Sony HDPS-M10

Update
I recently got back from a holiday in Sri Lanka which was my first opportunity to use the HDPS-M10 "in the field". I'm happy to report that it worked flawlessly and I encountered no problems whatsoever. I shot 830 photos (4.8 GB!) and the HDPS-M10 was able to copy them from the CF card to itself, and then from itself to my Vaio without a single hiccup. You can see some of the photos I took here.

What is a Sony HDPS-M10?

In a nutshell, it's a 40GB portable hard disk with Compact Flash and Memorystick media slots that connects to your PC via a USB cable. I'd been needing some extra portable storage for a while because it's amazing how quickly you can take a few gigabytes worth of digital photographs - the last time I went on holiday I came back with approximately 350 photographs on 1.25GB of compact flash cards and I found myself having to delete photographs to make room for new ones before I left. My wife bought my HDPS for me while she was in Japan. Sony sells this device around the world and, AFAIK, the only difference between the regional models is the default language in use when you switch the device on for the first time. The disc comes with Sony's Photo Diary software ready to install, PDF manuals in various languages and a patch for Windows 2000 to cure some small problem with unmounting the device. You can download the English language manual here. The HDPS-M10 is very much a "bare bones" storage solution. If you need something with all the bells and whistles like the ability to view photographs, you may want to look at an alternative solution.

Pros

• The HDPS-M10 is USB 2 Hi-Speed and Full-Speed compatible so transfers to and from the device are plenty quick.
• The Memorystick slot is useful to me because I have a Clié UX50.
• The HDPS-M10 works with Linux straight out of the box
• Operation of the unit is very straight forward - you just press the Copy button most of the time.
• The HDPS is relatively cheap compared to similar devices with an equivalent storage capacity,

Cons

On its own, there's no way to see what's stored on the disc - the only indication you get is how much of the disc has been used and how much is free. So, when you transfer data from a card to the disc, you cannot verify that the transfer was really successful without connecting the HDPS to a PC. You always need a PC handy to see what's actually stored on the disc. I have no idea what goes on inside the unit when data is copied from a card to the disc - maybe the copying is verified once complete but there's no indication of this in the manual. The unit will display some error messages in the event of a problem, but nothing in the manual indicates that you'll get an error if, say, the MD5 hash of the two files don't match. You'll probably want to verify that all the data has been copied to the disc correctly before you format the card the data came from.

Does it work under Linux?

Yes, it does. On this machine running SuSE 9.1, the drive and card readers are automatically mounted as follows:

However, if you insert a Memorystick or Compact Flash card while the HDPS is switched on, they aren't automatically mounted for you and you'll need to turn the device off and on again before you can access the card.

And, for the curious, here's a tail of /var/log/messages for when the HDPS is plugged in with both card slots empty:

kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 3
kernel: usb 1-1: Product: USB 2.0 Card Reader
kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: VIA Technologies Inc.
kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: SONYXXXXXXXX
kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
/etc/hotplug/usb.agent[11081]: need a device for this command
kernel:   Vendor: HTS42404  Model: 0M9AT00           Rev: MA2O
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: SCSI device sdb: 78140159 512-byte hdwr sectors (40008 MB)
kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel:  sdb: sdb1
kernel: Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
kernel:   Vendor: SONY      Model: IPS-MS            Rev: 2.10
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sdc at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg2 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 1,  type 0
kernel:   Vendor: SONY      Model: IPS-CF            Rev: 2.10
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sdd at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 2
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg3 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 2,  type 0
kernel: USB Mass Storage device found at 3
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11153]: new block device /block/sdb
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11163]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11153 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11299]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11153 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11426]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11153 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11163]: new block device /block/sdb/sdb1
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11299]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11163 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11426]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11163 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11163]: mount by-path/usb-storage-SONY00004983:0:0:0p1
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11426]: new block device /block/sdd
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11299]: waiting for /var/lock/block.agent.lock, process 11426 holds it
/etc/hotplug/block.agent[11299]: new block device /block/sdc

Update
I've upgraded my PC to SuSE 10 and the mountpoints are now even more convenient:

Here's what /var/log/messages has to say (I've broken some of the lines to stop them screwing up the page layout)..

kernel: usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
kernel: usb-storage: device found at 6
kernel: usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
kernel:   Vendor: HTS42404  Model: 0M9AT00           Rev: MA2O
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: SCSI device sda: 78140159 512-byte hdwr sectors (40008 MB)
kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel: SCSI device sda: 78140159 512-byte hdwr sectors (40008 MB)
kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel:  sda: sda1
kernel: Attached scsi disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
kernel:   Vendor: SONY      Model: IPS-MS            Rev: 2.10
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: SCSI device sdb: 466944 512-byte hdwr sectors (239 MB)
kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdb: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel: SCSI device sdb: 466944 512-byte hdwr sectors (239 MB)
kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdb: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel:  sdb: sdb1
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 1,  type 0
kernel:   Vendor: SONY      Model: IPS-CF            Rev: 2.10
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: SCSI device sdc: 1000944 512-byte hdwr sectors (512 MB)
kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdc: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 78140096
kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 78140096
kernel: SCSI device sdc: 1000944 512-byte hdwr sectors (512 MB)
kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdc: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel:  sdc: sdc1
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sdc at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 2
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg2 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 2,  type 0
kernel: usb-storage: device scan complete
hal-subfs-mount[7448]: SYMLINKS:: disk/by-id/usb-SONY_IPS-MS_SONY00004983 \
                      disk/by-path/usb-SONY00004983:0:0:1
hal-subfs-mount[7448]: MOUNT_POINT:: /media/TWO
hal-subfs-mount[7448]: MOUNTPOINT:: /media/TWO
hal-subfs-mount[7448]: Collected mount options and Called(0) /bin/mount -t \
                       subfs -o fs=floppyfss,sync,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,utf8=true /dev/sdb1 "/media/TWO"
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
hal-subfs-mount[7461]: SYMLINKS:: disk/by-id/usb-SONY_IPS-CF_SONY00004983 disk/by-path/usb-SONY00004983:0:0:2
hal-subfs-mount[7461]: MOUNT_POINT:: /media/NIKON_D70
hal-subfs-mount[7461]: MOUNTPOINT:: /media/NIKON_D70
hal-subfs-mount[7461]: Collected mount options and Called(0) /bin/mount -t \
                       subfs -o fs=floppyfss,sync,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,utf8=true /dev/sdc1 "/media/NIKON_D70"
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 78140096
kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 78140096
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
hal-subfs-mount[7480]: SYMLINKS:: disk/by-id/usb-HTS42404_0M9AT00_SONY00004983 disk/by-path/usb-SONY00004983:0:0:0
hal-subfs-mount[7480]: MOUNT_POINT:: /media/usbdisk
hal-subfs-mount[7480]: MOUNTPOINT:: /media/usbdisk
hal-subfs-mount[7480]: Collected mount options and Called(0) /bin/mount -t \
                       subfs -o fs=floppyfss,sync,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,utf8=true /dev/sda1 "/media/usbdisk"
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'mount'
udevd[2194]: get_netlink_msg: no ACTION in payload found, skip event 'umount'