I'm not computer savvy. Was thinking of getting a Nexus 7. There are cords for SD cards and flashdrives. Would this work as a back up? I usually just carry extra SD cards, but this would allow me to view and show the pics while on the road.
Just my two cents and a PSA to prevent the headache that comes with losing those digital memories. My day job keeps me heavily involved in the world of data storage and data recovery. No matter what media you choose (SD, external hard drive, etc) I would merely like to remind folks of the "3-2-1 Rule" for backing up photos and video, etc: Make 3 complete copies of your data, keep them on at least 2 separate systems, and have at least 1 on a natural disaster protected hard drive or offsite in the cloud. To take it a step further, "backup" means to make a SECOND copy of the data to be placed on a physically different system. "Backup" does not mean "move" your data. If you have only one copy of your data on any one system, your data is vulnerable to loss (think coffee spills, dropping your device or media, power surges, hardware failure and the Number #1 cause of data loss.... Human Error.)
As a professional photographer (who has admittedly yet to fill an 8GB CF card while on one trip... d-oh!) I like the idea of a netbook for storage along with one of these for backup: http://iosafe.com/products-rugged-portable-SSD-overview Check out these features: <table border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Crush protection up to 5,000 lbs.</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Drop protection up to 20'</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Immersion protection up to 30' for 3 days</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">USB 3.0 SuperSpeed</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Data Recovery Service up to $5,000</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">World's best warranty</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Works with Macs and PCs</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; "> </td><td style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left; ">Featuring IntelĀ® Solid-State Drive 320 Series, the super-fast hard drive alternative</td></tr></tbody></table>I use ioSafe products as my frontline for storage and backup of multible TB's of client images. Also, for $20 if you don't already have one of these on your bike, you're nuts: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Sea-Dual-...s=blue+sea+usb
I carry a laptop with me when I travel. Every night, all pics and videos are transferred to the laptop and everything on the cards in the cameras are deleted so I have a clean slate for the next day. Once a week or so, I copy all of the files from my laptop to a 1 Terrabite portable drive in case my laptop gets liberated. Some of the pictures I like get transferred to my smugmug account online. With the speed of a lot of the internet, there isn't enough time in the day to upload everything to the "cloud" -
If I were to wipe my cards after copying pics, I'd probably carry a small USB powered hard drive to make a second copy onto off the laptop.
I'm going to update my own advice with a photo of the UDMA Colorspace I recommend: (shown with example photo cards inserted. Caution: only insert 1 card at a time!) This is about the size of a small paperback book. On Monday I got back from this loop in the Southwest and Mexico: I took two cameras and a GoPro Each day I would transfer the card content of these three devices to the Colorspace UDMA device, and then clear the card by formatting. As I said above, I have a 1 TB laptop hard drive in the Colorspace (I bought the "empty" version and installed my own hard drive). You buy whatever size drive you wish, or install any size drive you wish, as long as it is a laptop hard drive. When you connect the UDMA to your computer, it reads it as a virtual drive, and all your photos and video are there, and in their own daily folder as well, which helps with ride reporting and organization. In addition to storage and backup, this is an often overlooked aspect to ride report organization. Having a daily "file" really helps. (Each update session creates its own folder). Never in a 1,000 years are you going to fill up a 1 TB drive, I don't care who you are, unless you're Steven Spielberg filming a movie. The device itself can be wall powered or by a battery. It's just about the best device out there for photo/video transfer/storage while on the road. You can find it here: http://www.hypershop.com/ (click on the "Drive" link) or on Amazon.com Really, there's nothing faster, easier, or better, or more compact.
Can you manage which folder each SD card files go into? For example have something like 2013-11-03/GoPro 2013-11-03/D7000 2013-11-03/BlackBerry instead of the device dumping everything in one dated folder.
I like the looks of the Hyperdrive, but I have never used one or even heard of one before Tricepilot's post. I went with a 10.5 inch Asus laptop 500 GB hd and a 2 TB WD external hd.(it's the size of a deck of cards) Total cost around 450 dollars. The laptop fits in my tank bag along with the hard drive. My wife will be taking pictures from the pillion on our upcoming trip to AK, plus I'll take pics when I can, plus the Go Pro videos. I know we won't fill the hard drive up, but with 5 weeks of travel planned, I didn't want to skimp on storage.
I got this for $45: http://www.ravpower.com/ravpower-rp-wd01-filehub-3000mah-power-bank.html It's a self-powered wi-fi file server with an SD card slot and a USB slot for a portable hard drive. It has enough battery capacity to charge/power a phone as well. I put my SD card in it, plug in my Western Digital 3 TB drive, open the app on my iPhone/iPad and transfer my files off the SD card onto the hard drive. You can transfer the files to your phone/tablet as well. It's all self-contained and wireless. The only cable involved is the one from the Ravpower to the portable hard drive. You can also view your video and photos within the app directly from the SD card or hard drive without transferring them to your device. The app is a little bit buggy and kind of a pain to set up, but once you have it set up it's great for transferring, and OK for viewing (my Gopro files stutter a bit after a while). It will supposedly allow multiple connections for several users to view content at one time. Another feature, but the most buggy, is that it can be used as a wi-fi bridge so that the device connected to it can also connect to the internet through it. For simply transferring files from an SD card to a portable hard drive it's the best thing ever. For the other features, it's OK, but buggy.
I recently took a 9 day trip to Austin, Tx and back. I used a small (cheap) laptop to transfer pictures each day from my camera SD cards (3 of them) to a 1TB portable HD. The set up worked and I was able to label a different folder per camera. I found the tablets available did not have enough ports to seamlessly shift the pictures from the SD cards to the HD. I was running 32GB micros in my two Drifts and a 4 GB in the still camera. The setup worked out pretty well for not much of an investment.