SteveLew Loc: Sugar Land, TX

I will be attending a three day photography workshop later this week out of state. I will not be taking a lap top. I was thinking about downloading the photos taken each day to a portable hard drive. Can you offer suggestions of the most reliable 2 tb. portable hard for a mac.

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

Another option would be to bring extra cards and wait until you were back home to download them.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Ravpower WD-03 - it's a device that has an SD card slot, and a USB 2.0 jack - you can transfer files to any USB device - you initiate and monitor the file transfer on a wireless device such as a cellphone or tablet. It also has a 6000ma battery, and can charge a cellphone several times. It's a wireless router and thanks to a RJ45 jack, an ethernet bridge among other things. I have a pair of 256 gb memory sticks and I can back up tons of files to one, then duplicate to the other stick. I've been using this for the past 18 months - flawless performance. Other than the slow USB 2 connection, it is a great solution for your purposes. And it only costs $36.

I suppose I should try to see if I can use a USB hub, and write from one USB device to another. That would be pretty cool.

dkguill Loc: Elkhart, IN

I just received my RAV wd03 yesterday. I am going to test using a usb hub to insert a card reader so I can transfer files from CF cards to an external HHD. If that works this thing will be a great tool for travel.

dkguill Loc: Elkhart, IN

This may become a saga before it's over. I received the RAV WD03 and a folding pamphlet that tells me very little about how to use it. I have managed so far to plug in a usb hub and a card reader with a CF card mounted. I then put the SD card in the appropriate slot on the RAV device and downloaded an app to my Samsung phone as instructed. It appears that I can plug in up to 4 usb devices that will be recognized through the usb hub. I added my portable 1TB HD which required me to power the usb hub, but when I did that it did spin up the HD. At this point I can see jpg files on my phone that reside on either CF or SD cards. I can see files residing on the HD as well. I can't figure out how to transfer files from one device to another yet. I suspect it will take a phone call to their support number to resolve that issue because even the 130+Page .PDF manual downloaded from online reads like someone speaking in tongues. Seems to me a chat line or a phone call is going to be required. I'll keep you posted if I can get this thing to do what it's supposed to do.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

WD MyPassport for Mac.

dkguill Loc: Elkhart, IN

OK...better news. I reluctantly resolved to read some of the 130+ page manual. I discovered that:
1. Using a USB Hub you can indeed read up to 4 devices.
2. If you add a HDD as one of the devices, you should have a powered USB Hub
3. Putting an SD card from my 5D Mk 4 into the built-in SD slot in the WD03, and a CF card from the same camera into a 5-in-1 Targus card reader and plugging that reader into the USB Hub, and then plugging the 1TB USB HDD into a second socket on the UBS Hub, and using my Samsung S7 phone with the FileHub Plus App downloaded to the phone, I can access the CF Card, the SD Card, the micro SD card in the phone, and the HHD contents and see the files on my phone. I can copy and paste any files from/to any of the attached devices.
4. All photos in jpg format can be seen on the phone and as thumb nails in the file listings. CR2 RAW files only appear with a "?" in the thumb nail images and they, of course, can not be opened in the phone...BUT, they CAN be copied from memory cards to any storage device (HDD, Thumb Drive etc.) for later post processing.

What this means to me is that, when I travel, I can copy all image files taken each day to my HDD (up to 4TB in size). Then I can wipe the memory card clean for the next day's shoot...OR...I can set the camera to record duplicate files on both the SD and CF card, dump one card to the HDD and retain a backup copy on one card. If I bring, for instance, several extra SD cards on the trip, they can retain image files shot as a second backup to the HDD copy and leave my wiped CF cards ready for the next shoot.

There are many other features to the RAV Power WD03 which I suspect I will never use, simply because I don't have a need that I know of for those operations. The sole purpose of this device for me was to eliminate the need to carry a laptop on a trip. It appears that I will be quite happy with its capabilities in that regard.

I'll terminate this subject unless someone has additional questions.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I suspected that would be the case, but outside of using it wired and connected to ethernet in a hotel room (that only offered wifi for a daily fee), and using it as my personal wifi in the room, and copying from SD card to memory sticks, I hadn't explored the other capabilities. It is an extremely useful and cheap device - with none of reliability problems associated with low-quality external hard drives, which work just fine until they break, and they always break sooner or later. Buying two drives is always an option, but buying (2) 256 gb memory sticks is cheaper and easier to manage - at least for me.

dkguill Loc: Elkhart, IN

Yes, I asked before buying if there was a way to use a card reader and I was told no at first. My concern there was that all three of my Canon cameras use a combination of CF & SD cards. The built in SD slot answered the question for transferring from SD to another USB storage device, but it left me wondering why I couldn't use a reader to take images from the CF cards. I don't know if it was a simple matter of a firmware update, but when I tried the card reader it worked fine, so my issue was taken care of. I agree that using memory sticks (I think max in 256 GB) is an excellent solution and one that is perhaps less cumbersome that the external HDD. I just happen to have the 1TB HDD that is already paid for. I might otherwise also consider a SSD if I needed more storage than 256GB. I did see a picture in one review that showed the user had attached the HDD to the bottom of the RAV using thick rubber bands so that it was a little more contained. Don't know if that's necessary or even a good idea. I'm just too old to be interested in some of the other functions like setting up a router etc. Maybe I'll stumble on a need, but I doubt it.