mattc2

Just wanted to hear what you guys do to backup photos during travel, esp for longer durations, eg. 1-2 weeks or longer?

I don't feel completely safe keeping everything in 1 (or a few) memory card in case of a card failure and I lose all my photos.

So, questions are

1. are there anything that let's me to backup the content of my cf card onto another device (say a usb drive or portable hdd) without the access of a computer?
2. if I can get access to a computer, what would be a good solution to back them up? a 2.5inch portable hdd? cloud solution?

Thanks for all your comments

ND Sol

If I don't take my laptop, then I will just rotate my memory cards so all my eggs are not in one basket. When I take my laptop, I also take my portable HD as I need the USB3.0 1.0tb for my photos (especially with raw output from a 24mp camera).

I haven't tried it out, but have you looked at something like this for backing up without a computer?

CPRich

I have a PSD - built especially for this purpose. I haven't used it in a while as I usually have my laptop, but it's the right tool for this situation.

mattc2

Ahh that link you have there is indeed something I'm looking for, I should look into it and find some reviews on it. Thanks

abmj-jr

There are several portable storage/viewing devices on the market. Adorama did a pretty good review of the best. http://www.adorama.com/alc/0011757/a...rage-Right-Now .

Personally, if I am on the road for a week or more, I will always have my small laptop. It doubles as storage but I primarily use it to do on-the-fly editing and image finishing so I can share photos on my blog or by e-mail. I also take enough memory cards that I don't have to erase and reuse them. The cards themselves serve as one back-up, the laptop as another. If I am gone much over a week, I also take a Western Digital Passport portable HDD for long-term storage.

CPRich

The link I provided above, and abmj-jr provided below, is exactly that.

The Best Portable Storage Right Now! - http://www.adorama.com/alc/0011757/a...rage-Right-Now

glennaa11

I got an Ultrabook (and previously thin and light laptops) primarily for travel. I carry a portable external HDD and back everything up to it at the end of the day. I carry enough SD cards that I don't need to reuse them during a trip so I have two copies of everything between the original SD card and the HDD backup.

But I have used a Colorspace backup drive in the past. The one I have is called Album but it's no longer made. It was much cheaper to buy the empty shell and install my own 2.5" HDD than to get one with the drive already installed. So I would look into whether that is possible with the current generation of their devices. These things work great. Just plug in your card and back up the pictures to the drive inside.

nar0

Having a camera with Dual SD card slots is amazing for this. Instead of having to carry an hard drive or anything I just carry more SD cards. It automatically write to both cards and I can use the camera to clone a SD card if I want more than 1 backup.

If you have a something with Dual SD card slots (Like a ASUS Transformer Tablet w/ Dock and a cheap SD Card reader plugged into the USB slot) you can do it too.

I think its the lightest way of getting backups that you can do, not the cheapest but you can just buy a ton of cheap super slow SD cards solely for backup. Nowadays I typically carry 6+ SD cards on a trip instead of a portable hard drive.

sethb

If you have a smartphone, I know there are cables to connect to a USB device to copy stuff to/from the phone. You could then back up your camera (or its card), via the phone, to a hard drive or other device.

nabeelj

+1

It's called a USB OTG cable. Check if your phone supports it.

BeachBum770

Even on vacation, I travel with a laptop. On some trips, its only intended purpose is to download my photos every evening. The reason is two-fold:
1. I don't like leaving images on the card.
2. I take too many pictures to keep on my cards (nearly 2,000 pics on our Mediterranean cruise a few years back).

I then back up the laptop to a portable hard drive as a redundancy.

midorosan

Surely you have all heard of the cloud or more specifically for the apple guys the iCloud.
Any and all photos taken on your iPhone are automatically uploaded to iCloud and become immediately available on all your devices and those of others with whom you share albums.
You will need wi-fi for this but then there are many places along the way that you can find wi-fi including your hotel room.
If not using a phone then make sure the card you have is the maximum capacity and then follow the advice in the thread regarding a laptop.

intltravel90

Google/Picasa have great auto-backup products.

dtsm

Most of the cloud storage apps work:

dropbox
box
copy

check each out as they offer up to 50gb free storage

PTravel

I never travel without my laptop, so I backup to that AND to an external USB drive. As I shoot digital video and fairly large digital photographs (18 meg), uploading them somewhere isn't practical.

My laptop has a built-in card reader and USB 3.0 ports, so reading and writing to an external USB 3.0 drive is very, very fast.