What is the best portable media setup?

Like most heavy computer users I own a flash drive for portable storage. I personally hardly use it since most files I would want are online already and thus can be downloaded with cURL from the web. But the drive is helpful on occasion when one needs a quick transfer to another computer, for instance.

But what about other devices that need storage? Think your digital camera. That does not use a flash drive but usually either CF, SD, or MemoryStick. That is a second type of media type to carry around (or at least purchase if you just leave it in your camera). Why deal with two different types of media? Isn't there a way to have only a single piece of media to meet all of your needs?

Yes there is! Let's assume I end up buying a Canon SD500 for myself so I can take shots of Vancouver (and it is not much of an assumption; I will get a new camera and the only other contender is the Sony CyberShot DSCT33). The SD500 takes SD memory. I still have a use for having portable storage between machines. What is one to do?

Get a USB 2.0 reader for SD! The SimpleTech BONZAI card reader is $10 and can read SD cards and outputs to USB 2.0 . That allows me to have an SD card a good size (I am thinking 512 MB since I have 1 GB on my digital camera now and I have yet to delete a single photo from it that I deemed worthy of keeping) for both my camera and any random transferring that I might need to do (such as taking your thesis to FedEx Kinko's to be printed and then discovering that members of your committee have changes they want).

But it gets better! E3 just happened and the XBox 360 and PS3 were announced. Of those two systems I am the most interested in the PS3 for technical reasons. Sony has managed to make really smart decisions, in my opinion, in terms of what the PS3 is includes. This ranges from having 3 gigabit ethernet ports, using Bluetooth for the controllers, and a Blu-Ray disc drive. But the piece of tech that affects us, dear reader, is the amount of media support; the PS3 can read CF, MemoryStick, and SD.

Going with SD and a portable card reader would give me media that works with my (most likely) future camera, my laptop, any other computer I might use, and the future PS3. That is a lot of variance that I could not get if I locked myself into a flash drive.

Looks like my pocket my get another tweak once my first paycheck comes in. =)