As I prepare for a trip to the tropical Caribbean, new thoughts run through my head regarding my digital images. If my laptop fails while I am away, how am I going to store my digital images? Although the possibility is remote, we all know that it usually will happen when we don't want it to.

For peace of mind, I started researching portable digital storage devices (digital wallets). The more I researched, the more confused I became. I wanted a unit that would accept images from my compact flash card and transfer them reasonably fast. I wanted good battery life for later trips where I did not have access to a power supply and I wanted a unit that would transfer files quickly to my laptop or desktop computer. My laptop has USB 1.1 ports and one firewire port. USB 1.1 is a very slow system. Firewire would be ideal but there are very few portable devices that utilize firewire. After much thought, I settled on the Image Tank G2 made by Jobo. The G2 that I purchased has a 40gb hard drive and uses USB2 for transfer to a computer. I purchased the G2 from My Digital Discount for $289.99. Another selling point for the G2 is the iPower Series 826 rechargeable battery that will be available soon. This will allow for longer usage of the G2 in the field.

My home computer has USB2 ports but my laptop does not. So, I went looking for a USB2 card for my laptop. One thing that I found out is that many of the cards require an external power supply to operate. One was advertised not to require the power supply. The unit is made by Adaptec and is called the USB2Connect for Notebooks . I purchased the card from Computers4Sure for $57.95 USD. The list of accessories continues to grow.

Last night, I was working in IMatch on my desktop computer, labeling photos that had converted from raw format to tiff files. I have two 40gb hard drives in the desktop and one 100gb hard disk for video editing. One 40gb drive has my operating system and all my files. The other holds the daily backup that I make of the primary drive. The daily backup is made with DriveCopy 2002 . I use this program because I can set it  to backup at night while I sleep. I have been very happy with it.

The newest dilemma is that my primary hard drive is running out of space. I have 4gb left. When you realize that each raw file is 9mb and each tiff file is 17mb, it means that each file (I save the raw files) takes up 25mb of space. I will eventually move files to a DVD disk but for now I need reliable storage with a backup plan. First, I have to solve my storage space problem. I believe that my course of action will be as follows: I purchased a Maxtor 160gb external drive (firewire and USB2 interface) (around $229.00 after rebate at Computers4Sure), move all my image files to my 120gb internal hard drive and set my backup software to backup the files each night to the external Maxtor drive. I will also use the Maxtor for my video editing.

I needed a method of backing up my files from my computer's internal hard drive to the external Maxtor. I am not a big fan of most backup software because it saves all the files to a single file that only the backup software can read. When I have used backup software in the past and had to restore from the backup, it never seemed to go well. I did a search in Google and found a program named Replicator at karenware.com . Karen has written a great program that will copy files from one drive to another, even over a network. You can schedule the program to copy only changed files or newer files and delete files from the destination drive that are no longer on the source drive. You can also schedule the program to run at predetermined times.  You can synch a desktop and a notebook computer by having the program run in both directions. To really understand the program, visit Karen's site and check it out yourself. Best of all, Replicator is free.

My purpose for these pages is to enlighten new digital photographers as to the twists and turns of the underwater and topside digital photography road. I hope that my experiences will make your trip easier. Stay tuned. In my next installment, I am going to talk about Nikon's Raw Editor, Nikon Edit.