Stackable Magnetic Memory Card Readers from ProGrade Digital!

Last year I had a chat with the CEO of a new memory card company called ProGrade Digital after I purchased some of their cards. I liked what he had to say so much that I swapped all my cards for ProGrade Digital cards on my own dime. Recently I have been testing out their new memory card readers and the new Dual-Slot SD Workflow Reader has become my default. I keep it almost permanently stuck to my computer. Yes, I did say STUCK. What gives? In the box of every reader is a small metal strip which you can …

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Wow! Coolest Way to Store Photos?!

I had to post a couple of photos of this! The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. I actually wrote about it a while back when it was first announced, but I just got my hands on one today and it was even smaller than I though it would be! It comes in 256GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB variations at the moment, and the smallest of those sizes is under $100 which is pretty amazing for an SSD. Now that these drives can use mSATA drives in them, they have taken a real fall in price in the last year. SSDs like …

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How to Speed Up Your Drobo

The vast majority of my data lives on a variety of Drobos. I currently have a Thunderbolt 3 enabled Drobo 5D3 as my primary storage device, stacked with 32TB of drives, and I also have the same set of data mirrored onto a Drobo 5N2 which I can access remotely from anywhere in the world. A further Drobo 5D is held offsite too.  In chatting with one of Drobo’s technical gurus recently I learnt something that I didn’t know. Whilst a Drobo can protect your data as long as it has at least two drives in it, the data read and …

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Gear Check: Drobo 5D3

Drobo recently announced a new Thunderbolt 3 enabled storage unit called the 5D3. As it happened, it came out right as I was contemplating a new storage setup due to increasing needs so I ordered one right away from B&H Photo. If you want to read more about my entire photo backup strategy, I recently wrote an update to my guide over on Shutter Muse, but here on this blog I just wanted to give you guys a quick heads up about this new product. I’ve been using Drobos for longer than I can remember, but they really started coming …

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Automated Cloud Backup – I’m Testing CrashPlan For Photographers

I’m forever tweaking my backup routine to suit my evolving business, and refine my workflow. For a long time I have ignored cloud backup services like BackBlaze and CrashPlan because I wasn’t sure if my glacial Canadian upload speeds would work well for something like that. CrashPlan For Photographers Recently I was having a re-think about this though, and since I’ve received so many questions about these kinds of services in the past, I decided to give it a try. Given that a year’s subscription to CrashPlan for unlimited uploads is only $59.99, it’s not the end of the world …

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Backup Routine Revisited

I’ve just had another drive failure here in the office and this always causes me to stop and think about my backup routine.  I haven’t lost any data in the incident but I like reviewing things every now and again and reminding you guys how important this stuff is.   The drive that failed was my primary boot drive for my 27″ iMac.  In fact it was a $600 SSD which in theory should last much longer than a regular spinning disk drive.  In reality it lasted less than a year before catastrophic instantaneous failure.  Never trust a drive.  SSD …

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CalDigit AV Pro Review – Hot Swapable Single Drive Bay With USB3

Ok guys listen up, today we’re going to be talking hard drives.  Now I can already hear the collective groan from the bleachers but bare with me on this one because someone out there is finally doing something innovative in this space and whether we like it or not, as media professionals we come into contact with hard drives on a daily basis.  Our livelihoods are often in their hands so whilst it isn’t as glamorous as a new lens or shiny camera it is a necessity and anyone that simply rolls into their local Best Buy and picks up …

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Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt / USB3 Drive Review

On a recent trip to Europe I underestimated the amount of drive space I would need to take with me.  I was forced to go to the nearest computer store and purchase another drive.  If I was going to have to do this I wanted to make sure that I picked up something that would at least be useful in the long term.  I use a Macbook Air when I travel and I hadn’t yet purchased any Thunderbolt drives to go with it.  At the time of writing (June 2012) Thunderbolt drives are still few and far between and those …

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Sonnet Echo Expresscard Thunderbolt Adapter Review

I’m sure by now that you are aware of the Thunderbolt standard and how it has a theoretical throughput that is much faster than Firewire 800, USB 2 or 3 and eSATA.  Like many people I excitedly bought one of the newer Macbooks last year when they first featured Thunderbolt ports but sadly Thunderbolt accessories have been relatively thin on the ground.  Some blame high licensing fees imposed by Apple and Intel whilst some blame technical difficulties and incompatibilities with the implementation of the technology.  I’ve had my Macbook Air for nearly a year now and until the Sonnet Echo …

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Should you be running a UPS in your studio or office?

Today I installed a UPS in my office for the first time.  UPS stands for uninterpretable power supply and essentially it acts as a battery backup for your computer (or other electronics) should there be a power outage.  It had honestly never occurred to me that this is something you should think about, until something went very very wrong.  More on that in a bit…. but when I came to do a little research on the most popular UPS’ I was surprised as to how reasonably price they were. Why would you want to have one of these then ?  …

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