Compact Flash---->USB for external HD Driver

[l0keman]

I asked Ayasin to write me a driver that would allow me to put a CF to USB adapeter into the cf slot and attach to an external HD. He asked me to see if anyone else would be interested in this, as he beleives it could be hard to find a market for it.
So her's the deal we'll take a vote, see if many people are interested in it or not.

I've been looking and if I want a 200Gb external HD, I can look at spending$250-$300. If I want 200Gb of CF cards, I can look at spending $40,000-$60,000. Areal no-brainer, I think.

I could leave the HD in my backpack or put it undeer the seat or out of the way somewhere else and it is essentially the same thing as having the clie plugged in to the cigarette lighter.

I have a few old HDs lying around (30 & 40GB), I can pick up a kit to turn theese old drives or any regular HD into an external HD through an inexspensive kit. I you would like to see it please vote yes, If not just vote no.

[n2ifp]

I wouldn't mind having a USB port per se, but I don't think it feasible due to power requirements.

As for having a hard drive interface, I am sorry, I don't think it's really a viable or practical option. I might as well lug around my laptop. How would you power an external hard drive? Not through the Clie you can't. A hard drive needs a +5.0volt, and a +12.0volt power supply.

[l0keman]

I see battery powered ones and ones that plug into you cigarette lighter. I got the clie to stop lugging aroung the laptop. External HDs are getting smaller and lighter with every new company to jump on the bandwagon.

[Raybot]

There are in fact hard disk packs that people have backed onto iPaqs and the like (often to use as in-car MP3 players) ... often they do interface through a PCMCIA port with the drive itself powered off the car's electrical system. I can see this sorta thing being real useful but then again it is a niche of a niche market (in the sense that a CF driver for the NX is a niche market already) ... at least at this stage ... perhaps now that EruWare have gotten the ball rolling this will change.



- Raybot

[l0keman]

I guess this thing isn't going to happen.

[ashVID]

It just makes very little sense to hook your Clie up to a giant HD. Get a sub-laptop, it will be smaller. The CF to PCMCIA adapter has been in question as to whether the Clie has enough power to run it efficiently. If it cannot run a PCMCIA HD or Microdrive efficiently then how is it going to run a full sized HD even if it has external power??? If you want to play movies or MP3,s now you have to make the Palm OS and Clie Apps recognize a HD, all of this is not very likely and certainly not easy. Dont expect it until several generations from now....



ash =o)

[bright_day]

The clie wouldn't need to power the hard drive - most come with an external power source.

I for one would really really like to see a driver for a USB to hard drive. I have an Image Tank to hold my photos while on vacation (a hard drive that has CF/SD slots to save pictures to the drive). Its really handy but I can't go back and look at the photos until I come back home. With the Clie I could view on a nice screen those pics saved to the drive!

I like being able to keep the Image Tank in my vacation room/house AND have the pda in my backpack for other camera related programs. I don't want to schlepp a laptop around to museums or on a 10 mile hike. The specialized photo storage and viewing devices out there don't do anything else but allow storage and maybe a tiny view screen.

l0keman, I am betting if we start discussing this in the photography community as well, we might have enough interest. How can I get in touch with you?
-Shell

[l0keman]

-Excellent companion for quick uploads and downloads of files

-Files stored can be easily managed through a PC or Mac

-One touch backup of image files from memory card

-Built-in hard drive, memory card reader and rechargeable battery

-Fast USB interface with Plug & Play design

-Memory cards are still expensive at about $0.20/MB or $200/GB. The Super DigiBin™ offers a highly portable 60GB of storage for about $0.01745/MB or$17.45/GB

I would like to have have one with a couple 1Gb CF cards, so I can watch a movie while the other is transfering to the other card. Although, it would be best for me to just plug this up and not woory at all about constantly changing cards, burn this swap, burn that, swap......

[l0keman]

I can't figure it out so I guess I'll include a web site, cuase I can't get a link in this thing either.

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=172


Anyways, carrying three of these things would be easier than a notebook with half the memory and they're 4x the cost too.

[l0keman]

It's really not that much bigger than my NZ90 when I think about it. And the amount of money I save, I can go to e-bay and buy a REALLY nice viper

[ashVID]

The USB interface requires power to transfer files and it is VERY VERY SLOW.

ash =o)

[michael1960]

It sounds great to have 20,40, 60 or more GB of storage available on your NX70. But I don't think there are enough "power users" who would be willing to pay for that. Here are some thoughts:

- How long will the Clie actually have a CF slot? Perhaps the NZ90 will be the last model with a CF slot?

- Isn't 512 MB or 1GB enough to store a lot of personal information, documents, pictures, audios? Just think about making a backup of your 60 GB!

- The Clie is fast when compared with other Palm devices, but I am afraid it would be terribly slow to handle great amounts of storage.

- Internal RAM is very limited. So even if we have a 1000GB storage device, internal workspace will just be 4-8 MB, depending on how much internal memory is available.

- I am sure we will see PDAs with faster cpu and much more memory and storage in the future. But it's too early now.

[Unregistered]

Wireless Storage such as Bluetooth NAS or Wifi NAS is fine for me.

[Halesy]

While it would be cool to have as many options on my CLIE as possible I don't think I'd go for this driver.

I got the NX70 for portabilty/convenience reasons and with the new CF driver I'm doing most of what I want. I wouldn't use external drives that I'd have to carry around, it suddenly becomes half as portable.

The price and size of new, small laptops would make them the alternative for me if I wanted something more PC like e.g. the Sony U or C series. These laptops are not much bigger than the NX70 and have loads more functionality.

[Halesy]

Now that I thought about it a bit more I might change my mind.

Could the USB driver in question be generic? Or am I expecting too much from the CLIE? A generic USB driver would allow me to connect any USB device to my CLIE. If that were the case then I might buy it.

[nevarDeath]

I think there should be a driver written that can use a Bluetooth CF card with the toshiba Bluetooth hard drive, now there's an elegant solution!