p.1 #1 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
I’m going to be traveling through Europe for two weeks and wanted to keep my kit as light as possible. As such I decided to forgo lugging around my standard laptop, which is 5 pounds of weight I didn’t want to carry just so I could check email and backup my photos. This left me questioning whether I should buy a netbook or use my iPad with a portable backup device like the Hyperdrive Colorspace. In the end I decided to give the HDCS a try because I just couldn’t justify buying another laptop device when I have so many in the house already. Plus, I knew that after this trip I’d probably never use the netbook again whereas the HDCS could become a permanent addition to my kit.
When I received the HDCS I was surprised at how small it was, but how bulky it felt. I got the driveless model (I have a whole lot of spare laptop drives lying around) which felt a bit light and cheap at first. But once I put in a hard drive it felt solid and strong. The buttons are plastic, but they make a satisfying click when pressed.
The screen, as mentioned in every review, is adequate for viewing the on-screen menus and confirming images have copied successfully, but it’s certainly not good enough for critical viewing. One note on the menus; I’m astounded that this thing still uses text menus instead of graphics. The main home screen has icons for each of the tasks you can do, but once you select a task you are shunted to a DOS-looking, text menu system which may throw off many people who are unfamiliar with DOS. This is especially disconcerting since this product is supposed to be used with an iPad whose OS is very sleek, simple and sexy. In comparison, the HDCS operating system is a clunky, ugly beast.
I tested the HDCS by connecting a CF card with about 20 RAW pictures on it directly into the HDCS’s CF slot on the top of the case. Transfers were quick and easy once I managed to figure out the menu system. Afterwards, I once again had to navigate the DOS-like menu system to find my photos and view them on the built-in screen. The images looked about the same as they do on my 7D’s built in screen, which is to say I could tell they were pictures but I wouldn’t use the screen to show off my photos to clients, or even family. But that’s what the iPad is for, right? Connecting to the iPad requires the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit and the USB cable HDCS supplies. Once connected I selected iPad from the HDCS’s main menu and, voila! I could see my photos on the iPad.
It’s important to note that you only get thumbnails on the iPad until you select photos to copy directly to the iPad. This means if you want to view all 500 of your RAW photos on the iPad you can’t. But if you just want to look at a few select photos on the iPad you can do that. And if you want, you can copy and view a few selects, delete them from the iPad and then copy over more photos from the HDCS. Anything you copy to the iPad is still safe on the HDCS so no worries about “losing” the pictures.
Overall, I’m very happy so far. The HDCS seems to do exactly what I wanted it to do; copies my photos from my CF cards to its internal storage and lets me then copy select photos to the iPad for critical viewing. Once you figure out the menu system using it is simple with no hiccups or problems so far. Right now, I’m a very happy camper and am excited to use my new toy.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say after I return from Europe, but for now I can give the HyperDrive Colorspace for iPad a thumbs up.
p.1 #2 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
what is transfer speed like? i happen to own a Spyder3 profiler and installed the Snapseed app and server to profile my iPad screen. it's worth doing if you already have the profiler. if you don't have the hardware already, it might not be worth doing.
p.1 #3 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
Herb:
Transfer speed from CF to HDCS is very fast, on par with copying to my main computer. From HDCS to iPad it feels slower, but that may be subjective. I have no way of testing the transfer speed myself so I can't really give you a definitive answer. I'll have more real-world knowledge once I return from Europe.
p.1 #5 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
EB-1:
I believe the only difference is the HDCS for iPad allows you to connect to the iPad directly. I don't know if the UDMA version does and there was no mention of that capability on their website. So, since they're both the same price, I figured getting the one that actually stated it worked with the iPad removed any confusion on my part.
p.1 #8 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
the Colorspace Album maxes out at around 25-28MB/s. with my ExpressCard or eSATA readers, i comfortably run at upper 50's MB/s from the same cards. i've not yet had a good reason to get faster cards but eventually i will.
Herb...
Aug 12, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #9 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
When you wanted to keep your kit as light as possible, memory cards would be better. And probably also a lot cheaper for your two weeks holiday. You get good reliable 32GB memory cards for $ 40-50
p.1 #10 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
I plan to buy Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad casing only. Does the drive need to be formatted any special way? Can a new drive simply be installed without pre-formatting?
I hope to use it with a Nikon D800 and new iPad. I am hoping it can handle large 36mp Raw files from the D800 and interface with the 3rd generation iPad.
p.1 #14 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
Has anyone experience with the hard drive ( not the colorspace version ) with the iPad. I am wondering how easy it is to select a few files from the drive and bring them into the iPad.
p.1 #16 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
Just a quick update here.
The unit I bought became unstable and, ultimately, unusable during my trip. After my return I contacted Hyperdrive and they confirmed my worst fears; the HDCS doesn't play well with the 1TB hard drive I was trying to use. Apparently, sjms above was correct that the HDCS is not rated to work with large drives, and at the time of my trip the largest drive approved for use was 500GB (it's now 750GB). This is something I should have checked before my trip, but I thought my quick home transfer test would have caught any bugs in the system and nothing on the website mentioned an HD limit.
All in all, this unit would be great if it worked with larger drives. I'm currently keeping it in storage until my next big trip when I might slap a 500GB drive in it and use it instead of carrying a computer. Of course, by then I might not need it anymore, but that's all just part of the fun of this crazy hobby, right?
p.1 #17 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
As a back up device how many images are you going to shoot while away? The 500 GB drive in my CS Album will store over 18,000 Raw images. Even a months long trip that is over 600 images a day. And as long as you are away from home base expect Murphy to be close behind so I Always have enough CF cards to act as primary storage and a PSD as secondary back up, never erasing images from the cards.
p.1 #18 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
JBPhotog:
It wasn't how many photos I thought I'd be taking, it was the size of the hard drives I happened to have lying around the house. I didn't want to buy a unit that came with a hard drive because I have about seven 1TB or larger drives sitting in my house doing nothing. Had I known the HDCS wouldn't work with my spare drives I probably would have bought one with an included hard drive.
p.1 #19 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
Photo GeekMan wrote:
Just a quick update here.
The unit I bought became unstable and, ultimately, unusable during my trip. After my return I contacted Hyperdrive and they confirmed my worst fears; the HDCS doesn't play well with the 1TB hard drive I was trying to use. Apparently, sjms above was correct that the HDCS is not rated to work with large drives, and at the time of my trip the largest drive approved for use was 500GB (it's now 750GB). This is something I should have checked before my trip, but I thought my quick home transfer test would have caught any bugs in the system and nothing on the website mentioned an HD limit.
All in all, this unit would be great if it worked with larger drives. I'm currently keeping it in storage until my next big trip when I might slap a 500GB drive in it and use it instead of carrying a computer. Of course, by then I might not need it anymore, but that's all just part of the fun of this crazy hobby, right?...Show more →
I mentioned long ago that Hyperdrive did not support one of the 1TB drives, the only one at the time. After several rounds of contacts with the company, they said that the issue was being reviewed, but I never received any further reply. I cannot find the thread at the moment.
Which drive did you use and did you confirm with a full test outside of the HD that the drive is working properly?
p.1 #20 · A Quick Review of the Hyperdrive Colorspace for iPad
EB-1:
I didn't know about the 1TB issues and, as I said, if I had known I would have bought one of their drives with an HD already installed. The particular unit I owned I returned to the company and they sent me back a new unit which I haven't tested yet as I don't have any smaller drives.
The particular drive I installed in the unit was a Seagate or WD, I can't recall which at the moment. They have since been re-purposed into various other computers and are running perfectly well so I think it's safe to assume the hard drive wasn't the issue.
