Reddit mentions of Transcend 8GB CompactFlash Memory Card 133x (TS8GCF133)

Amazon.com is your friend. The Transcend cards get very good reviews there.

LINK

>If the other laptop is 15 years old, you might want to check that it supports SATA, and not IDE - otherwise an SSD is not going to be an option.

A Compact Flash to IDE adapter would still be better than whatever spinning disk originally came in the laptop. Ubuntu doesn't need much space. Even an 8 GB CF card would be more than enough for tinkering around.

Everyone's got great suggestions here, but I'll offer mine too...

Remember that USB is going to limit you, but SATA might too-- If you're using any type of flash based storage, you're limited to the speed of that card.

I'm a huge fan of compactflash. It's cheap, relatively reliable, and (in my experience) insanely easy to image and reimage. Try sata to compactflash and a 133x compactflash card. My freenas runs a similar setup with IDE to CF.

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adsacf.asp
http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-133x-CompactFlash-Memory-TS8GCF133/dp/B000W05O5O

Also: Plural "Nazis" doesn't have an apostrophe. :-D

Buy yourself a netbook for as little as $200 new if you're lucky/patient, or $300 if you aren't. Not only will you have at least 250 GB of temporary/backup storage, you also have a device for viewing (and even mild editing if in a pinch) at a larger size than on your camera, and also for web/email use when on the road. Furthermore, it's slim and small enough to fit in many camera bags, even those not specifically designed for small laptops or netbooks. (However, there are many photojournalist bags and backpacks specifically designed for Netbooks on the market now.) Finally, unlike a more serious laptop, if it's lost/broken/stolen, you're only out $300. (And the photos of course, but that's true with any device.) Just plug in your camera or a card reader, offload your images, and keep shooting. This solution will cost LESS than either of the two you asked about, and has far more flexibility. And they're upgradable. But I'm getting repetitive at this point.

DON'T buy an Android tablet or iPad for this. They're considerably and unnecessarily more expensive, and you're going to be limited to expensive flash memory instead of an inexpensively upgradeable 2.5" internal hard drive. (1 TB 2.5" laptop drives can be found for < $100.) Also, Android & iOS devices don't have any "real" editing or productivity software. They aren't intended to be workhorses, so there's no market for it. But Netbooks run Windows 7 (and can be hacked to run Mac OS X if you're so inclined), which means you can run "real" editing and productivity software on it.

Now, all of this aside, ejp1082's advice is still sound: make sure you've got plenty of media on hand. Having a backup rocks, but make sure you don't need it in case you have no time to offload your cards. I recommend Sandisk Extreme 16GB cards, as they're large enough to hold around 1,350 shots in RAW, yet aren't so large that you're risking losing too much if anything catastrophic happens. Also, they're considerably faster than almost anything else (they add an extra 1.5 shots to my buffer and clear out quickly), and are very reliable. I keep 4 16GB cards on hand, plus a bunch of my older 8GB cards "just in case I need more". If money is tight, I've also had good luck with Transcend 8GB cards, though I wouldn't recommend their 16GB cards due to read speed/performance issues. And at a paltry $20 per card, they're a no-brainer if the Sandisk Extremes are too pricy.