I take my Lenovo G470 and a 500GB WD Passport simply because it is what I have. It's not as elegant as an iPad or many other options but it was bought and paid for long ago.
If I were willing to spend, I might consider the smallest notebook (HDD not SSD) with the best screen that I could find and afford, in which I could swap out the CD ROM drive for a second HDD in a caddy and copy to both.
Be careful deleting images "in camera" - some feel that it can lead to corruption of the file system on the card. I usually take a stash of 8 to 32 GB CF and SD cards (any larger and you risk loosing too many images if anything happens to the card) on trips; when full store in a safe place.
Imagemaster wrote: Never had that happen in 10 years of shooting.
As far as I can tell, it's all hearsay. There's no technical or practical reason why deleting an image should be risky, and so far anyone who I've asked to back up their claims has never been able to provide anything other than, "it happened to my friend once" or a similar comment.
More cards. When traveling with my wife I review them in the evening on her Mac Air.
Never tried storing or viewing on my iPad (can it even display NEF files) ? I don't know how fast transfer is (OK for viewing perhaps) but I feel more comfortable with extra SD/CF cards and ditto above - never over 64GB in case of loss or corruption.
I used a hyperdrive with a 500gb SSD for max reliability. Got the USB attachment and a few 128gb thumbsticks to serve as secondary. Worked really well once I got the USB attachment finally working. I like how small it was. The battery lasts awhile. For example I uploaded maybe 2 or 3 32gb cards over 3 weeks and still lots of battery left.
It's a basic device that is maybe overpriced for storage (because previewing D800 images is painfully slow in it) but it worked exactly how I wanted.
I have an old Sanho Hyperdrive with a 160GB hard disk and has been with me to 5 continents over the past 6 years and still works fine also still on the original battery too. It takes about 1 min/GB to copy a CF card. I am sure the new current models will be way way faster and better and can recommend it without hesitation.
ken.vs.ryu wrote:
I'd buy a used laptop and sell it again after the trip.
Better yet, get one othose little Notebook computers (one with a large hard drive)
that I see on airplane trips.
My first drive was for the Nikon DX1 camera and had a capacity of 1GB and cost me $700. My last purchase was for a very fast 64GB card that cost me $80. I could have bought a slower 64GB card for $30 that would be fine for 90% of the pictures I take. People often make the mistake of buying cards that are faster than what they actually need for the way they shoot. Even with video there is a point at which faster cards provide no added capabilities only a lot more profit for the card manufacturer.
For $300 I could buy 640GB of SDXC cards. Even with my D800e and shooting RAW at 14-bits that still would hold 14,560 images and if I went to 12-bit RAW and lossy compressed I could nearly double that number of captures. Going to JPEGs at highest quality would double that number again.
Flash cards are nearly indestructible. They have survived being washed and dried while in a pants pocket. They take next to no space to have and mine are always with me on a trip, either buried in a camera bag or on my person where they cannot be taken by a pick pocket or accidentally dropped.
The problems with backup devices are as mentioned the single point of failure, and also the greater chance for theft. Someone might steal my netbook but they are not going to be interested in a small plastic case that hold flash cards.
There is also two logistical problems with all these standalone devices. Most use special batteries and need to be recharged every day they are used. With flash cards only the camera batteries are a concern and so I carry spares so I can go as long as need be between having access to an outlet. The other is the time involved. Do you really want at the end of a long day to be monitoring a backup device and changing out your flash cards before going to sleep?
Think about past trips and the highest number of pictures you have taken in a week's time and come up with an average number per day. For me the number is between 400 and 500 per day at most. For a 15 day trip I would probably be actively taking pictures for 10 of those days with the remainder taken up with travel or being in less than scenic locations on certain days. Storage for 5000 RAW files is all I need.
With the D800 that translates to 220GB with 14-bit RAW images.
elkhornsun wrote:
Do you really want at the end of a long day to be monitoring a backup device and changing out your flash cards before going to sleep?
There is more to it than that. If you have a secondhand/unused notebook modified for travel with two HDD's - the opposite machine of the OP's enquiry - you can potentially delete, catalog, process, upload, check out Miley, and watch The Rum Diary in your hotel room. Of course weight and theft are an issue - so if you are worried about carrying a lump around it's not for you.
CF and SD cards are reliable - it's a question of maths and relative wealth.
Really the best but most expensive solution seems to be the Hyperdrive.
learle wrote:
I just purchased a Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA2 enclosure and went to Best Buy for a 500GB hard drive to put in it. It was easy to install and works great. I liked this option as it takes both CF and SDHC cards without the need for a computer or power source. My plan is to purchase some extras cards so that I don't have to reuse any. I usually like to have 3 copies of my images, but without bringing my laptop I will have to be happy with only 2 copies. I will be going to New Zealand for 2 weeks in April so I wanted to travel light. It isn't exactly a cheap option, but it does have a screen that you can review images on and possibly do some quick culling.
Leah, for this old computer illiterate person would you please clarify for me what exactly you bought. Are you saying the UDMA2 didn't have its own storage and you bought an extra device to back it up or was this something you installed into the UDMA2 which already has storage. I'm confused as I am looking for something to use that would allow me to leave my Laptop at home.
Paul Mo wrote:
I wonder if you can crack them open and replace the drive?
500 GB should be enough to backup all photos of the trip.
If I was going to replace the drive it might be with a 1TB SSD.
However, Hard Drives are continuing to be more shock proof
and this one is especially tempting:
Seagate Desktop 2 TB Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6 GB with NCQ 64 MB Cache 3.5 Inch (ST2000DX001)
$129 at Amazon.com
Jan 30, 2014 at 07:31 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
RRRoger wrote:
500 GB should be enough to backup all photos of the trip.
If I was going to replace the drive it might be with a 1TB SSD.
However, Hard Drives are continuing to be more shock proof
and this one is especially tempting:
Seagate Desktop 2 TB Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6 GB with NCQ 64 MB Cache 3.5 Inch (ST2000DX001)
$129 at Amazon.com
If it is a backup, you still have to keep the files on your SD/CF cards So you still need 500GB---1TB---2TB of memory cards.
The very slow speed when uploading is a joke. It's 3,5 minutes for 1GB according to the specs. And the battery last 80 minutes according to the specs. So in real life use you can't copy a 32GB card. Because it takes so long time that the battery will stop working a long time before that card has been copied
The plan for my upcoming trip is to upload to Google Drive, Dropbox, and my website FTP through my smartphone. Then I can remote into my home PC through TeamViewer and download to my RAID box. I can even edit remotely on my home PC if I bring a tablet and mouse.
BlueBomberTurbo wrote:
The plan for my upcoming trip is to upload to Google Drive, Dropbox, and my website FTP through my smartphone. Then I can remote into my home PC through TeamViewer and download to my RAID box. I can even edit remotely on my home PC if I bring a tablet and mouse.
Isn't it going to be a hell of a time keeping up with it and/or raise eyebrows at your cell provider?
I don't know about you, but I spent 2 weeks in Africa and between my girlfriend and myself, I think we did about 100gb of data. Even if I assume I did that in a place with 4G infrastructure for the cell phone, it would have been a heck of a challenge.
Never had that happen in 10 years of shooting.
So you still need 500GB---1TB---2TB of memory cards.