I posted about this in the M-Audio thread, but in case people using the PMD-671 or whatever didn't see it, I thought I'd crosspost.
I think the answer to the storage dilemma is a portable USB OTG ("on-the-go") drive. I just picked up this this
one. $80 for a portable, battery-powered external 30gb hard drive that can act as a host controller. At only 5" x 3.25" x 1", it is easy enough to bring into the field with you. On-board Li-ion battery is supposed to last for 1.5 hours, but you can always hook up something like the
power runner li-ion battery and get 10-15 hours of additional runtime in the field. With this gadget, you could probably squeeze by with two 2gb CF cards. Even in a festival setting, the OTG drive, a 2gb card, and a 4gb card should be plenty.
From what I can tell, the OTG drive looks like it is just the ticket. I ordered mine from the link above on Tuesday, got it from UPS just a little while ago. Worked great right out of the box. I used is as a host drive connected to a card reader I have and transferred about 900MB of photo files from my 1GB CF card to the OTG drive. Downside is it took about 15 minutes, but I have no idea if the limiting factor was my card reader or the OTG drive (my card reader might well be USB 1.1, not 2.0). Literature that came with the drive says battery life of 1.5 hours with continuous use, so an external 5v battery for field operation might be a good idea. $80 for 30gb of portable, field transferrable disk space is a pretty good deal.
BTW, more description of this device:
Introducing the latest HighSpeed USB 2.0 OTG (ON-THE-GO) technology allow you Synchronize/Backup your entire data files from almost any of the USB devices to this Cintre DATASync USB 2.0 OTG External Hard Drive. Just transfer your data files by single press of the button without connect via your computer. The dual-role USB2.0 OTG Drive works as a regular USB 2.0 hard disk when connected to a PC and doubles as a USB 2.0 Host that can initiate file transfer from your Digital Camera, USB flash drive, Card Reader, and MP3 player... etc without going through a computer. The USB2.0 OTG Drive provides a fast and easy way to add more storage space to both your computer and USB/USB2.0 storage devices or Digital Camera.