Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: feppe on February 15, 2018, 07:24:05 pm
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I'm looking for a a portable SSD to do backups of SD cards on the road. I travel very light, and don't have a laptop. I'd bring two SSDs, and mirror backups so I have three copies of each photo (one kept on the original SD card).
To my knowledge the only portable SSD with a built-in SD card reader is WD's updated version of My Passport Wireless (https://www.wdc.com/products/portable-storage/my-passport-wireless-ssd.html) which is ruggedized and has an SSD reader, but it's double the price of other portable SSDs.
The other option is to buy a portable SSD, and use a phone with an OTG cable and card reader to transfer the files. This is fiddly, and requires a phone or a tablet.
Any other options out there?
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Add your own SSD drive - https://www.hypershop.com/products/hyperdrive-colorspace-udma3
It'll also back it self up to a second external usb drive.
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Add your own SSD drive - https://www.hypershop.com/products/hyperdrive-colorspace-udma3
It'll also back it self up to a second external usb drive.
Looks good, I have a more primitive one somewhere but I didn't use it for a a long time.
It would be nice if they had more details, such as physical dimensions, any water resistance, battery duration, if the backup is incremental, etc.
At the end of the day if you can bring a laptop, even a small one, it's more flexible.
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Add your own SSD drive - https://www.hypershop.com/products/hyperdrive-colorspace-udma3
It'll also back it self up to a second external usb drive.
I used to have an older versions of these. These ones are also outrageously expensive compared to the competition, and I have zero use for the screen. Battery goes dead after a few years of use. And they're not ruggedized.
At the end of the day if you can bring a laptop, even a small one, it's more flexible.
Laptops weigh a ton compared to portable SSDs, even the small ones. This (http://www.adata.com/us/feature/441) ruggedized drive weighs only 75g!
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I used to have an older versions of these. These ones are also outrageously expensive compared to the competition, and I have zero use for the screen. Battery goes dead after a few years of use. And they're not ruggedized.
Laptops weigh a ton compared to portable SSDs, even the small ones. This (http://www.adata.com/us/feature/441) ruggedized drive weighs only 75g!
The battery in everything will eventually die, the Sanyo is user serviceable and can be replaced unlike the others. It can also work with the microsized ADATA as a waterproof 3rd copy, while you'd need 2 of the WD drives since it can't copy to another drive. Yes, the screen is pointless, but it gives an easy UI to do the 3 things you need rather than doing it from your phone. It's small, so if you need rugged for transport, a case can do the trick.
Everything is a compromise, either in size, weight, cost or ability.
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https://www.gnarbox.com/ is another option
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I used to have an older versions of these. These ones are also outrageously expensive compared to the competition, and I have zero use for the screen. Battery goes dead after a few years of use. And they're not ruggedized.
Laptops weigh a ton compared to portable SSDs, even the small ones. This (http://www.adata.com/us/feature/441) ruggedized drive weighs only 75g!
Nice. I have an older version of this (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147643) . Put it in a ziplock bag and save 20g, 50$ and get better speed. Drawing straws of course, the AData looks good. Now if you can figure it how to copy the stuff on it. Maybe something like this (https://www.hypershop.com/collections/usb-type-c/products/hyperdrive-3-in-1-connection-kit-for-usb-type-c-smartphone-macbook) to keep it close to the initial suggestion.
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https://www.gnarbox.com/ is another option
That's quite a heavy powered device, new things show up on the market. The main issue I would have with it is that it weighs 1 lb.
A Surface Pro weighs 1.7 lbs and I wonder if you can do a similar thing with a tablet, such as iPAD Pro (or android) which weighs about the same at 1 lb.
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When I'm traveling I carry an 11" MacBook Air and a Gylph SSD drive, see: https://www.glyphtech.com/product/atom-ssd
The Glyph drive is compact, fast and has been reliable.
Jay
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First, I have enough media cards to cover my travels and then some figuring they are both cheap and that it's cheap insurance to never have to reformat the cards on the road.
For travel back-up, I use a pair of Hyperdrives, one with spinning disk and the second with an SSD. Bought a pair of cases years ago and put in my own drives. They have both SD and CF readers built-in, a small display, rechargeable battery, and can be run off an external AA pack and can be used to transfer to and from your computer. Not much to using them and the peace of mind is priceless.
I've taken them on many week to month long journeys through the years they both seem to work fine and are reliable. Mine are older and had iPad compatibility that I never seemed to use and that model maxed out at 500GB. Newer Hyperdrives don't have this size limit.
When I need to go light, I use my Hyperdrive with SSD and back-up as I go so that I have at least a little redundancy in my files.
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First, I have enough media cards to cover my travels and then some figuring they are both cheap and that it's cheap insurance to never have to reformat the cards on the road.
I never format memory cards on the road, either. It's an easy way to get more redundancy, in addition to two backups. On longer trips I've even considered mailing myself cards in case I get robbed.
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I pulled the SSD out of my old MBP when I replaced it. I bought a USB3 enclosure from OWC and installed the old drive which went into my camera bag. I shoot redundent RAW files on the two cards in camera, then copy to MBP plus external drive and cull images if time allows. When I return home I cull unusable files again, copy to two GTechnology drives and confirm that all is good before formatting cards and travel SSD.
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I pulled the SSD out of my old MBP when I replaced it. I bought a USB3 enclosure from OWC and installed the old drive which went into my camera bag. I shoot redundent RAW files on the two cards in camera, then copy to MBP plus external drive and cull images if time allows. When I return home I cull unusable files again, copy to two GTechnology drives and confirm that all is good before formatting cards and travel SSD.
That's very similar to what I do.
On my last trip however my laptop proved painfully slow at times to preview some images at 100% to chose the sharpest of some series limiting this at some extent. It did well with some basic postprocessing requiring few adjustments at home. Overall though you want a bigger screen than 13" to do something more than basic on the road.
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That's quite a heavy powered device, new things show up on the market. The main issue I would have with it is that it weighs 1 lb.
A Surface Pro weighs 1.7 lbs and I wonder if you can do a similar thing with a tablet, such as iPAD Pro (or android) which weighs about the same at 1 lb.
But neither the iPad or Surface are rugged. It's battery powered, has an app that'll let you copy files around. It's power is in the full app that'll let you edit video on it, using your iPhone as an input device.
It sounds like you want a raspberry Pi type device, that'll just copy off SD cards onto a USB3 drive. There have been a kickstarter or two with this idea, but your use case is niche enough that there isn't a tailor made product. There are lots of options, it's just a matter of which one you select.
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These days I just use a laptop to backup when I travel and I stay in hotels. If I go hiking then I either use one of the cameras that have dual SD cards and hope I don't drop it from the top of the mountain or just bite the bullet (this would be for a E-M5 ii).
This is the thing I used to use: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/681428-REG/Digital_Foci_P19_500_PST_251_Photo_Safe_II.html
It's still an option. Quite slow but it works.