USB on the go
17 May 2005


There’s a handy gadget I should tell digital photography enthusiasts about. It’s called “USB on the go”, and I found mine for £30 in my local Maplin store. The box is minimal, features two USB-A sockets, a toggle switch, and a “Go” button. The premise is simple, you plug a digital camera (acting as a memory device) into one side, and a USB portable hard drive (also acting as a memory device) into the other. You then press the button and it copies the entire contents of the camera onto the hard drive. Each copy goes into a differently named folder so you don’t lose information, but you do have to merge the contents manually.

If both devices show up on your Windows PC with their own drive letter, or your Linux box mounts them normally as sda, then this box should work fine. However, if you need to determine whether your devices are compatible then only buy from places that offer no quibble returns… technology is a fickle beast, and any incompatibilities can originate from anywhere.

Since I was sceptical about the device, and the solidity of my hard drive, I adopted the following working principle.

 

The box will copy either the entire source contents (“disk” mode), or just the “copybox” folder from the root directory (“folder” mode). The destination data is placed into folders called Copy001, Copy002, and so on. The directory structure and filenames are maintained during the copy. I adopted the folder mode, and I recommend that for most applications, since HD space is so cheap.

On a recent real-world test I used my Nikon 5700 in combination with a Lacie USB external hard drive. In theory I could have taken 114,000 pictures, but limited myself to 1200. They were taken over two weeks, and dumped to hard drive in several batches. It worked flawlessly. Although when the “USB on the go” batteries run low its lights flash in an undocumented fashion. In this case, just reload batteries and re-copy, and everything should be already.

Note that each device must have its own power source, as the three AAA batteries in the box are only powerful enough to flash the LED on the box itself and last for around 4 hours. My camera, a Nikon 5700, (along with many others) creates a unique name for every picture taken. This remains true even when pictures have been deleted. So even if you have several numbered CopyNNN copy folders on your hard drive you can collate them all by moving each directory into a common folder, since any duplicate filename will truly be a duplicate file.

p.s. I have no affiliation to any of the companies mentioned in this entry.