Preview: NEXTO DI’s NVS2500 portable media storage.

The big buzz surrounding the NVS2500 is all about three features built into this diminutive, battery operated media storage device:

• the fast SxS transfer to internal hard drive
• the ability to play back professional codecs like XDCAM EX
• the eSATA slot for fast transfer to a computer

I’ve performed some preliminary tests and have some numbers to report.

Ingest 15.1 GB Class 4 SDHC card into NEXTO. 16m50s = 15 MBps

Ingest 15.1 GB Class 4 SDHC card in an ExpressCard adapter into NEXTO.  16m46s = 15 MBps.

Ingest 6.1 GB SxS card into NEXTO. 1m19s = 77.2 MBps

Copy 15.1 GB via FW-400 from NEXTO to MacBook Pro. 9m17s = 27.1 MBps

Copy 15.1 GB via eSATA from NEXTO to HP Pavilion Dv6 (XP). 4m42s = 53.5 MBps

So, my results indicate that the NVS2500 performs quite well.

Slowdowns come from the media, or the computer you connect it to. When fed with a fast SxS card, throughput was quite speedy. When connected to a native eSATA port, throughput was quite speedy. The connection to the MacBook, which lacks a native eSATA port, was through an ExpressCard adapter.

The SD card seems to max out at around 15 MBps, no matter if ingested directly, or through the ExpressCard adapter. I had about the same speed with the card into a NetBook’s native SD card slot. Faster SD cards (Class 6 or, now, Class 10) cards would certainly offer faster dumping of footage into the NVS2500. The faster SxS speed through the NVS2500’s internal ExpressCard slot shows that it is capable of significantly higher speeds.

I will have more to report, specifically regarding the menu system & navigation, in my full review, but for now, the NVS2500 looks like a winner.