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Author Topic: Backing Up RAW files whilst travelling with a Tablet instead of a Laptop !  (Read 5798 times)

Streetshooter

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Just wondering if anyone out there is successfully backing up RAW files on a tablet with external hard drives rather than using a Laptop ? I currently use a Macbook but I'm always looking for ways to reduce the weight I routinely carry around !

Many Thanks

Pete
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Ellis Vener

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I sometimes do it using a CamRanger to my 4th gen iPad. But storing to a tablet isn't really an efficient in terms of storage space cost and time) way to work. It's better to shoot with a camera that has two media slots, with the camera set to record simultaneously to both slots and use a 64GB, 128GB, or higher capacity CF or SD in the second slot.

If you can store to your tablet and transfer from the tablet (or a laptop) to a cloud storage option or to a portable storage device, and then clear them off your tablet that might be viable - depending on what kind of internet connection you have.
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Streetshooter

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Ellis,

I always store on separate hard drives not the Macbook. I normally use that just to view the images and not do any real editing, I wait to do that when I get home. Normally I take at least three hard drives sometimes more, and then back up at least three times as well as to pen drives. The problem as I see it is to use a tablet with the hard drives. I'm not sure if that is possible.

It might be just as easy to use a Macbook Air instead. I'm just looking at ways to reduce the load....It seems to get heavier each year !

Pete
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Ellis Vener

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"It might be just as easy to use a Macbook Air instead. I'm just looking at ways to reduce the load....It seems to get heavier each year !"

No kidding.
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jrsforums

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Not long ago there were these neat devices which were nothing more than a hard drive surrounded with some electronics, card readers and with or without a screen.

Much like this... http://www.engadget.com/products/vosonic/vp8870/
(I have a earlier version to this)

I believe they were driven out of the market by netbooks.....which have now sort of been squeezed out by tablets.

Unfortunately, progress sometimes leaves some functions by the side of the road.
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John

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On my list is a Hyperdrive Colorspace with a SSD...  http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/UDMA-2/
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langier

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This is how I've traveled since 2011. I first used an iPad 64 wifi now an iPad 2 with 3G. I use this to view and cherry-pick the best and then back each card to a pair of Hyperdrives.

The key for me is to bring plenty of cards to shoot once then connect and choose via the iPad. Once each card is filled, the card is backed up one each of my Hyperdrives. Each drive has a 500gb drive which for me is enough to shoot about a month on the road. The drives will download about 150-200gb per charge I've found.

Compared to traveling with my MacBook, I'm lighter and don't spend as much time fooling with processing in the field. I've got more time to relax, enjoy and sleep without playing with the pix!

If I need to fulfill an image request on the road and I've had to do it, iPhoto will do though it isn't as good as PS.

My last month-long trip to Spain, Greece and Serbia was a breeze. The iPad even handled the D800 raw files with no issues. The only problem on that trip was a newer drive mechanism that became corrupted and had to be replaced under warrantee. I still had the cards, a Hyperdive backup and then my picks on the iPad. With film, I'd have but one copy...

The iPad also is my web connection, portfolio and entertainment on the road, and if needed, can become a back-up camera and video, as does my iPhone.

The iPad will get replaced with a Retina mini so I can stash it in my camera bag since the full-size is a bit bulky for that.

If I ever wear out the mechanisms in the Hyperdrives, it won't take but a few minutes to upgrade them to SSDs and get many more years of use with them.
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Larry Angier
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PhotoEcosse

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It's better to shoot with a camera that has two media slots, with the camera set to record simultaneously to both slots and use a 64GB, 128GB, or higher capacity CF or SD in the second slot.


+1 for that solution.


 8)
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Streetshooter

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This is how I've traveled since 2011. I first used an iPad 64 wifi now an iPad 2 with 3G. I use this to view and cherry-pick the best and then back each card to a pair of Hyperdrives.

The key for me is to bring plenty of cards to shoot once then connect and choose via the iPad. Once each card is filled, the card is backed up one each of my Hyperdrives. Each drive has a 500gb drive which for me is enough to shoot about a month on the road. The drives will download about 150-200gb per charge I've found.

Compared to traveling with my MacBook, I'm lighter and don't spend as much time fooling with processing in the field. I've got more time to relax, enjoy and sleep without playing with the pix!

If I need to fulfill an image request on the road and I've had to do it, iPhoto will do though it isn't as good as PS.

My last month-long trip to Spain, Greece and Serbia was a breeze. The iPad even handled the D800 raw files with no issues. The only problem on that trip was a newer drive mechanism that became corrupted and had to be replaced under warrantee. I still had the cards, a Hyperdive backup and then my picks on the iPad. With film, I'd have but one copy...

The iPad also is my web connection, portfolio and entertainment on the road, and if needed, can become a back-up camera and video, as does my iPhone.

The iPad will get replaced with a Retina mini so I can stash it in my camera bag since the full-size is a bit bulky for that.

If I ever wear out the mechanisms in the Hyperdrives, it won't take but a few minutes to upgrade them to SSDs and get many more years of use with them.



Larry,

Is it easy to use other external hard drives with the Hyperdrives, and do you think it would be better to get SSD's rather than ordinary drives in them ?  Do you duplicate the drives, i.e. one as a back up of the other ?

Cheers,

Pete
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langier

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Hi Pete,

I purchased the cases from Sanho and the drives from probably Newegg.

I wasn't sure of the mechanism and wanted to source both faster and cheaper drives for my pair. It takes perhaps two screws and five minutes to add a drive to the case. My plan is to eventually use SSDs in the cases for more speed and drop resistance though neither has been an issue thus far.

If you can afford it, get two boxes and an SSD for one and HD for the second and you'll probably have a pretty redundant system for travel, other than the theft and lost issues that can plague anyone.

Yes,  during travel I would take the card and ingest in drive a, then take that same card to ingest into drive b, thus three sets of images--on the card and then on two hard drives. I have yet the 4th set of many of the beat selects on the iPad.

My first Hyperdrive used my MacBook pulled 200gb drive. When I got the second Hyperdrive, I got a Hitachi 500gb (largest that was supported). Later I upgraded the original 200gb with another 500.

500 easily gives me more than a month on the road with room to spare with some peace of mind redundancy.

Years ago I had a similar type devices. The first one was nice but had two issues--USB 1.2 made transfer of the files a nightmare--several hours for several megs and then it died within a week of purchase. The second device with FireWire worked better, the the company wnt under and with it the software.
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Misirlou

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Re: Backing Up RAW files whilst travelling with a Tablet instead of a Laptop !
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2014, 11:38:58 am »

This is how I've traveled since 2011. I first used an iPad 64 wifi now an iPad 2 with 3G. I use this to view and cherry-pick the best and then back each card to a pair of Hyperdrives.

The key for me is to bring plenty of cards to shoot once then connect and choose via the iPad. Once each card is filled, the card is backed up one each of my Hyperdrives. Each drive has a 500gb drive which for me is enough to shoot about a month on the road. The drives will download about 150-200gb per charge I've found.

Compared to traveling with my MacBook, I'm lighter and don't spend as much time fooling with processing in the field. I've got more time to relax, enjoy and sleep without playing with the pix!

If I need to fulfill an image request on the road and I've had to do it, iPhoto will do though it isn't as good as PS.

My last month-long trip to Spain, Greece and Serbia was a breeze. The iPad even handled the D800 raw files with no issues. The only problem on that trip was a newer drive mechanism that became corrupted and had to be replaced under warrantee. I still had the cards, a Hyperdive backup and then my picks on the iPad. With film, I'd have but one copy...

The iPad also is my web connection, portfolio and entertainment on the road, and if needed, can become a back-up camera and video, as does my iPhone.

The iPad will get replaced with a Retina mini so I can stash it in my camera bag since the full-size is a bit bulky for that.

If I ever wear out the mechanisms in the Hyperdrives, it won't take but a few minutes to upgrade them to SSDs and get many more years of use with them.

I got a 128G retina mini for just that purpose. I know there's a lot of wailing about the potential iPad version of Lightroom coming out, but that's what I've been wanting for years. I hate having to carry a PC all the time in the field. My netbook with an SSD in it is better than a full size laptop, but the mini would be even better. I'm looking for backup, but also the ability to tag images with keywords, and do at least minimal checking of shot quality while still in the local area. I have a Canon 6D now, which can be fully controlled with any iOS device, including full liveview with focus area selection, etc. So in my case, a mini is the way to go.
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JayWPage

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Re: Backing Up RAW files whilst travelling with a Tablet instead of a Laptop !
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2014, 12:35:37 pm »

Last fall I spent 2 months visiting France and Italy. I brought with me 2 cameras, a Sony RX1 and a Sigma DP2M along with 10 16GB SDHC cards. My wife also had a PS camera and a few cards.

To back everything up, I brought along an 11" Airbook, a 1TB external WD Drive (USB 3.0), 2 64GB Thumb Drives, and I had a subscription to Dropbox. In general, I backed up the previous day's images every morning to both the Airbook and external Drive. I rarely erased or reformatted any of the camera cards, only at the end of the trip did I have to reformat one card when I ran out of empty cards. I regularly backed up any groups of images that I felt good about to the pen drives. I also up loaded images occasionally to my website and to Dropbox.

How would I save weight? Well, I had too many camera accessories, including a monopod that I only used twice. The external drive with it's cable and a neoprene case always seemed very heavy, although less than that of the Airbook. The pen drives (here) worked well. Even though they were USB 3.0, they were a bit slower than the external drive. If I was even more concerned about the weight than I was, I would just carry more pen drives and leave the external at home. This particular pen drive is rated at 10 yr. data retention, 5 yr warranty which is much better than any of the portable externals (USB-powered) I have seen.

Another issue is how much time do you want to be spending on your backups? I certainly didn't spend all that money to travel around in Europe to spend a lot of time waiting for my backups to complete. I found backing up to my website and to Dropbox to be very slow and inconvenient and eventually gave up on that option, the internet service in many hotels in Europe (at least most I stayed in) varied from poor to bad. The thick stone/concrete walls in many hotels meant that you were lucky to be able to send an short email, let alone try to up load pictures. Often I had to sit in the lobby to send emails.

I numbered all my camera cards and when one was full I moved the tab to prevent erasing and stored the card in a special case. I think the most important consideration when traveling and backing up your images is reliability. I decided against the stand alone card-reader./backup drive units for that reason. Most had poor reviews on B&H. If you want to backup to pen drives or external hard drives you need a USB port, so that eliminated the ipad for me.

Of secondary consideration is the weight and convenience. I'm planning a trip to the Himalayas next fall and I'll chose my accessories carefully (but I will bring my Gitzo 0531 tripod) and I'll bring my airbook with pen drives instead of an external drive. For convenience, make sure everything is USB 3.0.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2014, 12:40:32 pm by JayWPage »
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Jay W Page

langier

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Re: Backing Up RAW files whilst travelling with a Tablet instead of a Laptop !
« Reply #12 on: January 24, 2014, 03:03:05 pm »

One of the key reasons for going with the iPad and Hyperdrives is to spend more time enjoying and shooting on the road and less time at keyboard. If I were a blogger and was to twitter away my time, then I'd bring my MBP with me and spend all night piddling. Instead I spend minimum time on the metadata and processing and enjoy my time and get some needed sleep!

I've spent too much $$ and invested too much time to get there in the first place to simply bring the overhead and stress along for the ride which is better left for my return to the studio where I can work at my own pace. My time on the road and in the field is better spent on the experience of the moment, IMO.
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Larry Angier
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Streetshooter

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Re: Backing Up RAW files whilst travelling with a Tablet instead of a Laptop !
« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2014, 03:18:16 pm »

One of the key reasons for going with the iPad and Hyperdrives is to spend more time enjoying and shooting on the road and less time at keyboard. If I were a blogger and was to twitter away my time, then I'd bring my MBP with me and spend all night piddling. Instead I spend minimum time on the metadata and processing and enjoy my time and get some needed sleep!

I've spent too much $$ and invested too much time to get there in the first place to simply bring the overhead and stress along for the ride which is better left for my return to the studio where I can work at my own pace. My time on the road and in the field is better spent on the experience of the moment, IMO.

Totally agree with you here Larry. All I do is back up and have a quick look to see if I've missed anything subject wise. All the real editing is left for my return, and even then I leave it for a couple of weeks before I start that. Does the Hyperdrive connect with the ipad wirelessly via Bluetooth ? Are there any cables involved?

It's beginning to look the ideal solution for me. Thanks for all your information.

Pete
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