I recently purchased a little device called the NextoDI, on recommendation of my good friend Monica Dart. She introduced me to this hard drive/backup system, when she came to visit me one day. She pulled it out of her handbag and with wide eyes, she told me that this was the best thing ever! I took up her recommendation and purchased one. And I have to add, it is really awesome!

The device is basically a hard drive, with a few different card slots where you can download photos straight from the cards. The hard drive is really fast and NextoDI claim they are in fact the fastest mobile storage out there. This device travels with me on every shoot and when I sit down at the reception I quickly backup all my cards. This way I can ensure that I don’t lose any photos.

When you shoot with a second shooter, you can immediately download their photos at the shoot and you don’t have to wait to receive the disk from them.

Favourite feature:

The NextoDI tells you when a card has previously been downloaded, this ensures that I don’t download the same card twice.

Time saver:

When I return home, I just plug in the hard drive and download all the photos to my working hard drives. Much faster than downloading from the cards one by one!

Comparison:

I had a Viewsonic hard drive before, but it was very slow. The plus side was that it had a screen where you could preview the photos, but in my opinion, this is not needed. The screen eats up all the battery anyway. The purpose for the hard drive is to download and have an immediate backup. Not to view the photos.

Where to buy it:

I purchased my NextoDI from B&H photo video. (They ship internationally) Unfortunately I haven’t found a local supplier of this product.

Price:

230 US$ to 400 US$ depending on the size of the hard drive.

I strongly suggest that all photographers invest in one of these. Remember, losing your digital files is your greatest risk as a photographer. It’s crucial to invest in a good backup system.