Portable storage

[Nathan Lanni]

Due to a really fantastic opportunity, I'll be traveling to Pairs and Italy this April.

I'll be there for almost 2 weeks, will likely shoot all but one or 2 days. It will be my first opportunity to shoot in the field for an extended period away from my PC.
Like other people I shoot a LOT of images at a time - different settings, angles, etc., in RAW not jpeg. And I do panos. Pretty common stuff, right, so all I'm saying is that I'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea that I'll have perhaps hundreds of images on SD cards far away from a proven safety net of having TB's of reliable backup solution to protect my images.

Kind'a scary really. So I need help weeding out portable solutions. I'll be taking my android smartphone and tablet, but no laptop. I will not be editing abroad.

1. One cheap and easy way is to get a bunch of sd/micro sd cards and some kind of container to protect them. 100 or 200 GB cards like SanDisk are really cheap. I've never had an issue with SD failures, but I know the risk is real. My d610 has dual cards slots so that gives me redundancy.

2. Portable SSD or HDD and some way to transfer the images to the drive. Plug it in at the end of the day - transfer away. This seems fairly cheap, safe and simple, could even have redundancies, but I haven't found a way to hook up a mutil-card reader to a portable HDD.

3. There's a bunch hot spot this mutil-card reading capability devices but it seems like they're more for streaming video and sharing stuff. I just want portable storage.

4. Read about Gnarbox seems great, $400 US+, and lot more than I really need. Maybe a cheaper but similar item?

I'm guessing there's more by why keep looking at stuff when I'm not sure what really works or not.

 

[Marcel]

What about getting a cheap pre-owned laptop and portable drive just to copy and past your shots on a daily basis. This is what I do when I travel.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

Due to a really fantastic opportunity, I'll be traveling to Pairs and Italy this April...

If it were me I'd stock up on 128 GB SD cards, number them and set my camera to use Slot 2 as "Backup". When the cards get full, swap them for a fresh pair. The cards are numbered so card #'s 1 and 2 are a set, cards #3 and #4 are set, etc.

If you're concerned you might have a crap card, run it by H2Testw. If there's an error on the SD card, H2Testw will find it.

You can drive yourself nuts with, "yeah, but..." and coming up with all kinds of "what if..." scenarios but the simple fact is, there is no perfect solution.

 

[PapaST]

You might want to double check the D610 max SD card size. It might only handle up to a 64GB card. Having a ton of SD cards might be the best solution. Figure out how much you plan to shoot and see if 10-15 cards would serve your purpose.

I had a similar situation last year and ended up going with a WD 3TB MyPassport Wireless Pro (similar to a Gnarbox). It was probably less than $200. I had it configured to insert SD card and auto download all the videos off the card. It turned out that I had plenty of cards so I ended up keeping all the data on the cards and just dumping the contents onto the drive as a redundant backup. If you go that route, I strongly suggest you take the time to properly set it up and test it often. Test inserting the card and watching to see when ALL the data is done copying. Check out how it works, for instance if you "dump" a card for data and then use the card to take more pictures without deleting the old pics, and then dump it back to the WD drive will you have duplicates? You need to check out all those scenarios.

In the end I could have survived with just all of my memory cards and done without the WD 3TB device and I haven't used it since. It was nice to know that all my data was on the cards AND on the 3TB drive but ultimately unnecessary.

 

[Nathan Lanni]

Thanks for the suggestion. That's actually pretty clever - I take it you're basically using the laptop as interface between SD card and the portable drive.

I may consider that option regardless.

What about getting a cheap pre-owned laptop and portable drive just to copy and past your shots on a daily basis. This is what I do when I travel.

 

[Nathan Lanni]

Numbering the sets of cards is pretty clever, really. I'd been shopping for cards, when I was suddenly gripped by the "what if" syndrome. Silly, really.

I think in all my years using SD cards, which stretches back a ways, I've had 1 maybe 2 card fails, and then I'm pretty sure some unusual circumstances played a role. Maybe 1 card failure stumped me so it was likely defective. I think that speaks to the reliability of the cards.

On top of that I'll have the DSLR copy files to both card slots. I looked around and there some nice cases you can get to protect the cards.

After that, there's only some much you can do, right?

Thanks Fish.

If it were me I'd stock up on 128 GB SD cards, number them and set my camera to use Slot 2 as "Backup". When the cards get full, swap them for a fresh pair. The cards are numbered so card #'s 1 and 2 are a set, cards #3 and #4 are set, etc.

If you're concerned you might have a crap card, run it by H2Testw. If there's an error on the SD card, H2Testw will find it.

You can drive yourself nuts with, "yeah, but..." and coming up with all kinds of "what if..." scenarios but the simple fact is, there is no perfect solution.

 

[Nathan Lanni]

Check the DSLR's specs is a good Idea. No doubt the d610 won't tolerate the largest of the fastest cards.

Thanks for the suggestions.

You might want to double check the D610 max SD card size. It might only handle up to a 64GB card. Having a ton of SD cards might be the best solution. Figure out how much you plan to shoot and see if 10-15 cards would serve your purpose.

I had a similar situation last year and ended up going with a WD 3TB MyPassport Wireless Pro (similar to a Gnarbox). It was probably less than $200. I had it configured to insert SD card and auto download all the videos off the card. It turned out that I had plenty of cards so I ended up keeping all the data on the cards and just dumping the contents onto the drive as a redundant backup. If you go that route, I strongly suggest you take the time to properly set it up and test it often. Test inserting the card and watching to see when ALL the data is done copying. Check out how it works, for instance if you "dump" a card for data and then use the card to take more pictures without deleting the old pics, and then dump it back to the WD drive will you have duplicates? You need to check out all those scenarios.

In the end I could have survived with just all of my memory cards and done without the WD 3TB device and I haven't used it since. It was nice to know that all my data was on the cards AND on the 3TB drive but ultimately unnecessary.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

... I'd been shopping for cards, when I was suddenly gripped by the "what if" syndrome. Silly, really.

Pretty sure we've all been there.

I think in all my years using SD cards, which stretches back a ways, I've had 1 maybe 2 card fails, and then I'm pretty sure some unusual circumstances played a role. Maybe 1 card failure stumped me so it was likely defective. I think that speaks to the reliability of the cards.

I've had exactly one SD that got dodgy on me I let go of. Other than that, zero issues with any SD card I've owned.

On top of that I'll have the DSLR copy files to both card slots. I looked around and there some nice cases you can get to protect the cards.

After that, there's only some much you can do, right?

Right on all counts. And yeah, your D610 will handle as large a capacity card as you want to stuff it with. I have one photographer on staff that uses a pair of 512GB cards and I'm 99% sure he shoots with a D600/D610.

 

[hark]

One of our beloved members who is no longer with us mentioned using some type of portable hard drive that had a card reader slot. Supposedly it allowed backups directly from memory cards (no PC required). I don't know if he ever posted the exact model he used.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

One of our beloved members who is no longer with us mentioned using some type of portable hard drive that had a card reader slot. Supposedly it allowed backups directly from memory cards (no PC required). I don't know if he ever posted the exact model he used.

That would be, most likely, the Western Digital Passport Wireless Pro Portable External Hard Drive. They come in HDD and SSD flavors.

The HDD versions aren't too bad, price-wise, but the SSD versions are just too rich for my blood ($500 for a 1TB drive (yikes!!).

 

[hark]

That would be, most likely, the Western Digital Passport Wireless Pro Portable External Hard Drive. They come in HDD and SSD flavors.

The HDD versions aren't too bad, price-wise, but the SSD versions are just too rich for my blood ($500 for a 1TB drive (yikes!!).

I'm pretty sure it was some type of WD drive so that might very well be it. I couldn't find one when I searched. Thanks.

 

[Bikerbrent_RIP]

That would be, most likely, the Western Digital Passport Wireless Pro Portable External Hard Drive. They come in HDD and SSD flavors.

The HDD versions aren't too bad, price-wise, but the SSD versions are just too rich for my blood ($500 for a 1TB drive (yikes!!).

This sounds like an ideal solution, but unfortunately the reviews scare me off. I would hope someone else make a simular setup that actually works reliably.

 

[PapaST]

This sounds like an ideal solution, but unfortunately the reviews scare me off. I would hope someone else make a simular setup that actually works reliably.

This is the one that I used on a trip last year. It worked reliably enough but I work with technology so it was a bit easier to get it working. For the average person I can see how it would get frustrating and probably wouldn't recommend. I have so many SD cards that in reality I don't have a need for it.

Two reasons why it was nice to have: 1. I could use it as a power source to charge other USB devices. 2. On the plane ride back home all my buddies were able to connect to it via wifi and view all the photos and videos from their smartphones.

 

[Skwaz]

If your a bit paranoid about failures get loads of 16gb cards , if the worst happens its 16gb s worth

 

[desmobob]

If it were me, I'd get a bunch of good SD cards and a nice, weatherproof SD card case (I have one; they're inexpensive). The problem with this approach is you'll have to wait until you get home to cull/process your images. A cheap notebook/laptop seems like an excellent alternative...

Stay sharp,
Bob

 

[Andy W]

B&H has a cyber week sale on SD cards through today.

 

[Eduard]

I travel a lot for work and personal enjoyment. I'm also certified in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery so needless to say I take data protection pretty seriously. Coincidentally, my wife and I are off to Europe again this week for holiday. This is my approach to travel data storage which we will again utilize.

I have an 11" Macbook Air (~2.3 lb) with an upgraded SSD. I copy our image files daily from both of our cameras and our phones, as well as the tracklog from my GPS, to the laptop disk. Depending on our schedule, I may also import in Lightroom. I always make a second copy to an external portable storage device; I currently use a Samsung T3 which weighs less than 2 ounces. I usually have enough memory cards to not have to re-use during the trip. While in transit, my wife carries the T3 in a different bag than my laptop. When I travel for work, I'll keep the external storage in a separate bag as well.

The advantages of this approach is that I have multiple copies of our files (original media, laptop, external storage) in multiple physical locations without being cumbersome. Even in well known hotel chains, the data speeds are typically not fast enough to transfer a large amount of data to a cloud type data store. In the smaller, B&B type places we prefer, that simply isn't an option. Due to the limitations of data transfer, I still think local data copy is the most efficient approach.

This past summer we did a 3 country, 17 day family trip and outside of having to reuse one set of memory cards, no issue. I've used a variation of this approach for the last 8-10 years through (according to Tripit stats) 25 countries, 215 cities and just under 600,000 travel miles. Knock on wood, so far I've never lost an image. I'm serious about the so far because odds are it can happen at some point. This approach is reasonable, not burdensome and minimizes the impact.

Safe travels!

 

[Nathan Lanni]

I travel a lot for work and personal enjoyment. . . .

Very nice description Eduard, thank you. Your method of protecting your data is indeed very sophisticated for a traveler, and, sounds right on for a large data network, such as a large proprietary server operations I'm familiar with.

I will definitely incorporate elements of your plan into my own. Thank you very much.

 

[Nathan Lanni]

So to everyone here who has given me suggestions, here's a summary of how I've taken your suggestions and turned them into a plan. Thanks to you guys for talked me off the ledge. 1st time going to Europe and all .... I got too focused so now I'm actually thinking/looking at the big picture.

I'm now planning on taking a notebook with an attached backup drive. It will help in the overall to protect my images but it will be good to use on site to review my images as they are produced. I'm still thinking I won't process any images in Europe. I have a really powerful PC in the US that I prefer to use for for various graphic functions, including Lightroom, PS, etc., plus I'm really sloooow at it.

So I did some calculations and physically copied a bunch of average size NEF files (29mb) files on to a 32gb SD data card to see what it would take to fill it up. Turns out 160 files is 4.57gb on the disk. I suppose I should have known that, but before it always was whatever it was and I didn't pay attention as long as I had SD's to spare.

On another site a pro blogger mentioned SanDisk Extreme Pro, so I tend to believe the claim they are more durable and fast. There's a faster grade than I'm getting but from what I can tell it's wasted on my d610, and once I finally upgrade it's a different format all together so why spend the money, right? I've purchased only 2 so far, so if I'm wrong about the speed please speak up.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-32GB-UHS-I-SDSDXXG-032G-GN4IN/dp/B01J5RHBQ4



They range in size 16gb to 512gb ($279). The 16's are listed but in low supply (1 genius had a 16gb listed for $112). I'm paying a premium @ $15 for 32gb (same price Amazon or B&H).

So I'll use a 32gb marked pair SD for like 2 days, then swap 'em out. Get a nice protective case. Leave the previous pair in the room.

That gives me redundant pairs of SD's with separation, the notebook and data drive. Of course, I'll be carrying everything back on the plane so if it goes, I guess I'll be SOL, lost all my new images, right?

Thanks

Nate

 

[Spirit Vision Photography]

Thanks for the suggestion. That's actually pretty clever - I take it you're basically using the laptop as interface between SD card and the portable drive.

I may consider that option regardless.

I think that will be my approach, but I am looking to use a small iPad for the transfer.