Backing up with the Nexto Drive June 6, 2012
On our earlier blog entry “Traveling Light” I mentioned our choice to purchase a NEXTO DI drive as our primary backup device for our trip around the Pacific. I figured I’d expand upon it a bit more.
In the weeks and months before our trip, I had originally thought I’d take my laptop with me. I usually bring it along most of the time when I want to be able to download pictures and movie files and be able to review them and perhaps maybe even some editing if time allows. It’s almost second nature really. You always gotta make space for the laptop…right?
As our trip drew closer though, and we had a better idea of all the things we wanted to do and how many locations and forms of transportation we were going to be taking (air, land and water), the idea of carrying a laptop with us the whole time started to seem a bit inconvenient. I have a 15″ Macbook Pro so, it’s a standard size machine, not too huge and not too small. Still I was considering other options that would lighten our load as much as possible. I could’ve gone with a 13″ laptop or a Macbook Air or even those tiny Netbooks, but none of those options really filled me with confidence. I needed something rugged, yet with a small footprint.
I found out the NEXTO drives are advertised as the world’s most reliable and fastest backup. Sounded like a solution for location downloading that’s worth checking out! Their NVS1501 model has two slots to take in either CF or SD cards which is exactly what I needed. CF’s for my Canon 5Dm2 and SD’s for my 60D, GoPros and my Lumix point-n-shoot. Just pop the cards in and…back that thing up!
The drive can do a standard Fast Copy, a Copy & Verify transfer where it authenticates bit by bit that all your data carried over, and a Safe Copy mode where it checks if the disk area is clean and uncorrupted before it copies. Not exactly sure when or why I’d choose a ‘Safe’ over a ‘Verified’ copy, but having both of them available is reassuring. I ended up using the Verify mode most of the time and it proved successful! For a 32GB CF card I found out the average download time for Fast Copy was around 7 minutes. Double that for Copy & Verify at around 15 minutes, and just a bit more for the Safe Copy at 16 minute average. I didn’t do an official test for the SD cards but they did take noticeably longer.
At $1,000 MSRP for the NVS1501, I was initially very apprehensive, though I kept thinking of it as an investment. It is astounding how difficult it can be to see your footage ever again once you hand it over to a client and they send it off to the ‘Never-never land’ of post-production. With the Nexto, I could make a copy of my own work for myself without slowing down production. That alone makes it worth the price in my eyes.
Another feature of the drive is the ability to do a secondary backup to another hard drive straight from the NEXTO’s ‘USB Host’ slot without having to go through a computer. Quite handy for that extra peace of mind. Yet my favorite feature has to be the screen to preview your pictures and video. At 2″ it is on the small side, and even though the resolution is not the best and some video formats playback kinda jagged, just being able to visually see and scroll through my files was the most soothing feeling I could ask for.
The drive itself is only 6″ in length and about 3.5″ wide. It’s a pretty rugged design as well and it can even recognize if it’s being dropped and turns off before it hits the ground so as to not damage the drive! All of this made it perfect for my needs. Luckily I did not test that last feature out. If I ever wanted to view my work on larger screen, I could just connect the camera straight to a TV. It was a relief throughout the whole trip not needing to carry a laptop with me. Instead, in the laptop compartment of my Clik Elite bag I was able to fit my Nexto drive, my filter case, my 2nd backup drive and my 2 intervalometers. I think it was a good trade and I’m happy to say I did not miss the laptop at all.
