HD80 Photo Storage Device

Review by Mike Lane.


I decided that I needed a portable storage device for the Bryce / Zion shootout. After a bunch of research I decided to go with the PD70X. So while I was looking into that I ran across the fact that the PD70X is the exact same thing as the HD80 except for the fact that the HD80 is rebranded a bit. More importantly the HD80 is cheaper and you don't have to pay shipping.

So I got the HD80 today and I thought I'd post a few pictures of it and what I thought about it.

According to the HD80 ordering site any order placed on or after 6 April until 18 April will be on back order. To sweeten the deal since the HD80s are on back order they were offering a free car charger and free rechargable batteries for orders placed from 6 to 18 April. Lo and behold my order shipped right after I ordered it 2nd day air no less! Oh and shipping was free. As you can see it came with the car charger and 2 sets of rechargable AA batteries (nice since I can use them in my 580EX).



It's all the rage to have shots of opening boxes these days. So here you go.



I'd seen the HD80 online but I pictured it in my head being much bigger than this! More shots follow that will give a bit of perspective on size.



So in the box was from left to right the USB cable, wall charger, screwdriver (nice), manual, and at the top right on the box is the pouch for the unit.



Here you can get a better idea of the size of the HD80. To its left is an iPod with video, above it a Canon SD300, and to the right the other convenient thing for me to grab a 67mm UV filter.



Here you can get an idea of the width of the HD80. From left to right is the iPod with video, the HD80, the Canon SD300, and the 67mm UV filter.



The batteries come uncharged (not sure if that is standard or not). The HD80 has a built-in charger which is awesome. So I just plugged it in to try it out. Then I just popped in the CF card on which these shots were saved (and a bunch of others too - a Lexar 1GB 80X CF card). From the time the unit was "booted" to the time it recognized the card was a few seconds and then it started downloading the images automatically. There was 105 files on the card (some xmp sidecar files from previous ACR-ing of images were on there too, but not too many). All in all it took about 30 to 45 seconds to transfer all 105 files. Not bad at all!

What I don't like all that much is the fact that each time you start up the drive it boots up. By that I mean it looks at the harddrive to figure out how big it is every time you start the thing. For my 40GB hard drive (37.whatever GB actually) it takes about a second per gig. So you basically double your downloading time for a 1 gig card. Kind of annoying.

Other than that, so far so good.