Lee Bjorklund

I would like to make this a simple as possible. So I need a better way to store pictures while traveling. What do you recommend? A laptop (PC), an external hard drive, or both.
Thanks

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I bet you could just take a bunch of 16GB memory cards, and you'd be fine. However, that's not much fun, is it? Here's what I did before going away for two weeks. I got a small netbook for about $250. It has a hard drive of about 350GB. I also got a 1TB external drive.

At the end of each day, I would copy the pictures to the netbook and from there to the external drive. I didn't erase the SD cards till I got home, so I had three copies of everything.

Buy whatever you will need before you leave home. I had to buy a battery, and it cost me $80.

BillMunder Loc: New Hyde Park. NY

Hello. It depends how I'm traveling. If it's by car I'll use a laptop and a 1 TB external hard drive. If it's a cruise I'll bring two 1 TB external hard drive. I'll put the external drives in seperate pieces of luggage. I wait till I'm home to format my cards. This way I'll have three or four copies till I get them home safely.
Hope this helps.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

I use both, a MacBookPro and firewire external drive, and download to the computer and the external drive every night so I can review what I've shot in Light room. After that I reformat the memory cards in both of my cameras so I'm ready to go for the next day. When I get home, I copy all of the files to my main computer and two external hard drives I use for permanent backup.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

How do you get the images onto the hard drives without a computer?

anotherview Loc: California

When going on the road, I take my laptop computer and a 1TB external drive as a backup.

I download my photographs using Adobe Camera Raw to the laptop drive and to the external 1TB drive at the same time.

Only after assuring myself that ACR has saved my photographs to both the internal and external drives do I format the memory card.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

I think this issue needs more elaboration.
1. Are you traveling by aircraft or motor vehicle?
2. Do you use RAW or JPEG or both as your format?
3. What is your destination and how long is this travel lasting?

The first consideration is bulk of taking a laptop and external HDDs with you on an extended trip with possibility of theft. No matter what you decide on, make sure you store serial numbers for all equipment in a safe place before departing and insure all your equipment in case of theft.
If you only take JPEG photos, then almost any laptop or lapbook will do the job since the files will not be huge. I agree with Jerry that you shouldn't erase your memory cards until you get back and download to your home computer. Having all the data on 3 separate media is sensible.
Unless you store huge RAW files, like those generated by a D800 or similar large megapixel camera, you probably won't fill up a small 250 or 300 gig HDD.

A nice solution for those owning older small HDD sized laptops is the replacement of the small drive with a WD BLACK2 dual drive that has a 120 gig SSD and a 1 terabyte HDD enclosed in the same 2.5" enclosure. Solves 2 problems with one solution. It revitalizes the laptop with it's fast SSD for bootup and increases your HDD storage to a good sized 1 terabyte.

There are also some portable storage devices to keep your photo files on that do not require a laptop but I've never tried any and suspect they utilize the the insertion of your SD card into them for files transfer. No idea of price or storage space either.

Easiest and cheapest solution is to take lots of memory cards and just keep them full until you get back home.There are SD card storage wallets available that will keep your cards safely till you get home. Airport X-ray machines will not destroy your photo files stored on SD, CF or CM cards.

There's also "CLOUD STORAGE" but here again you need a computer and internet access.

Lee Bjorklund

Thanks everyone. This may sharpen the focus. (1)I use SD cards however on the last two trips I have had gaps of missing files. (2)Most of the shots are in JPEG. 3) The travel I am asking about is flying to Europe, Asia, or Africa for up to a month.(4) As I mentioned, I would like to keep it simple but also light weight.(5)And finally,specific brand (or model) names are appreciated.
Lee

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

For an extended trip like that, I'd surely take my laptop and an external HDD drive for backup. Be aware of voltage and plug differences though. Power frequency is not a problem since portable devices convert the power to DC in the transformer. Plug adapters are needed though.

To make any reasonable suggestion as to make or model though, I'd need to hear your budget. The WD BLACK2 drive I spoke of and own costs over $230 alone and a 750 gig SAMSUNG SSD is another $350 and their 1 terabyte unit is over $500. You can use 1 terabyte external USB HDDs and get away with spending about $100 or so now though.

As long as you're not doing PP work on this machine, almost any CPU will work for storing your photos on the HDD or CLOUD. Having a USB 3.0 bus is definitely a plus. Using a WINDOWS or APPLE machine is personal preference and by budget.

Have you searched all the folders on those SD cards thoroughly? Sometimes, missing photos are hidden in folders on the SD card.

Lee Bjorklund

Thanks. If I get a small and light weight laptop that will hold 2500 images, do I need to carry along an external hard drive?
Lee

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Can't hurt. If there's a problem with the laptop, you could lose all your pictures.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

You can cheaply do it with a 2.5" HDD and a metal USB 3.0 enclosure to backup all your photos, and the whole thing is about the size of a cellphone. I used my old 2.5" WD 750 gig HDD and put it into a metal case with USB 3.0 for almost nothing since I had the drive already. The enclosure cost me $25 and it came with the USB cable and it's powered through the double USB connector so there's no extra power transformer. All you need is a good backup program installed on the laptop.

Lee Bjorklund

Thank you. It all has been very helpful.
Lee

BillMunder Loc: New Hyde Park. NY

I should have said I bring my laptop on cruises.

Haydon

The most practical solution is to buy more memory cards but if you own a Nikon D800 and won't settle for anything less than high resolution RAW files my method falls short.

Last year, I visited a friend in Colorado (flight) and spent the better part of 5 days traveling in a car putting on 2000 miles. I never filled my second CF card using my Canon 1DIV but still managed about 1500 photographs in RAW.

I could of left my laptop and external 1 terabyte HD at home but we had great fun reviewing pictures at the end of the night.