Ask Engadget: Best portable photo backup / storage device?
By Darren Murph 
posted May 22nd 2009 1:32AM
posted May 22nd 2009 1:32AM
Coming to you live from left field, it's this week's edition of Ask Engadget. Once your done reading and replying (in comments below, naturally) to the question here, feel free to send us your own to ask at engadget dawt com."I am looking for a portable hard drive with memory card slots so that I can save my photos onto it, straight from the memory card. It needs to function without the use of a computer. I have seen a few of these, but nothing name brand, and I was looking for some recommendations. A color screen to view photos would be nice, but not necessary. It doesn't need to be very large, 100GB should be more than enough."
You're right Seth, most of these things do indeed come from relative unknowns. That said, we're sure a few of our readers have taken the plunge, so hopefully you'll find out who likes and dislikes the one they chose. Right, folks?
I purchased the Epson p-3000 a year or so ago on sale at Amazon and, though pricey, I agree, it IS a handy little device. It is the unit with a 40GB drive. It will store, as someone has noted, not only images but also video and mp3 files too. I am a Mac user and don't want to lug my 17" MacBook Pro with me on a trip to Germany this summer, so plan to take my P-3000 along so I can off load my cards and, at least, see them on a screen a bit bigger than the one on my camera. I am sure I will be frustrated that I can't start editing right away, but will have to learn to suck it up, I guess. The netbook approach would afford, at least, the opportunity to do some prelim rating, keywording, and, if you load your editor of choice, editing, but for me that is not really an option. I prefer the P-3000.
Bill
I paid $40 for a 16gb SD card about 6 months ago. Name-brands cost a bit more. Unless I'm shooting video, I just DON'T fill it up. Still, for a big trip, I'd probably get several. If I were only after 100GB of storage, I'd seriously consider just getting a stack of SD cards -- so much more-portable!
And I'll second the Netbook suggestions... a 9" model with a 160gb disk (upgrade to 320gb, if you like) is under $300, small/light, and flexible. And if you happen to have WiFi access, you can backup your photos online as well (use a service/tool that makes this painless, though, or you'll never bother).
I also never erase my cards till they're full -- gives me one more backup copy of my photos!
If you are shooting JPEGs, then 100gb is probably complete overkill, so I am assuming you are shooting RAW or TIFF.
In that case, I think the netbook route is the best way to go. Like someone else said,you can edit and what not. Just get a camera bag that can handle a laptop and you should be good to go.
I bought a Wolverine ESP. I also bought the charging dock, which makes transfering files between the computer and the ESP easy. They come with different size internal harddisks. Mine has a 120GB. I am very happy with mine. My Nikon uses SD cards that I can remove from the camera and pop into the Wolverine to back up the photos. It has a color LCD screen, but the resolution is low (as you would expect on a gadget this small). The screen measures 3.5 inches diagonally. But having the screen is useful because I can hand the ESP around to people to view the photographs rather than handing them my rather expensive camera. I also have lots of audio files (music, comedy, and audiobooks) on the device because it can also be used as a PMP (portable media player). I've even watched a few movies on it while at my desk at work. It plays DivX files. The battery is Li-ion (2500mAh) and pops out for easy replacement. So far I haven't had to replace it. The internal HDD is a standard 2.5-inch hard disk that is typically used in laptop computers, so upgrading to a larger HDD is supposed to be easy. The one negative is that it can't be tossed around casually. I was hit by a car while riding my bike and my ESP was in my jacket pocket. The HDD was destroyed. Fortunately it was still under guarantee. If solid state HDDs ever become cheap I'd like to upgrade to one of those. I use mine almost every day, mostly as a PMP, and I've never been disappointed with it. I carry it in my camera gadget bag when I'm off photo shooting. Hopefully this has been helpful.
- 16G memory cards
- Netbook
- External hard drive
For a recent trip to the Galapagos, I took a few 16G memory cards, a small Sony laptop (win XP w/ 80G drive) and a WD external hard drive. I highly recommend Adobe Lightroom to read in and sort your photos. Lightroom can just read in images that haven't already been read in before, and will keep them in time-sequence if you're shooting multiple cameras. Be sure to synchronize their clocks carefully. (You won't have to erase your cards until you need the space.) Don't change timezones; Lightroom has problems with that. And, don't mind the up-side-down import previews in Lightroom. It's a bug that they claim they'll fix in the next release. The rest of Lightroom is very nice -- and worth the $199.
I investigated a the Epson series of portable readers, but decided that the versatility of the netbook was more worthwhile. By using 16G cards, I never had to unload cards during the day -- only in the evenings, and not even every evening.
I'll eventually post some of the photos to www.edboakes.com
(continuing comments...) Though some iPods can be used as disk storage, and Apple sells a little adapter so that the iPod can directly read images out of most digital cameras, I have tried this route and found that the iPod repeatedly crashes and loses the photos! So, I would advise against this method, though it seemed to work for earlier commenter, David Talmadge.
I do bring an iPod Touch. After sorting down to just the winning photos in Lightroom, I export them as 320x480 jpegs into a subdirectory in the directory that iTunes pulls photos from. This is very handy for showing my photos to others while on a trip (or afterwards!). The I use the Touch as only a displaying device; not for storage of full size images.
I know the person asking gave their reply, but I just found this thread so am adding my 2 cents worth. I used the Wolverine PicPac on a Europe trip last summer backing up 2 digital SLR's and 3 point and shoot digital cameras. Part of the point of backup is to easily have another copy of your pictures which will unlikely disappear if your camera and or laptop are stolen on a trip(which has happened to me).Each evening I'd back up the CD and MS cards to the MacBook Pro, then to the Wolverine, and keep the two backups in separate luggage locations on our tour. You would have to charge the Wolverine every 2-4 days, but it is a small, convenient back up. Tried to post a link below to the companies info. Available online from many vendors.
http://secure.serverlab.net/shop/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=7532&Category_Code=FlashPac&Store_Code=T00107
I liked the other suggestions above, but this one worked personally for a two week trip and will again this summer.