Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

It does indeed work. I've been testing it before actually relying in it. CF cards are pretty fast, SD cards not so much. User interface is pretty weak, so read the instructions. Battery life is not so good and neither is the battery life indicator. You can get a second battery and I will. Most annoying feature: if you start a copy operation by mistake you cannot stop it or even power down. I couldn't believe it so I contacted Tech Support and they quickly verified it. They don't give the impression that they will improve it either. It's not hard to accidently start a copy, it can take a LONG time to finish, and it uses up the battery. All negatives, don't you think? I can't comment on long term reliability.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

Very intuitive product. Basically plug & play.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

Test it in the last few weeks
do exactly what its suppose to do

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

When I first received this unit and attempted to install the battery, the lid to the compartment has two very small teeth that slide under the main body. They broke, very poor design, I would have sent it back but it was too late I needed it for my trip to South America.

I plan on sending it to the manufacture to see if they will fix it. It works okay most of the time, but the charge in the field is very short. Sometimes it scared me when it would shut down for no reason.

However, so far so good with it storing the files from my trip. I would have rated it higher but the shoddy battery compartment was just plain poor design.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

We are going on two Safaris in Africa and will not be taking a computer with us. We wanted something to back up photos easily and the "Photo Safe II" is just the thing! We've tried it out at home with two different events and it has worked perfectly. Can't wait to go!

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

Just purchased this product, but have already used it will doing a photo shoot. Seemed to work fairly fast and fit nicely into my shootsac. For the price, I think it's a good product!!

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

This portable photo-storage unit is great when you're on a long trip and take lots of photos in RAW format. It's the only way to go.[...]

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

It would be better if you could preview your pictures, but with a price like this it's totally worth it.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

Perfect for on the road shooting

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

This device just deleted of its own accord my entire digital collection of Himalayan photos before I could transfer them to another storage medium - it deleted them of its own accord - one day they were all there, the next day when I looked, they had gone - pouf!I had some problems from time to time with its reliability while I was trekking in Nepal, but this really takes the biscuit. Avoid relying on it at all costs!

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

This is a very useful tool for uploading your used memory cards. It is kind of slow, I think it took about 20-25 minutes to unload an 8GB card.

I have owned previous versions of this hard drive when it was owned by different companies. I had one hard drive fail on me but that's because I dropped it into the water, so the end result was to be expected. If you keep it dry it's a very reliable piece of equipment.

Thee best thing about it is the price it is one of the least expensive self contained hard drives that I have found. At this price you could buy a second one for backup.

Get an extra battery if you won't be close to a source of power since they don't last very long.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

Easy way to have security with your photos.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

It took me only a few minutes to learn and use this device. It has already given me peace of mind that my photo's will not be lost.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

I bought this product under the Data Bank label. This product works VERY POORLY. You have to hold the buttons down a very long time for it to register anything. It copies poorly, then when connected to a computer after you get home, it will not read all the folders. It locked up two powerful computers. You cannot view the images on this device, so you never know whether the images ever get copied until you get home to connect to a computer. When I did, it would not read all the folders created with the copying I did in the field. This is worthless. Spend your money on something of value.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

This product is great for the price. Easy to use and not too expensive. downsides are it is really slow, and there is no viewer, but other than that for what you pay it is really great.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

I used the product during a recent trip to Brazil to back up photos I had taken during the trip. The device was very self explanatory and easy to use, but I did experience a couple of error messages while trying to save on a couple of different occasions. I also had some difficulty in connecting with my Macintosh, but a little patience paid off and I was able to safely transfer almost 20 GB worth of photos from the trip. However, it did not want to eject properly, although I'm not sure if that's an issue with the computer or the device.

Overall, it worked very well and I'm pleased with the purchase.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

I bought this device about two months before I went on a trip to photograph Arches National Park in Moab, UT. All of the photos I took comprised segments of large panoramics to be sold to some local clients. Yes; I tested the device thoroughly (or so I thought) by taking numerous practice photos and then transferring them to the Photo Safe II...later retrieving them by copying to my PC. I used three different CF cards from different manufactures in 16 & 32 Gb capacity. All seemed to work fine.

Fast forward: I'm back from Moab after taking 125 GB of photos (6,000+ images). Anxious to process and review my panoramics I started off-loading my photos from the Photo Safe II to my computer. All is well for about 10 minutes when my computer freezes up. I try again and again, only to find that there are numerous corrupted files (photos) on the Photo Safe II that won't download. I re-boot my computer into Safe Mode but again the copy process hangs up; I then go to good old DOS and start working with XCOPY commands but again, no luck. I tried this on two other computers only to come to the same results. There were in fact corrupted files on the Photo Safe II that just wouldn't copy over. In fact it turns out that close to 25% of my photos are lost forever. The loss of files would have been more like 40% except for the fact that I hadn't erased a lot of the photos from my CF cards and so I was able to get them off through my SanDisk card reader. POINT: The CF cards didn't fail…the Photo Safe II did.

Tech Support offered some good recommendations but I had already tried most of these as I have 25 years of working with computers. I tried four different data recovery programs and none of them helped either.

The Bottom Line: When you can't see photos on a photo viewer such as this, after you have off-loaded them from a memory card, you blindly trust someone else's technology. I have an Epson Viewer that I can literally review the photos on afterwards on an LCD screen. (I didn't use it because it only has 20 GB of capacity.) I am hoping to get a refund for this but it won't even come close to covering my costs and the lost revenues from my clients. The trip was mostly one big costly mistake and YES, SHAME ON ME!

Don't buy this device if you value the photos you are trusting to it!

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

I use the Photo Safe II when I'm traveling and need to save photo files from my Compact Flash and Secure Digital cards. This handy device eliminates the need to carry a lot of memory cards on a trip. What's great about the Safe is its storage capability and the organization of the data into individual labeled folders. Also great is that it works with most photo cards, SD, CF, etc. What's not so great, however, is that it is slow, both in loading data and in downloading to the computer.

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

I travel a lot around the country and can't always have my laptop with me, the unit is small and compact enough to keep in my camera bag, the down side is that is takes a bit long to download your cards and there is no way to check the file names on the unit it self, just need to trust it. As for the battery life is also not that brilliant.

The only thing for me now i have to start trusting it, a bit difficult.

One more advantage it has, it doubles as a card reader as well at the same time you can access the hard drive. It charges on with the USB port and a separate charger come with, the only problem with the charger it is a US plug and need a adapter for South Africa. but that is our problem ;-)

Comments about Digital Foci Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data Storage Unit:

This is my first and last purchase at bh photo. Im not sure if its their fault or Digital Foci's fault, but all I have to say is, that when I recieved the box I had a feeling it was tampered with. Opened it and found everything intact. Now when the time came to charge the Digital Foci, The charger wouldnt fit since its the wrong charger.This was very agitating!Instead of wasting time trying to get a new unit, I knew it wasnt worth it since there was no inspection done before sending me the unit.[...]