Yes, the Panasonic is kinda spendy, but it has NEVER failed me in hundreds of transfers.
Plus, it has the internal drive which is only 60GB, but that’s 3 cards worth, which is a grand total of 120 minutes of HD footage.
I have yet to shoot that much in one day.
If you’re shooting 5 to 6 hours a day of actual footage, THEN I can see another plan.
Bill