Portable device to off load memory cards onto? not a laptop!

[Rich196]

Friend of mine is going traveling and is looking for something like a portable hard drive you can put a camera or go pro memory card into and it stores all the data and frees up the card again.

Anyone got any ideas? doesnt really have room to pack a laptop.

[andburg]

does he have a smartphone?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Decrescent-Reader-Connecti...

something like this could be a cheap option

[AndWhyNot]

I was on the lookout for something similar to be able to backup my iPhone photos when out & about. Found the Kingston MobileLite Wireless which is pretty much ideal for what I needed.

It's an intermediary between cards/ mobile device and backup. As such it also needs external storage- I bought a 64gb USB stick but it'll also work with a USB-powered external HD. The MobileLite device has a battery which I understand can power the HD but on the flip side is something else that itself needs to be kept charged up.

A bonus to me was that the MobileLite also reads SD cards so I can backup from the A7s- or so I thought, as so far I've only been able to get it to read camera JPGs. I haven't established if this is a file size issue, a proprietory format issue or just an annoying quirk that prevents it working.

The other consideration is that it needs to be accessed via an app. To be fair, this works quite well but if he's travelling and away from regular power he might find it makes his smartphone battery a bit too vulnerable.

A WD product was recently announced that ticks many of the boxes but reviews I've read slate it for poor speed, like insufferably slow. WD justify this on the basis of data integrity.

Suspect in the end his best solution is going to be to pack plenty of memory cards.

[Fubles]

http://petapixel.com/2014/09/04/wd-announces-ultim...

this is the WD HDD that I think Andywhynot is talking about.

For that price though considering how cheap and portable SD cards are, I'd just buy a load more.

[Podie]

We have a Vonsonic image tank thing. Basically a HDD with card readers and a screen. Seems they've disappeared now - bit like this, only ours is fancier - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ex-Pro%C2%AE-Picture-Drive...


ETA - ours is closer to this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vosonic-VP8360-MultiMedia-...

[pilbeam_mp62]

I bought one of these a few years ago - it works very well.

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cam...

[rottie102]

I can't see the point either.

Everything that has a hard drive will be:

- more expensive than more memory cards
- will need battery/mains unlike memory cards
- will be much more prone to break than memory cards
- it will be slower than memory cards

[ecsrobin]

Just buy a bulk load of memory cards. The other advantage is a hard drive device potentially could fill up. Fill up all your SD cards it shouldn't be too hard to get some more.

[davepoth]

ecsrobin said:

Just buy a bulk load of memory cards. The other advantage is a hard drive device potentially could fill up. Fill up all your SD cards it shouldn't be too hard to get some more.

Probably what I'd do too, unless he's going somewhere for a very, very long time.

[boxsternoob56]

and lose the single hard drive and you lose it all, whereas lose an SD card you just lose partial!

[marshalla]

Smartphone + a minimum of TWO cloud storage accounts (just in case) + adapter to convert micro-SD to whatever the camera device takes.

Place micro-SD card into phone, copy data to cloud accounts over a WiFi link in a cafe, hotel or hostel.

Done.

[Craikeybaby]

Podie said:

We have a Vonsonic image tank thing. Basically a HDD with card readers and a screen. Seems they've disappeared now - bit like this, only ours is fancier - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ex-Pro%C2%AE-Picture-Drive...

I also had one of these to back up photos on the road in the days before iPads.

[probedb]

My mate bought the WD HDD with SD card reader and loved it. You don't have to wipe the SD cards. You can both have lots of SD cards and this as a proper backup if you want. I guess it depends how you want to do it.

[threespires]

probedb said:

My mate bought the WD HDD with SD card reader and loved it. You don't have to wipe the SD cards. You can both have lots of SD cards and this as a proper backup if you want. I guess it depends how you want to do it.

I've not seen this before - interesting :-
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6201873948/wester...

Wouldn't OP's problem be solved by having extra digicards without the need to carry more heavy kit about?

[threespires]

probedb said:

My mate bought the WD HDD with SD card reader and loved it. You don't have to wipe the SD cards. You can both have lots of SD cards and this as a proper backup if you want. I guess it depends how you want to do it.

I've not seen this before - interesting :-
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6201873948/wester...

Wouldn't OP's problem be solved by having extra digicards without the need to carry more heavy kit about?

[sgrimshaw]

If you have an android phone or tablet which supports OTG then this can be a neat and lightweight way of managing backup / storage:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/aLLreli%C2%AE-Micro-Adapte...

Similar to the one linked to before BUT this allows you to copy between cards / usd sticks without going through tablet/phone.

ie, you can copy from SD card to USB stick (or HDD) - it even has a micro USB power input so will run portable HDD which need some extra power.

[rottie102]

I'm still in favor of MORE MEMORY CARDS.

I found my phone in the sea at 5m two weeks after it was stolen and the miniSD (yeah, ages ago) was working perfectly fine after getting it out. Try to do that with a hard drive

[sgrimshaw]

rottie102 said:

I'm still in favor of MORE MEMORY CARDS.

No substitute for a backup though.

Do both, copy the cards onto another device but don't delete the images from the card.

That way the images are in at least two places.

With your way, if you lose a memory card or it goes bad, ..... you're fked.

[kman]

ive used the nextodi products and they're pretty good. a lot of wedding photographers and videographers i know use them. not cheap though.

[rottie102]

sgrimshaw said:

No substitute for a backup though.

Do both, copy the cards onto another device but don't delete the images from the card.

That way the images are in at least two places.

With your way, if you lose a memory card or it goes bad, ..... you're fked.

Good point! My view is slightly skewed since my cameras have dual card slot so I can record stuff to both or copy from one to another in camera.