Back up Photos without Laptop?

[BeckyEsq]

I will be taking my DSLR on our trip and I would feel better if I could back up my pictures each night. I may just go ahead and lug my laptop, but I was wondering if anyone knows of any alternatives. Is there a card reader / external HD device that would work for this purpose? I'll be taking my Kindle but since it does not have a USB port I can't transfer the photos directly from the camera to the Kindle. If anyone has found a solution for this I'd appreciate hearing it. Thanks!

 

[Porktitioner]

Here are some options from B and H.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Portable-Data-Storage/ci/3369/N/4083163867

 

[Turbanator]

Just get a usb stick. They are very small and can hold many gb and cheap to buy

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

It really depends upon how much memory you are going to need. My last trip I used between 40-50 gb. My cheapest solution was to take my laptop.

 

[photo_chick]

I will be taking my DSLR on our trip and I would feel better if I could back up my pictures each night. I may just go ahead and lug my laptop, but I was wondering if anyone knows of any alternatives. Is there a card reader / external HD device that would work for this purpose? I'll be taking my Kindle but since it does not have a USB port I can't transfer the photos directly from the camera to the Kindle. If anyone has found a solution for this I'd appreciate hearing it. Thanks!

The Kindle actually does have a USB but you still can't just plug a card reader in and go. You need a computer to move stuff over to it.

Aside from what's been mentioned, another option if you only only have a few GB worth of images is to use the hotel's business center and upload to a cloud storage account like Dropbox or Google Drive.

 

[BeckyEsq]

Here are some options from B and H.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Portable-Data-Storage/ci/3369/N/4083163867

this is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!!!

 

[nvtsallo]

I have looked into those but they are expensive. My suggestion is to find a cheap netbook for $200-300 and bring that if your not editing otherwise get a windows tablet with a usb like the surface rt.

 

[sanschag]

I have an earlier version of the Hyperdrive Colorspace purchased ~6 years ago for a trip to Europe (when we were very space/weight constrained). I find it useful, but more often than not, take our netbook or my laptop nowadays as I can use it for other things, including very basic processing and posting to our website. For our trip to WDW in Oct, I plan to take my Macbook Air (work laptop), though I may take my Colorspace as a backup. One thing to look into to compare buying one without a drive and one with one. The Colorspace takes a standard laptop drive, so you may be able to get one cheaper than the cost difference. I would also "ask around" as you don't need a very big drive and some people may have one lying around. (I know I have a few.)

 

[BeckyEsq]

I have looked into those but they are expensive. My suggestion is to find a cheap netbook for $200-300 and bring that if your not editing otherwise get a windows tablet with a usb like the surface rt.

I thought about that too. It just seems so redundant since I have a laptop and a Kindle.

 

[nvtsallo]

I thought about that too. It just seems so redundant since I have a laptop and a Kindle.

I agree. I am brining my ipad and macbook retina 13" but they stay in the room and serve their purpose. By next year tablets will keep flooding the market and by then you will have more choices. This tech has only been popular for 7 months since the release of windows 8. I wishnI could pay a fee to have a laptop furnished in my room and just bring an external hd but thats a dream that will never happen.

 

[mikegood2]

Aside from what's been mentioned, another option if you only only have a few GB worth of images is to use the hotel's business center and upload to a cloud storage account like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Hotel business centers are always an option. If you give your hotel a call they should be able to tell you how much they charge a if its by the minute or blocks of time. For my last trip I decided that option would not be cost effective for me. I think I figured it would be $30-$40 and also require me to sit in the business center multiple times during my trip.

Also, while cloud storage might be an option, I would assume it would take awhile to upload. Personally I would probably bring/use a portable hard drive or a few flash drives.

I thought about that too. It just seems so redundant since I have a laptop and a Kindle.

It is but depending on the size of your laptop it might be a better option.

I still haven't decided what I want to do. I will bring my iPad mini and have a choice between a older netbook or a 13" MacBook Air. I'd be borrowing either so that is part of my concern. I like the fact that I can view and even edit my photos on the air, but don't know if I want to spend much time looking at them. The netbook is smaller, and honestly if something happened to it I'd fell better about it than the air. It also has a larger HD, so I can make 2 BUs (netbook and external HD). I can't really view photos or do much else with the netbook.

I will also be shooting RAW/jpeg so I might just bring an extra sd card and copy just the jpegs on it and use an sd connector kit to copy them onto the iPad I just need to see if it works. If I do that I'll probably bring the netbook.

 

[photo_chick]

Hotel business centers are always an option. If you give your hotel a call they should be able to tell you how much they charge a if its by the minute or blocks of time. For my last trip I decided that option would not be cost effective for me. I think I figured it would be $30-$40 and also require me to sit in the business center multiple times during my trip.

Also, while cloud storage might be an option, I would assume it would take awhile to upload. Personally I would probably bring/use a portable hard drive or a few flash drives.

Some hotel business centers are still free to use. But you're right, it does take a long time to upload which is why I wouldn't even consider it if you have more than a couple of GB worth of pictures. Which is possible... my mother in law still uses an older camera with 1GB cards that hold about 500 pictures and she probably wouldn't fill that up but maybe once or twice on a trip. So this kind of thing might benefit someone like her.