Offloading CF cards on the road

[BrianWoolf]

In a month, I am taking a vacation and going to a national park and doing as much photography as I can. On a good day might do close to 40gig with the size of the camera files these days.

In the past, a few years ago, I used an Epson P something and a Wolverine hd card device and both worked OK. Now the problem might be 7 days times 40gig or more. The card devices I have are too small, might need another 2 Wolverines to add to my 149gig Wolverine.

The most obvious solution is a laptop with an external hard drive. Don't mind bring it, but don't want to walk all day with a unused laptop in my pack, will have enough camera gear to carry, but would carry the external hard drive all the time. Since I usually camp, I have no way to really secure my laptop during the day, locked in the car isn't really secure as most national parks warn about leaving anything valuable in your car.

Has anyone tried an N-Case, a metal attache case with locks and a 6 foot steel cable. It's for guns or laptops and reasonably priced ($99). While I know anything can be stolen if the thief wants it bad enough, would this case be enough of a deterrent for the average breaking into a car person.

Or does anyone have any better solution. Not looking for: do really compressed jpgs and fit 10,000 images on an 8gig card. Looking for highest rez files and safety for the files.

Thanks in advance,
Brian Woolf

[Steve Weldon]

40g a day of files you want to keep once you review them?  Boggles the mind..

I was going to suggest Syncing.net.  It's a great service that syncs your laptop(s) with your desktop(s) or however many computers you buy licenses for.  IF your hotel rooms internet connection is fast enough.. it can sync a lot to your home NAS or home workstation over night.. not sure about 40g's though.  I've done 8 in a night..   This way your files are home and waiting for you.. or on as many machines as you have in your syncing group.. and if you lose or get your cards stolen you'll still have your images.

This service was originally designed to sync Outlook files across machines.. but it can do an Itunes directory, document directory, image directories.. whatever you designate.   It will "store and forward" 200mb of email.. that's weeks worth of email.. so your home machine can be off, you get home after a 2 week vacation, and a few minutes later your email is synced.. without turning on your laptop or copying files.  

IF you leave one of the PC's in your syncing group ON while on vacation.. the amount of data it will sync is only limited by the bandwidth of your connection.

Sorry for going on.. now that I've used this service for a few months I can't imagine not having it.  It's very useful and eliminates a lot of tasks since I'm usually on the road 7-12/14 days a month..

[Ken Bennett]

We camp when we travel, too. I have a Pelican Case that I keep in the car, locked with a cable and a padlock. It's in the back of my SUV, but well hidden underneath a homemade shelf. Whenever I need to leave valuables in the car, they go in the case. Haven't had a problem yet. (Yeah, I know, if somebody really wanted the gear, a simple bolt cutter will make short work of the cable, but at least it'll slow down the typical bash-and-grab national park thief.)

[Analog6]

I have a Vososnic VP 8870 (http://www.vosonic.com/product.php?PA=feature&kind=1&id_1=16) which takes HDs up to 500Gb.  I have a 250Gb HD and have found it amazingly useful when travelling.  I do take care to charge it up every night though.  And it has one major drawback in that it renumbers the files into it's own folder numbers.  The huge advantages (IMHO) are no need for a computer and you can plug it into to TV to review full screen if you wish.

[NikoJorj]

More expensive but much lighter than a 500GB HDD with its OTG box (NextoDI eg), you could get a few big CF cards : they come in 64GB and even 128GB sizes these days.

[stever]

i have a 500gb Colorspace UDMA (which is about as expensive as a cheap laptop).  i normally use it as a USB backup drive with the additional capability of downloading cards if the computer fails.  the unique (i believe) feature of the Colorspace is that it can write to a standard USB drive (with an extra $50 kit which should have been included with the product).  

i normally have a computer, the Colorspace, and one or two inexpensive USB drives on longer trips

[fike]

not to suggest the obvious, but CF cards are pretty cheap.  You can reasonable consider buying lots of cheap CF cards.  At $15-20 per 8GB card, you could store everything for a week of travel for something in the range of $500.  Does CF card performance matter to you?

Otherwise, as Stever said, I think the overall best solution is the colorspace UDMA devices.  I really like that they facilitate the upgrade to larger hard drives.  I think it is most cost effective if you get it without hard drive and put in one you buy separately.

[Wayne Fox]

not to suggest the obvious, but CF cards are pretty cheap.  You can reasonable consider buying lots of cheap CF cards.  At $15-20 per 8GB card, you could store everything for a week of travel for something in the range of $500.  Does CF card performance matter to you?

Currently my strategy.  I actually only use a CF card once, and lock it away in a fireproof vault.  They're so cheap now (as long as you don't mind the slower ones, which are fine the way I shoot). I still take a 13" macbook pro which I back all of them up on as well as a small FW 800 drive, so I end up with 3 copies in the field on 3 different devices.

Works pretty good for me, since 40 gigs is about what I would shoot in a typical 7 day trip.  I still shoot more like I have film .... just never made the mental switch to shooting that many frames.  maybe a stretch if you shoot that much or more each day.

[BrianWoolf]

Thanks for the replies,

   Steve W. - your was the most unusual from my point of view. I was trying to go as light as possible and lose the 5.5lb laptop. Your solution requires a laptop, so having one is a no brainer just add a external hd and I am fine. For a few reasons, I don't like the syncing thing, basically seems like adding complications to much simpler solution.

   Stever and Odille - the Colorspace UMDA device is still a bit pricey at the 500gig size and not much cheaper at the next size down a 320Gig unit. These would do the job fine. Since I have purchased two of these type devices in the past and they are now too small, I am hesitant to buy another, even though a 500gig unit should be fine for years to come. I don't for see ever needing more than this, but who knows.

   Fike and Wayne - the cf card idea is plenty light enough. The big, expensive cards are way too much, I could hire a bodyguard/sherpa person for a lot less. The smaller cards, like a 8gig Kingston for $25, would still be pricey. i would have to buy more than I would need, the thought of running out of cards on the last day would drive me crazy. I don't want to keep track of all those cards, as I try to keep things simple and uncomplicated.

   KBennett - the secure laptop is what I would like to try but have some problems. I have a old Saturn station wagon, with a lot of windows and not much hiding places. Was looking a Calumet pelican type cases, but they have very small holes to get a security cable thru, could have a case and no way to get a cable thru it. Calumet sells a small combination type lock to keep the case locked but not to lock it to anything else, useless for me.

Thanks,
Brian Woolf

[welder]

the Colorspace UMDA device is still a bit pricey at the 500gig size and not much cheaper at the next size down a 320Gig unit. These would do the job fine. Since I have purchased two of these type devices in the past and they are now too small, I am hesitant to buy another, even though a 500gig unit should be fine for years to come. I don't for see ever needing more than this, but who knows.

The Colorspace device is cheaper if you purchase the hard drive on your own, rather than buying a unit with a pre-installed drive. The casing costs $249. You can pick up a 2.5" 500gb hard drive from Newegg for $60. Installing the drive yourself is a simple thing, just screw open the casing and plug it in. The additional benefit is that if you ever need more storage you just go out and buy a new drive of whatever size you like.  

[feppe]

The Colorspace device is cheaper if you purchase the hard drive on your own, rather than buying a unit with a pre-installed drive. The casing costs $249. You can pick up a 2.5" 500gb hard drive from Newegg for $60. Installing the drive yourself is a simple thing, just screw open the casing and plug it in. The additional benefit is that if you ever need more storage you just go out and buy a new drive of whatever size you like.  

Exactly what I did when I bought two of the older Hyperdrive Spaces. Much cheaper. Not sure if Hyperdrive still sells the older models, as I never really understood the need for a viewing screen on a backup device so they would offer good savings.

I would strongly encourage making duplicates of your photos, and keeping the drives in two different places (eg. one in hotel or with a friend, one always on you). That way if you misplace or break one or it gets stolen, you still have another copy.

[kpmedia]

I'm borrowing some gear this weekend, and my friend asks "Do you have any CF cards?"
I couldn't help but to start laughing.

Yeah, several dozen of them!  

I found that to be the easiest of all possible solutions. Less time investment, not bank-breaking costly.
If I ever need more space, I'll just buy more cards.

They're all numbered, too. Easy to organize, if you make a system.

One thing I saw as a big issue was the mechanics of the situation. Hard drives have moving parts. CF cards are all solid-state drives. I can drop it, bump it, throw it, drop-kick it, etc -- and those are fine. If I so much as sneeze on the hard drive, it could crash and that's that.

[feppe]

One thing I saw as a big issue was the mechanics of the situation. Hard drives have moving parts. CF cards are all solid-state drives. I can drop it, bump it, throw it, drop-kick it, etc -- and those are fine. If I so much as sneeze on the hard drive, it could crash and that's that.

Hard disks are very robust when idle or off, and many laptop drives have sensors which park the drive if it's dropped. CF cards are also susceptible to failure - I'm not aware of any studies on reliability or comparing the two, though.

The main problem with the approach of just keeping memory cards is that you only have one copy. I got burned once by losing the contents of an almost full Lexar card due to corruption which had irreplaceable vacation snapshots and some nice night photos of Washington DC. If I had them as two copies on portable HDDs I'd be golden. Having just one copy of photos on the road (or home for that matter) is a recipe for sure disaster.

[darr]

I just came back from Iceland. I went through the thinking process as to how to back up my shots without having to rely on a computer and/or electricity.  In 2007 when I went to the Galapagos Islands, I took a JOBO 80G HDD, but I have since moved on to MF digital and the JOBO would be too small and too slow. So after some research, I decided on the NEXTO DI EXTREME ND2700 (500 GB) http://www.nextodiusa.com/product_info.asp?nexto_product=1.  I took 2 of them since I was shooting more than one camera, and there was the possibility I would be camping next to icebergs with no electricity, which we did. I shot an Alpa Max, Nikon D700, and Canon G9. After two weeks of being on the road, these HDDs held up with no additional charging and I went through 12 various card sizes within 7-9 days. I would never gamble on cards being the only caretakers of my images while on travel. In my work life, I have at times, been asked to help other photographers out with their post-processing work. I cannot tell you the feeling I have gotten when I was the messenger of the 'bad card' news. It is a fact of life; if you shoot enough, sooner or later you will see a corrupt card. You can also find backup rentals. Lensrentals rents the Wolverine 320GB PicPac. http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/nikon/accessories/memory/access-devices/wolverine-320gb-picpac.

Good luck!!
Darr

[Steve Weldon]

"The main problem with the approach of just keeping memory cards is that you only have one copy."

True.. and really its a problem to limit yourself to only one strategy.  I've been using the syncing.net solution when a good internet connection is available and that gets the files to two locations (always on workstation and a NAS device), but at the same time I'm saving the files to USB hard drives and often to my laptops SSD (I have 150g's of SSD space available) when possible.

If the OP is traveling my car I really don't understand trying to travel without a laptop.  Or a netbook, or any number of small and cheap devices that allow you to save your files to USB hard drives.  There are plenty of netbooks on the market for the same or less than the UMDA device.. and you can do so much more with it.

My main worries when on the road are loss and theft much more than the failure of some device.  So the sooner I can upload my files to a secure location the better.  The more devices I can put them on and then put the devices in separate bags the better.

The bottom line is most any solution that provides more than 1 copy (using a bunch of CF/SD cards) is going to be somewhat costly, take some effort, and take space.  With 1tb notebook drives now available.. you can buy a pair for redundancy and put a lot on them.. I suppose you could even rig a UMDA to easily change out the drives if there's not room in the station wagon for a netbook.

[welder]

One thing I saw as a big issue was the mechanics of the situation. Hard drives have moving parts. CF cards are all solid-state drives. I can drop it, bump it, throw it, drop-kick it, etc -- and those are fine. If I so much as sneeze on the hard drive, it could crash and that's that.

I have to admit that failiure by sneeze is a new concept to me

I think you overstate their fragility. Under normal usage conditions they are as robust as any other piece of equipment. Treat it the way you would treat any other piece of gear and it should be fine...after all, would you go around drop kicking your camera?

A hard drive is most vulnerable when it is reading or writing, when a shock to the drive could make the head hit the platter. But when the heads are parked they can take some drops. I've been clumsy and dropped a few drives (not while they were reading or writing) and they still work fine. If using a Colorspace or similar device to backup photos from a CF card I would advise setting the drive on a solid surface until the backup is finished...don't start the backup and then toss the drive in your backup and keep hiking or something.

That said, hard drives don't last forver, but neither do CF cards, and I always try and replace both periodically.

For the very paranoid, the newer solid state drives are also an option, albiet a more expensive one

[Kit-V]

Forgive my ignorance, but I wasn't aware of battery-powered portable HDDs like the Nexto Di Extreme ND2700 that Darr mentioned. Could someone briefly offer a few other companies that offer these HDDs for my future research? Thank you.

[feppe]

Forgive my ignorance, but I wasn't aware of battery-powered portable HDDs like the Nexto Di Extreme ND2700 that Darr mentioned. Could someone briefly offer a few other companies that offer these HDDs for my future research? Thank you.

HyperDrive products are mentioned several times above.

[DarkPenguin]

And are reviewed on this very site.