I have been lugging my work laptop around to all my photo tours. Whenever I shoot for more than two days, I can use up my 2 GB of CF cards. I rarely delete my photos when I am on the road and I tend to bracket a lot. This with my added fascination of panoramas can quickly fill up cards.

I have been shopping around for a portable storage device for quite some time. I came very close to buying the PD7X but kept delaying the purchase.

I ran into this very interesting storage device, Cintre DATASync just before my Sierra trip. It was the least expensive option I found and read some favorable reviews in Nikon Cafe, so I bought a 40 GB device.

I now use this device regularly and it has served me well on a 3 day weekend trip to Sierra and a 6 day trip to Alaska .

Pros

  1. Very small. Comes with a neat leather pouch that smug fits the device.
  2. Least expensive of all the devices on the market.
  3. Looks neat :D .
  4. Transfers data from my 1 GB 80x lexar card in about 3.5 mins. Transferring about 4 GB of data from the device to my PC took under 8 mins.
  5. Fits easily into my camera bag. To me, this was a critical aspect. If this was not the case, it might as well be sitting in the hotel room.

Cons

  1. Does not have a built in CF card reader. Almost every other device in this category has one. I bought a $10 USB 2.0 CF reader and slipped it into the same leather pouch.
  2. No visual feedback in terms of numbers. The most expensive ones like Nikon coolwalker and the Epson have a big LCD that shows pictures as they are being transferred. The less expensive PD7X or PD70X at least show the number of photos and / or size of data being copied over. This device has a few LED lights. If there was an error, the error LED comes up and blinks. At the end of data transfer, if the device beeps twice, data was saved correctly, if it beeped four times, it did not save correctly!

Now con #2 is what should decide if you like the device or not. If you do not stay near the device during transfer and you missed the beeps, you have to go by the LEDs that light up. This may or may not work for you.

I have transferred photos about a dozen times so far and I like it despite the lack of visual feedback. I have learnt to trust the device. If that is a major factor, consider other options. If not, this is a steal and one of the very few things in this hobby that is worth the $ you spend.

Update

I got a couple of emails from users who had issues with this data storage device. I have no issues whatsoever so far. There have been instances of failure which were due to improper formatting of hard disks as reported here. In general, search for OTG in Nikon cafe forums, there are many threads about this device.

Real life usage

I used this device extensively on a 6 day trip to Alaska. I did not take my laptop with me. The device worked like a charm. Nearly 10 GB of photos, never had to recharge the device at all. Only thing I missed is a LCD preview feature :D . Another $300 more, I should get a Nikon Coolwalker or some for that :) .

But for the value this device provides, it is an unbeatable deal.

Update

The lack of visual feedback eventually caught up with me. I bought a PD70X as a replacement to this device.

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