I have about 2 or 3 compact flash cards which I use when I’m out and about on a shoot. Rather than having bucketfuls of cards I prefer to save my shots straight from the cards onto a portable hard drive. For the last 3 years I’ve been using a 40GB Vosonic XS-Drive, which is a small battery-operated device with slots for several different memory card formats. You slot in the card, press the transfer button & it saves your shots onto the hard drive. When I get home I transfer them across onto the PC.

When I upgraded the PC I also changed to Vista (bloody awful experience but that’s another story. One of the things which didn’t work ever again with the Vista PC was the XS-Drive. So I had to transfer my shots onto the kids’ PC, then save them out onto either DVDs or USB memory sticks & then out onto my PC.

This was a complete pain so, to be honest, when the XS-Drive died recently, I wasn’t too annoyed.

I researched around for a new device but decided I’d prefer to have a viewing capability so needed one with a screen. The Epson ones look pretty good but at around £400 are a bit out of my price range. In the end I settled for the Vosonic VP 5500. I got mine from WarehouseExpress delivered the next day. They were out of stock on the 160GB so I got a 120GB version.

They have a great little 3.5inch TFT screen. They come with a replaceable SATA hard drive, so they can be upgraded with a bigger drive. They do eat the battery if viewing a lot of photos but at about £6 via eBay you can get spare Fuji batteries for them, so I have a spare which I charge up & take with me; they just slot in via a tab at the bottom, no screwdriver required.

They view many RAW files direct so you can view your shots straight away. With the small LCD screen of the 20D, this is an ideal alternative to viewing your shots in the field.

I’ve only used it a couple of times but am already finding it a really useful addition to the kit setup.