Replacing HD on p2store

Justyn

Justyn

Veteran
With the new 16 gig cards on order, is there any speculation on whether or not it'll be possible to place a new harddrive into the P2store by Panasonic or DIY kind of a way. I think being able to put in a 250 gig drive would be amazing for possibly several days of shooting out in the middle of nowhere but having batteries upon batteries and a 250gig p2store.


i'm just speculating. I did recall some rumor back in the Day...
 
The problem that I see is that the P2 Store is limited to 15 partitions regardless of the hard drive capacity and P2 card size being offloaded onto it.

It may well be possible to replace the drive with something larger, but the approach being taken by it is just wrong. The P2 Gear uses named folders, so it is much more flexible. Not to mention that just plug in an empty external drive when you run out of space...
 
It actually isn't that much.

If you stick a 250GB laptop hard drive in the P2 Store, even if the firmware recognizes it and formats it to the full capacity, you can only use 24% of the capacity with 4GB cards, 48% with 8GB cards, and 96% with 16GB cards.

Obviously 96% would be great, but this assumes that every partition is full. If you offload a card that isn't full, the space is lost to the fixed partition size. With the P2 Gear and named folders instead of partitions, offloading takes only as much space as the material on the card requires, so it has the potential to be much more efficient.
 
So if I am understanding this correctly (and I *think* I am), a 250 gig HD, properly engineered, could allow for 15 cards worth (without regard to card size or "fullness" of the card) because of the partition limit? I'm supposing, given my P2Store experience, that the only time one might backup a less than full card might be the last one/end of the day.

I have brought up this subject a number of times and always gotten the "it ain't going to happen" or "why would you want that with the new bigger cards?"

I think that, looking ahead to (possibly) December, somebody ought to get to work on this...and probably with a 500 gig HD if that's even possible (32 gigs are coming). Why? Well, for the same reason the P2Store made sense in the first place . . . it's still going to be a lot cheaper than buying 15 cards.

I think the first one to crack this issue will (and rightfully should) be able to make a few bucks for their efforts. IMHO a PC-less (or Mac-less), through it in your bag and go device like the P2Store is a no-brainer.

The nice thing is, that's it's a modification . . . not a lot of money to put into R&D. If Panasonic could figure out how to make 15 4gig partitions on a 60gig drive someone else should be able to make 15 8's, 16's, 32's or whatever on a larger one. Yeah it's technical but not rocket science.

I am literally blown away that Spec-Comm, having put so much time, effort, and money into the Cine-Porter isn't on this with both feet?
 
Spec-Comm isn't going to modify the P2 Store because that would require them to decompile and then modify the P2 Store firmware, and that's a legal non-no. I also don't think Panasonic is going to develop the P2 Store any further.

The 250GB drive size I used is based on the fact this is the highest capacity commercially available laptop drive available, like the Seagate Momentus series. Drives will no doubt get bigger, but this would represent a full day of shooting for almost anyone. I'd rather see a P2 Store-like device with RAID1 support and easily replaceable drives than a single drive with > 250GB capacity.
 
I recently went to a Panasonic P2 Expo and not only will they not be modifying the P2 store but they won't be releasing a new version either. They feel with the Host mode offered and the other options available to aquire data, there would be no market for it.

I peronally disagree. All it needs is a LCD, a reader, and a bigger drive. If they made one like that I would be first in line to by one, 15 partitions or no. If you fill all 15 partitions with 64 GB cards ( releasing next year ), that is 960MB or 40 hours of footage (720p 24pN), that would have to be a terabyte drive though. Couple that with the abillity to power it with the same batteries in the cammera and being able to dump and varify without an external hardrive or a laptop.

Basically combine the P2 Gear which is unimpressive (the LCD is still SD) and the store with a bigger drive and BINGO. Well, I have a feeling people would eat them up.
 
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