Digital Foci launches Photo Safe II external HDD

Digital Foci on Thursday launched its Photo Safe II storage drive designed to allow users to transfer photos from their digital camera media and keep shooting while away on vacation. Available in either 80GB or 160GB capacities, the external hard drive features a built-in memory card reader that supports most the memory card formats commonly used for digital cameras.

Compared to the original Photo Safe drive, its successor is smaller and adds support for MS Duo and miniSD cards. The card slot itself is protected from the elements with a rubber cover, and a new battery slot makes installing or removing the rechargeable lithium ion battery easier. The backlit LED screen displays battery life, hard drive space, the partition being accessed, and copy status.

Memory card content is copied to the portable drive at speeds of up to 5MBps with the Auto Copy button. The cards can then be cleared while in the Photo Safe II drive, or formatted in the camera before they can be used again. All file formats are kept in their original structure, including RAW images and videos, and each copy session is stored in a sequentially-numbered folder.

The drive also allows users to copy Memory Stick, MS Duo, MS Pro Duo, SD/HC, MMC or xD Picture card content onto CF cards. Transferring contents from Photo Safe II to either PCs or Macs is done via the included USB cable and a computer with a USB (2.0) connection.

Photo Safe II is now available, with the 80GB model priced at $140 and the 160GB priced at $190.