I have a number of WD Passport drives that I use, but my last portable drive purchased was a Seagate.  WD switched their USB connections on thier newer drives to Micro, and there were many reports of them not staying well connected.  Also, as all of my current drives use a Mini connection, having a new connection would require bringing along a different cable.  I'm not a big fan of Seagate, although I do not have any intense dislike of their products, but the 1TB portable I purchased last year was quite a surprise.  It had almost no junk software on it, something that WD kept cramming on their drives.  It had no hidden partition, like WD was adding to their Passports.  It was manufactured in Thailand if that makes any difference to anybody, although the drive is now over a year old.

Hitachi bought up/merged several lines of drives that have been promoted for their durability, G-Technology being one of them.  I do not know much about them, but they may also be worth considering.

Good luck,

--Ken

Tim,

While I am not that familiar with Chrome Space 100, this article seems to indicate that it is not necessarily a larger space than ProPhoto RGB (and I am assuming its LR variation, Melissa RGB) - http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_87/essay.html .

--Ken

While there are certain things to like about the iPad, like its IPS panel, the deivce that I am more interested in is Lenovo's upcoming Skylight.  It is almost as light as the iPad, but is has USB ports, a keyboard and 3G built in to the unit.  This means that I can easily hook up a card reader and USB drives!  It runs on a Qualcomm processor, but I believe that the OS is a variant on UNIX.  My guess is that there are going to be a number of smaller devices coming to market this year, so you may want to wait and see.  right now, I do not easily see using an iPad in the field as a backup device.

--Ken

Hi Chris,

I can only comment a bit on Lightroom because I have not used the other software packages.  Generally, LR does not play well with servers.  But, since you are mostly confining your image editing to the main computer, you may be able to set it for LR and the server to "play well together".  This would limit your ability to use LR on other machines to read the server files, but that does not preclude you from using other software if you just want to be able to view or copy an image.  Its not an ideal arrangement, but it could work.

I am reaching a bit here, but you could use LR on the main machine, and then export imges to your server or the web.  Although this adds a second step, it may be fairly easy to create a workflow like this in LR.  This would also "protect" the image files that LR has registered, as they would really only be accessed by you in LR.  But, you now have your images in two places, albeit the exported copy is "disposable".  Its just a suggestion, but YMMV.

--Ken

Chris,

Do you want to pull up the files for viewing or for editing form the various computers?  If the former, then it seems that you may have some reasonably easy solutions, like some kind of home server arrangement.  If the latter, then I would agree with Peter's comments above.  Have you also considered a service like SmugMug in addition to what you decide to do at home?  It can easily be incorporated with Lightroom, allows easy access to viewing images, and gives you an additional copy of your image off site, albeit not necessarily in original form.  Some thoughts for consideration.

Good luck,

--Ken

Dale,

As storage is as cheap as ever, I archive my NEF (RAW) files as well as a copy of the converted DNG files.  They carry the same file name, but different extension, and I have them readily available if I need to run a file through a program like Nikon's Capture NX.  For my work flow, I see no advantage of embedding the RAW file into the DNG.  And, for the record, I am using LR for conversion and DAM.

--Ken

]

Thank you for the link, George.  The question I have, as stated in my original post, is does the drive still alwyas want to install a driver, weather VCD is enabled or not?

--Ken

Hi Jonathan,

I do not have my computer with II and LR with me now, so I will try to answer as best I can, and of course, others can chime in with their experiences as well.

First, two disclaimers.  I am using the last version of II.  It works for me, so I have not felt the immediate need to upgrade to a more current version.  I eventually will because I want to support Marc's efforts, but right now its on my list of things to do.  Second, at present, I am only using a small number of features that II offers.  I am not a professional photographer, so I am content to use collections in Lightroom to help me manage my images.  This is far more basic than what most people would do to manage their collections (i.e. keywords, managed vocabulary, embedded metadata), but I only have so many hours in the day that I can devote to DAM.

After downloading my images from my CF cards to my hard drive, I use II to rename and then back up my NEF files according to my naming scheme.  Then I let II use Adobe's DNG converter to create the DNG files with the same name (but different file extension)  I choose not to embed the NEF file into the DNG as it is saved and backed up separately in the previous step.  Even though it may increase the size of the DNG file, I like having a 1:1 preview embedded into the file.  Do realize that LR is also going to create its own separate previews, so you need to balance processing time and sotrage according to your needs and workflow.

The DNG files are also backed up (next to the NEF files in a date-based folder scheme) and a working copy is also placed on my working hard drive.  to date, I have not run any verification programs on the files, but I have considered adding this to my work flow.  Right now, I usually view the images in LR after importing, and I figure that I have the NEF files to fall back on, but that arrangement, IMHO, would not suffice for a professional who relies on their images to earn a living.

Now that the files are backed up, renamed and converted, the working copies are ready to be imported in place into LR.  Here again, you will need to decide the size of preview that works best for you.  Once this step is complete, I make a second back up copy of the files, and am now free to post -process my images with what little time remians in my day.

I hope this was helpful, and I hope that others who use more II features will feel free to contribute to this thread.  My work flow is somewhat minimalist by DAM standards, but my needs are not great at this time.  As always, YMMV.

Good luck,

--Ken

Hi Jonathan,

I use II because it can handle multiple tasks the way I want with just one command.  I shoot raw files.  When I am ingesting these files, I want them renamed and converted to DNG, and I both copies, raw and DNG, to also be backed up to a second drive.  Yes, these actions can be handled in Lightroom, but I prefer II because it gives me greater control.  The other big advantage of II is if you are using a netbook while in the field.  It has a much smaller footprint, and can handle the "front end" work so files are ready for ingestion when you return home.  II is a great addition to Lightroom, and I only use a fraction of its capabilities.  Of course, YMMV.

--Ken

Jonathan,

I use an older verseion of II with Lightroom, but I always copy my files to my computer before they see the light of either program.  This way I still have the files on the card in case something should go wrong during processing.

--Ken

George,

I had a chance to take the Seagate drive out of its plastic clamshell packaging the other night.  Its software is easily bypassed, and the drive was fine.  It came formatted w/NTFS, and had 931Gb available.  It is bigger and heavier than the WD drives, but its seemed like a reasonable price at Costco - $170.  The drive was manufactured in Thailand, but assembled in China.  Other than that, I could not find out any more information about the drive mechanism.

--Ken

Peter,

It is a shame, as I liked the basic simplicity of the old Passport drives.  I purchased a 1TB Seagate USB drive, but have yet to take it out of its package.  The drive is manufactured in Thailand, as opposed to China where most of the older Seagate portable drives have been manufactured, but I cannot seem to find any additional specifications about these units.  They casing is certainly taller than the older style units, so I believe that it probably contains a 12.5mm profile drive as opposed to the smaller 9mm ones that have populated a majority of the older (and slimmer) units.  It is my understanding, though, that the manufacturer's software on these drives can easily be disabled.

One additional note on the new Passport drives that I failed to mention in my post above.  I was reading on several forums that these newer style drives are designed without a SATA connection.  It appears that the micro-USB connector is soldered directly on to the controller board, and there is no SATA connector.  So, it appears that these new drives most likely canot be used as a laptop replacement unelss somebody has some kind of adapter, if one even exists.

--Ken

For a number of years, I have used Western Digital's Passport hard drives for portable storage.  They have always been a good value, and I have not had any problems to date.  I purchased a 750GB model yesterday from Costco, and did a bit of research on the drive before opening it up.  It appears that WD is now using micro-USB connectors with their portable drives, and it seems that many of the connectors have a problem staying connected.  Aslo, without an adapter, you cannot use older mini-USB cables on these drives.
 
Also, the drives contain a hidden partition that mounts as a virtual CD when the drive is connected.  It is my understanding that this hidden partition cannot be deleted.  There is some means of disabling the software, I belive through a firmware update, but the drive still wants to install a driver every time it is connected.
 
Needless to say, neither of these changes appeal to me, so the drive went back today and was replaced with a Seagate 1TB FreeAgent Go drive.  The Seagate drive uses a mini-USB cable, and it is my understanding that its software can be easily deleted.  You may want to keep these two changes in mind if you are considering a portable drive.
 
 
--Ken

Hi Neil,

You are correct.  I was not certain how IIP and LR fit into your workflow so I offered the suggesation.  I, too, use II for renaming, backup and DNG conversion as a "front end" to LR.  But, I thought that perhaps youhad a different arrangement for backups, and could use LR's renaming template.  At this time, I cannot think of any alternatives that would address your needs, but I will keep it in mind in case something comes to mind.

Good luck,

--Ken

Neil,

Are you using Lightroom after IIP?  I believe that their naming templates allow you to easily do what you have requested.

--Ken