Photo backup on the move

[Jez O]

Does anyone have any suggestions/recommendations as to storage devices which can be used on the road as it were, for backup of photos and possibly video? Needs to be smaller than a laptop ideally.

It's for my father who is 70+ so needs to be simple to operate and budget is around £250. He'll be backing up from SD card/direct from camera if poss. He'd also like a screen to view them on.

Tablet sounds obvious but storage might be an issue if he backs up video too- could be ten odd hours plus of HD camcorder footage.

He's tried a Vosonic portable hard drive which wasn't the most pleasant user experience and it broke, so that's out!

Thanks, Jez

[Craikeybaby]

I use my iPad, but obviously storage size is limited. Before that I used a hard drive with CF/SD card readers and some basic copying software which worked quite well, other than not being able to view the images and having to copy the whole contents of the card, not just new images.

[OscarIndia]

I have one of these

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-COLORSPACE-UDM...

Fits the bill perfectly.

[sgrimshaw]

How about a netbook ...

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_X101CH_Netbook...

[LongQ]

Hyperdrive (iirc) if he wants to back up whilst walking about.

I use a netbook (and a good supply of memory cards) for end of day backups and keep a portable disk to hand for the secondary backup. Typically looking at something over 32Gb - perhaps up to 64Gb per day. Just about enough time to deal with each evening ...

SD cards straight from the built in reader of course. CF - get a good fast external reader. If you can find a netbook with USB3 and a matching reader so much the better but I doubt you will.

You can run a basic editor on a netbook as well- but nothing fancy AFAIK. Mine has Win 7 Starter which limits the options.

[tenohfive]

For pure backup a second hand netbook with a suitably sized HDD will almost certainly be the cheapest option.

[Jez O]

Thanks all, food for thought. The hyperdrive isn't cheap so maybe a netbook is the way to go. At least he can use that when he gets back whereas the other is simply storage. He literally wants to make copies whilst he's on holiday in case anything happens to the cards.

[LongQ]

Jez O said:

Thanks all, food for thought. The hyperdrive isn't cheap so maybe a netbook is the way to go. At least he can use that when he gets back whereas the other is simply storage. He literally wants to make copies whilst he's on holiday in case anything happens to the cards.

If not taking huge numbers of shots (I mean HUGE numbers) I would be tempted to just copy the day's takes to a cheap netbook each niht and use the memory card(s) as the secondary backup. These days the tech is pretty reliable and there are plenty of recovery programs around in the rare situation that a card goes "bad".

Cards, especially SD cards, are very cheap in real terms, even if you buy the faster ones (which you probably would for video.)

My netbook came new with a 320Gb drive a year ago for about £220 iirc. Double the drive capacity with an external HDD for about £40 or £50. Keep the disks and memory cards separate. Job done. Mind peaceful.

[Jez O]

That does sound the way to go, although he is 74 so minimal steps to remember is best! Although he does transfer his pics to his laptop at home so that will be no different for him. I'll give him the options and he can decide.

Cheers.