Compactdrive PD70X

Darryn

Darryn

Darryn

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Has anyone got/used a Compactdrive PD70X?

Ive been looking to replace my Archos Gmini200 for some time and the PD70X seems to be pretty much the best, it uses 4xAA batteries which are cheap and available everywhere, according to the manufacturer it can transfer a full 1gb CF card to the 2.5"HD in under 2minutes and allow upto 35gb(some sites say 50gb) to be transferred onto the HD using a single set of batteries.

Ive just ordered a 120gb unit, 12x 2500mah NiMH batteries, a car charger and a 1hour 4xbattery charger for just under £250 inc postage.

Hopefully I will recieve the unit in the next few days and if anyone is interested I will writeup a short review of it.

UPDATED:
Short Review as PDF
Short review as HTML <-looks pretty dire as formatting has all been lost.
 
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I nearly did tbh, the only reason i didnt is that its slightly too slow for what I want, if I used that and my current Gmini I could backup 2x 1gbcf cards at the same time and that would have worked ok, but whilst checking the specs I saw a link to the PD70x and the speed of it sold it to me straight away.
 
That speed does seem very nice, got to say thought that kind of movement of data must surely cane the juice from batteries...35Gb from a single set, if it does I will be very much impressed :)

Interested to see what you reckon to it.

Tom
 
My 2p
I have the pdx70 and its a great bit of kit, completly destroys my Vosonic X drive 2 performance wise
does what it says on the can, (blisteringly fast) I use a set of rechargable batteries and charge them before I go out

with the vosonic I used to put a different CF card in the camera while it transferred, with this pdx I dont bother its transferred the lot within 2 mins
 
havent actually seen one of these devices before...seems pretty zippy. just spent 20 mins odd reading reviews and there does seem to be quite a few reliablity issues...

reason whi i'm selling my vosonic is because it isnt fast enough. Its fine for anyone with time on thier hands but I dont have that. I'm considering ripping out the HD from the vosonic and buying the pd70x chassis.

Who did you order your unit from dreeder?
 
I ordered mine thru the online store of the manufacturer link in the first post, its coming for Singapore.

I ordered it 11am on Sunday 20th March, ive had confirmation emails at every stage, order accepted, picked, packed, despatched and also a Fedex tracking link sent to me, it SHOULD arrive to me tomorrow, which is pretty damn rapid.

I ordered a charger, car adapter and 3 sets of batteries, only to later notice the unit comes with a free car adapter and set of batteries and is a charger. :rolleyes: This pushed the weight of the order up and so ive paid quite a bit extra inc postage for items I dont really need.
 
Recieved it this morning, just had a quick quick bash with it and it transferred 963 MB (1,010,171,904 bytes) (125files) from a Sandisk Extreme III 1gb CF cards in 119seconds, this time was from turning the unit on, till the successful copy confirmation screen, and included startup time and me pressing the copy button. It came very very close to the 2min/gb manufacturers suggested speed, so my initial impressions are very good, I repeated the test twice and got 119seconds both times. Thats gives a 8.10mb/sec tranfer speed.

I will be doing much more testing and put together a more comprehensive review over the weekend.
 
adding to the above comments
I got mine from Singapore as well, and I have had it about 6 months now, and the speed is jsut amazing compared to any other device I have come accross
as an example the vosonic batterys are hopeless lasting about 4 gb worth before iot needs recharging, and it takes a full twenty minutes to copy a 2gb card across

so it was a complete shock when I first used the pdx70 when it tranfers a 2gb card in a couple of minutes,
(i could barely believe that it had done transfer)

comparing the two side by side is a complete waste of time, as the gulf is like the grand canyon scales of difference
any body who has used the PDX70 would not even begin to consider a vosonic
 
Buttkicker, what are your personnal experiences with the PD70X when it comes to battery life? I find the figures I got of over 60gb per set to be mind blowing, what can I expect from the unit when used over a few days or a week holiday?
 
DreederOcUK said:
Buttkicker, what are your personnal experiences with the PD70X when it comes to battery life? I find the figures I got of over 60gb per set to be mind blowing, what can I expect from the unit when used over a few days or a week holiday?
Click to expand...


I use rechargable batterys and charge them before i go out, and have never had a problem regarding running out

when I went to Las Vegas, I took the charger with me and charged them up just to be safe from failure
one day at an Airshow I shot about 15gb worth of shots - and all transferred with no problem on the same charge
so the battery life compared to the Vosonic is a complete no contest as far as I am concerned
I must add that the hard drive is the one I got with the Vosonic, I just bought the unit and installed the hard drive - they even send a screwdriver and instructions with the unit

I must confess to not doing any kind of tests - all I know is that it totally blows away the vosonic
 
Not yet, I was half expecting Mr Fedex who delivered it, to ask for a nice fat stack of cash, but he didnt. I`ve also heard that a "Customs Import Duty" invoice may arrive up to a couple of weeks after delivery, but i dont know how reliable the source of that info is.
 
great review by the way.

sold my vosonic on fleabay for £85. thats with an 80gb hard disc.

The bare pd70 is £100 shipped. on top a hard disc...20gb roughly £25, 40gb about £38....its quite a jump to upgrade.

at th emoment I have 8 x 1gb flash cards...it may just be a better bet to spend the £100 odd on more flash memory. The 5D's raw files are roughly 15mb each so you only get about 59 on a 1gig card....quite a drop from when i had my 20d..

I think i'm going to have to take some time to work out whats best.....
 
well just ordered my pd70x from OSD for £88 inc delivery....may get a small hard disk for it...20gb will be more than enough for one job.
 
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morgan said:
well just ordered my pd70x from OSD for £88 inc delivery....be may get a small hard disk for it...20gb will be more than enough for one job.
Click to expand...

Just caught up with this thread.. :rolleyes:

Had my PD70X for some time now and can only say this is the fastest storage device by far. Battery life is awesome as is the blistering speed of this device.. :eek:

I can only second what has already been said about this piece of hardware..

10/10 and money well spent.. :)
 
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