Customer Reviews

Sas 2.5 Hard Disk Enclosure With 9-In-1 Card Reader Writer Ide Usb2.0

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Any review regarding this product must be split into 2 parts, getting it to work (setup) and how functional it is once it starts to work. With respect to set up, you need to be able to install the laptop drive into the device. This is not difficult. One important point, one that is not in the instructions however, is that the maximum hard disk capacity this device can handle is 160 gb. The operating instructions do not make a point of this important fact anywhere. This is nice, however, as competing devices in same price ranges (i.e., Digi Foci Phot safe) do not offer anywhere close to 160 gb in storage space. Once hard disk installed you then need to create 2 partitions, a small (32 GB or smaller) and a larger. The small one must be formated as a FAT32 and the larger can be anything. Unless you have a partitioning program like Norton's this is not easy to do. No where on instructions, box or company's website is it mentioned this is needed.

Once you get past the setup stage, the machine works quite well. It's speed is about average for such a device. The operating interface is useable though it can be better (more intuitive). The device can also be used as an external hard disk for computers, an added plus.

The device is small and relatively portable (smaller than competing devices like Digital Foci Photo Safe 80GB Digital Picture Storage Device). It is built a little better too (aluminum as opposed to plastic).

Installing a new hard disk in the field (after it has been properly pre-formatted, of course) is not very easy. The main reason is the screws that need to be removed are microscopic and hence difficult to remove and easy to lose. This is a shame because that is the big advantage this product has over photo storage devices whose hard disk you cannot replace (i.e., Epson P-3000, Digital Foci Photo Safe 80GB).

If you desire to avoid all the hassle in setting up it is recommended you go with a machine not requiring all the set-up hassle (i.e., Digi Foci photo safe or one of Epson's photo storage devices). However, for the GB per $ cost this is probably the best machine you can get for digital photo storage on the market today (as of April 2008).


Update (14 months after purchase and use):

After having this thing one year and having used it lightly, the battery seems to have worn down quite a bit. The battery can now barely download 2 gigs of data off of two SD cards before running out of power (and more likely running out of power before it can even do this). This is despite the fact that the battery has not been recharged more than about 15 times. The battery should not have deteriorated so much after this many recharges. Another observation is that the battery itself is quite small and smaller than those of other storage devices (i.e., Epson P-3000). The short life span of this battery forces a revised rating of two stars as opposed to four.

I am very happy with this product. I found it very easy to set up. The instructions were complete and easy to follow although I have installed hard drives in enclosures before so I did most of the installation without looking at the instructions. You do need to make sure and follow the instructions if your drive is greater than 30GB. If your drive is 30GB or less, installation is simple.
I looked at a number of enclosures before I bought this one but this was the best for the money. It compares favoribly with enclusures costing twice as much. The display shows all the information you need. It shows the files moving over so you know it's working and shows the space remaining so you know the files from your card transferred over.

There's a reason you've probably never heard of SansDigital ... but for me this product is a huge disappointment. Everything you've read in the other reviews is basically correct, it copies your memory cards onto a hard drive that you supply and install, could be tricky for non-technical types. Only allows you a 30Gb target partition for your pictures, which is probably adequate. All sounds good, but here is my problem.
The unit I have just randomly shuts off... AC powered, battery or USB connected.. doesn't matter, just shuts off, no warning. Sometimes in the middle of a copy - bang, shuts off. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!
If you really need a portable backup to use in the field, don't waste your time and money, buy a better unit!!

This unit basically works as others have said, a bit tricky to set up as you have to partition the drive up into individual 30GIG drives, (I partitioned my 80 GIG drive into 3, 25GIG drives, if you do it this way once the first drive is full the unit will start to off load to the next drive when the first fills up. If you only make one partition less than 30, and let the second partition go over 30 then the unit will only function to fill the first drive.)

suggestion: use a slower spin rate hard drive 3300, or 5500 instead of 7500, the USB communication within the device wont benefit from the faster drive, and the slower drive will consume less power extending battery life. A solid state hard drive would be ever better.. but if you've got one of those laying around you've probably got the cash to buy a better photo bank than this =)

Any way, now the fatal flaw that others have hinted at. The battery in this unit is small, combine this with the slow card reader in it, and what you get is a portable photo bank that can only off load about 4-6Gigs on a single charge/outing. This means forget that you've got multiple 30Gig partitions.. you'll only ever use 4-5 Gig each day, before you need to recharge the battery, which recharging through the USB... is abysmally slow, especially if your also running the drive to view/sort images.

However... for small one day outings where your not going to shoot a lot but where you really should have a back up, I find this unit works great.. I just wouldn't trust it on long multi day outings, or outings where you know you'll be a bit trigger happy.

I have successfully used this unit on longer car trips, buy having a USB cigarette lighter power tap/converter so that I would not have to worry about battery life. But to use it in this way you need to stay close to your car.

Final note, I have never lost a file to this unit, I have had the battery die out before a chip was done transferring. And if your not paying attention you might not notice that it did not finish... so be watchful of battery life, and if your getting close to when it will probably die keep an eye on the transfer progress. But this is a fault for all of them, not just this unit.

I had this thing for about a year now. Bought it to empty the SD cards of my chase camera while riding a motorcycle. The camera produces about 2GB of video in a little over one hour, so a weekend trip can easily add up to more than 20GB of raw footage.

This works, even after the display one day went blank (it still illuminates, but doesn't display anything any more). It is strictly necessary however to have a 5V car charger and to have an outlet on the bike. I am using 2GB Ultra-II cards, that can be read in a laptop in under 10 minutes ... the slow reader in the Sans Digital needs about 40 minutes for it. Since it also keeps the display backlight on all the time, the battery lasts for about 3 cards.

The setup problems reported by the previous reviewer are only partially the fault of Sans Digital. Beginning with Windows2000, Microsoft decided to phase out the FAT file system and arbitrarily limited the size, the Windows formatting utility can create. Third party utilities can format larger disks as FAT32 just fine. I would not recommend that though, because the Sans Digital storage has a firmware bug that may leave you stranded with a non-functional device until you get to a computer and can access it via USB again. The problem is that if the drive has been written to via USB, then the Sans Digital does some sort of filesystem scan on startup. If at this time the data on the drive is more than 20GB, the auto power off happens before you ever get a chance to press the copy button! I reported this problem to their customer service and even got one semi-technical reply from their development department ... but they never bothered fixing it.

Although it works more or less as advertised, I gave it a low rating. Giving a battery powered device a card reader that slow is a bad and cheap design. That does not deserve more than 3 stars. Bad or next to no customer support subtracts another.