsu hard drive (2.5″ 5400RPM) formatted to FAT32. Since then, I have used it regularly to download files from CF cards in the field.

I use multiple Lexar 2GB 80x CF cards on paid shoots. Larger capacity cards are more expensive and increase the risk of loosing photos from an entire shoot due to in-camera write failures or during downloading (rare but not impossible). Typically, I shoot [RAW + small/fine JPEG] so CF cards can fill up in 1-2 hours. The PD70X can download (16MB/sec) a full 2GB CF card in a little more than 2 minutes. That is so fast, you can actually shoot nearly uninterrupted with only one CF card*.

Does it have an LCD screen to review photos – nope! Does it play music – nope! Do I care – nope! I can review photos on my Canon EOS 30D LCD and I didn’t buy it for music. I am freelance photographer who wants and needs fast/reliable file back-up in the field. The PD70X does exactly that. Any file restrictions? Nope. It will copy all file formats.

The CompactDrive PD70X is sold exclusively by EastGear Pte. Ltd. They have a dealer network in Europe and Asia. However, if you are in the USA or Canada – you can order it from Amazon as the HyperDrive HD80 (see the link below).

Resources:
The EastGear website is here.
Information about sales in Europe/Asia is here.
If you are in the U.S.A., look here.

Robert Rating:

*Not recommended. I carry multiple 2GB CF cards that are backed-up to the PD70X once they are full. I then switch to another CF card and repeat the process without formating the full cards until I have back-up the PD70X to laptop or desktop computer.