[crystal palace f]

I have a large number of digital pics stored on various disks and hard drives. I want to consolidate all pics on one potable hard drive. I also want to load a programme onto the portable drive (if possible) so that I can sort the images etc. Any ideas on the type of portable device and software available?

[linskyjack]

I think a lot depends on how much your are trying to store. I would say that an external drive would work if you need a load of space. You could even use a thumb drive if you don't need that much. You wouldn't really need to load a program on the drive because you can edit pics on the drive with any program you have on your main computer.

[jdean]

Take a look at the FastStone image viewer. It's free, it can copy your images anywhere you like, and you can install it on a portable hard drive.

For a portable hard device, you'd want a hard drive, such as an external USB hard drive. There are drives that require a power supply and those that are powered directly from the USB cable. The former are physically bigger but cheaper and faster, the latter are easier to carry around. so you'll have to decide what level of portability you'd like.

Once you've figured out what kind of drive you want, find one on sale. Not every one will agree with me on this, but I don't worry about the brand (well, I probably wouldn't buy LaCie, but any other brand works for me).

[Hughv]

Some people like the WD portable drives:
http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/m/60886501/
If these images are important, be sure you have them backed up to other media such as DVDs.
Portable drives are often subject to shock and weather extremes that can quickly render them totally useless.