NEXTO NVS2500

The NEXTO NVS2500 is the swiss army knife of photo/video data backup while on location. It supports the following solid state media formats:

• SDHC/MMC/MS
• CF/MD
• SXS
• P2 (With included card adapter)

The interface is simple. Pop a card in, turn it on, and it will ask you if you want to copy the media. It also gives you the option to verify data, as well as a safe mode that will scan for bad sectors and only copy data to good sectors, at the expense of speed. Once your data has been copied successfully, it will inform you it's now okay to remove the media. For those working out in the field, where time is money, you'll appreciate the very straightforward interface.

Now, for some, data backup is not complete without a visual inspection to make sure there is in fact video files that will play flawlessly when they get back to the edit suite. NEXTO has attempted to do this with a preview option that gives you a small video window that will play back your clips. This works, but to be honest it's not fully implemented yet with all codecs. Keep checking in on NEXTO's website for updated support. They are continuously adding features and support for various formats.

You may be wondering what kind of hard drive support it offers. At the moment, it will support:

• SATA 320 & 500 GB drives
• SSD 128 GB Drives

My guess is more will be supported in the future. A 500GB SSD drive would be amazing. Warning, opinion on the way: SSD prices are still way too high, and capacity is still way too low. Let's go guys. Get those things out there in volume and let's start getting them into cool devices like the NVS2500.

Speaking of drives, there is a drive management section where you can:

• Get info on how much data is on the drive
• Do a self test to make sure everything is working okay
• Delete temporary files that are stored when a backup fails
• Format the Hard Drive

You're thinking to yourself, okay this is great and all but data doesn't exist unless it's in two places, so I probably need to have two of these in the field or I need a computer to transfer from the 2500 to a backup drive. Not necessarily. All you really need is a USB drive. The 2500 will sync to the USB drive, only copying files that have not been previously backed up. Brilliant! You can even copy concurrently to both devices if you so choose to do so. Even more brilliant!

Does it work with RED CF Cards? Absolutely. And does a very good job in my experience with it. In particular, it seems to have no issues with RED 16GB cards which are optimized to keep up with data rates of the RED. So far, every frame has come over just fine. Have not run into heat issues causing corrupt frames, something that has happened with other CF card readers.

You can attach the NVS2500 to a computer via:

• FW400
• esata
• USB

The unit has an internal battery that can be charged via a 6.25v charger. You can also power it via a cigarette power adapter, a AA battery component, or via your computer's bus power (esata needs USB power or AC adapter)

The flexibility combined with the simplicity make this a solid choice for media backup in the field, whether you are a photographer or a videographer. With an SSD drive in it, you could practically attach it to your belt and be backing up data as you continue to shoot more. I've been very impressed with this tool and think it's worth the price, especially if you do video where it's not uncommon to have various formats used on a shoot.

For more details visit NEXTODI

To purchase, check out the fine folks at International Supplies