May 2005 Archives

CompactDrive PSD PD7X Serial Review
Part 3 of 3

So now we have the hard drive properly formatted and installed
(see parts 1 and 2), and it is time try it out!

Here is the drive from the front, and below is the Compact Flash card.

And here we see the one drawback. The Compact Flash card below is fully inserted. If you look at the packaging again, you will see that this fact is actually shown on the box. Now I, for one, didn't really notice it, or think much of it. However, if I am bounding through Arches National Park and switch Compact Flash cards, and go to empty this one in the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, well, I'll have to live with the fact that the cover is open and the card is sticking out. This will make it harder to throw the CompactDrive PSD PD7X in my backpack while it copies the files off the card (a full 1 Gig card takes almost 5 minutes to copy over). This is an annoyance and a bit of a design flaw, but tolerable.

Once I have copied the test files over to the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, it is time to try getting them on to a computer. So I plug in the USB cable.

The drive was instantly recognized...

... installed itself and showed up in "My Computer".

A couple of clicks and I was browsing the pictures.

Typically in a reviewer will perform an exhaustive number of tests to benchmark the transfer speeds under various conditions. I haven't the time. All I can say is that the times seem to match the manufacturers claim. The Compact Flash to HD transfer speeds are about 4 megabytes per second ( or a bit over 4 minutes for a 1 Gig card) and the transfer from hard drive to computer via the USB2 cable is about what you would expect for USB2.

CONCLUSION:

The CompactDrive PSD PD7X meets my expectations, and does exactly what the manufacturer claims it will do. Be aware that any hard drive you install has to be formatted FAT32 before you install it, and this can be tricky if you only have Windows XP.

CompactDrive PSD PD7X Serial Review
Part 2 of 3

Ok, all ready to go. I turned it on, and... Uh oh. Frowning face and an error #10. I look this up in the manual. Appearently the CompactDrive PSD PD7X can't format a hard drive, the drive has to be formatted before installation, and the drive has to be formatted FAT32. Since the hard drive is brand new, it has not been formatted or partitioned yet. There is only one thing to do: take the drive out and format it properly, then reinstall it.

Out comes the drive. To format it, it must be installed in a PC and formatted. Since it is a laptop drive, it has to either go into a laptop, or you can use a 2.5" to 3.5" Hard drive adapter ($5-$10). Fortunately I have one on hand for this kind of thing.

Here is the adapter on the laptop drive.

I put the drive in a removable drive bay. These are easier to use than opening up the whole PC every time you want to add or remove a hard drive.

The drive tray is inserted into the drive bay.

Then you lock it into place, and turn on the PC.

Inside Windows XP Disk Manager, the new drive shows up. Below are the steps to partition and format the drive.

Here is the next problem: FAT32 is not an option for formatting the drive. A quick check with Microsoft TechNet confirms it: Windows XP will not format a partition larger than 32GB with FAT32. Windows will only format NTFS on a 60GB drive. If I want to use the entire capacity of this drive on the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, I will have to use Windows 98, Linux, or something else to format the drive FAT32. Well, I don't have any Win98 machines laying around, and I don't feel like installing Linux just for this, so that leaves...

Good old Partition Magic Pro! I reboot the system from the Partition Magic floppy, and we're off to work!

So there it is! Disk formatted in Partition Magic. I install the hard drive in the CompactDrive PSD PD7X again, and this time it works!

CompactDrive PSD PD7X Serial Review
Part 1 of 3

280 pictures may seem like a lot. That is how many images my Maxxum 7D will store on a 1 Gig CompactFlash card at top JPEG resolution. 80 is a lot less; that is how many RAW images it will hold. For those days where I am hiking in, say, Arches National Park, I might want to take 10 times that many shots in one afternoon. That is a lot of CompactFlash cards! And what if I am away from my laptop for a week? How many shots could I take? This got me to looking at portable storage drives. I wanted one where I could upgrade the hard drive myself, since drives are continually becomming cheaper. After looking at several, I chose the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, and ordered from www.mydigitaldiscount.com. I also ordered a Hitachi 60gig 5400RPM laptop hard drive to use in it, from www.zipzoomfly.com. A couple of days later, the packages arrived.

Inside was the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, retail box.

Opening the box, I found:

The drive comes with a nice screwdriver! Opening up the instructions, I found the steps simple, and the illustratins clear.

Here is the hard drive, brand new and in the anti-static bag.

In principle, this is simple. Open up the CompactDrive PSD PD7X, insert the drive, and off we go! Here goes...

No problem getting the back cover off.

In goes the hard drive.

A small plastic piece holds the drive in place, and serves as an anchor for the cover screws.

The cover goes on, and it is time to tighten the screws back down.

All done! Drive installed.

Time to get out the CompactFlash card, in this case a SanDisc Ultra II 1 Gig.

4 NiMH AA rechargable batteries are easy to insert.