Are There Any Good Flash Memory Portable CF Card Backup Solutions?

[TMR Design]

After doing a lot of research and reading about backup solutions I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of having a portable hard drive with me, and a laptop is out of the question.
That doesn't negate the fact that portable backup is an outstanding idea. I'm all for carrying many smaller CF cards rather than 2 16GB cards but regardless of what you do you only have one master copy of the images. Even if you only lost 1 1GB card, it could have the money shots from that day. Too big a risk as far as I'm concerned.

So what are the best solutions for portable backup? Is there a Flash memory storage device for this purpose? And is it reasonably priced?

[rhys]

After doing a lot of research and reading about backup solutions I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of having a portable hard drive with me, and a laptop is out of the question.
That doesn't negate the fact that portable backup is an outstanding idea. I'm all for carrying many smaller CF cards rather than 2 16GB cards but regardless of what you do you only have one master copy of the images. Even if you only lost 1 1GB card, it could have the money shots from that day. Too big a risk as far as I'm concerned.

So what are the best solutions for portable backup? Is there a Flash memory storage device for this purpose? And is it reasonably priced?

Yes there are flash memory based hard drives. They're horrible prices at the moment though.

What size might you need?

IMHO at the moment 16GB CF cards at $100 each look better value.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&SubCategory=636&N=2013240636

[TMR Design]

Hi Rhys,

That is my point though. Using larger or more cards does nothing for me in terms of backup. This issue is backup.

[TMR Design]

Hi again Rhys,

I don't think I was clear in my original post. I'm not looking for a way to have fewer CF cards than I actually need for the shoot. I want to go out with enough storage space on CF cards to shoot whatever I need but also have a backup system of some sort so that I have duplicates as a backup, should anything happen. This way, whether it's the cards or the backup, the images are there.

[Zoodles]

Yeah, but when are you going to backup?
My point being - if the data card dies between camera and computer you're still not going to get it into a backup.
SanDisk have data recovery software built-in (need to load on computer), otherwise you just save to computer and then backup after processing. (unless you have a different workflow?)

[sapearl]

Robert - I understand what you are trying to do, but I guess I'd have to wonder what the possibility of card failure would be with a major brand. I tend to travel light and I like to keep it simple. I have a pouch full of 2GB Sandisk Extreme II that I save my 5D's RAW files to. This gives me a about 150 images per wedding or event.

I thought of some back up device - but then that's another thing to carry around, to distract me from the action, another point of potential (mechanical) failure...... I guess I put my faith in my modest sized low cost name brand cards. Maybe I am deluding myself, but I see spreading the files across several brand name cards in a small pouch as having minimal risk.

[rhys]

Ok. Then there are two solutions I can think of...

This is the first: http://www.beachaudio.com/Alera/330100-p-63738.html?utm_campaign=froogle&utm_content=AD_ID&utm_term=330100&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=froogle&GTKW=330100&GCID=C12585x003 (I don't know anything about this retailer) - it seems you can use this little unit to copy your CF cards so take twice the number and just copy each card.

There have been units that will write a CF card's contents to a DVD but I can't at the moment find one listed anywhere.

[TMR Design]

Interesting looking device. I don't see others using it and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig. Thanks for showing it to me though.

I guess from what everyone is saying here and from what I've been reading in other "which portable backup?" threads there doesn't seem to be much card failure and probably a greater chance of hard drive failure before a CF card.

So I'll just keep buying good quality CF cards (I use SanDisk Extreme III's) and keep extras on hand.

Thanks for the input.

[rhys]

I kinda like the portable flash drive. I'd like to know what data retention is like over 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 years though.

[rhys]

Interesting looking device. I don't see others using it and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig. Thanks for showing it to me though.

I guess from what everyone is saying here and from what I've been reading in other "which portable backup?" threads there doesn't seem to be much card failure and probably a greater chance of hard drive failure before a CF card.

So I'll just keep buying good quality CF cards (I use SanDisk Extreme III's) and keep extras on hand.

Thanks for the input.

It seems to be on sale in various places...
http://www.shopping.com/xPO-Alera-Technologies-Alera-Technologies-Copy-Cruiser-Plus-USB-330100~S-6~OR-0#stt

[bob-e]

Interesting looking device. I don't see others using it and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig.

Not much to guinea pig there. All it does is copy and you can check the images in your camera to make sure it worked.

Even with that, if you wanna get real paranoid, there is nothing stopping your CF card going bad while you are copying or on the way from your camera to the copier.:p

I think the best option is to just keep your cards clean and dry. Maybe even replace them every year or so.

[jr_senator]

I'm not sure yet, having not received or used, just how many ways I will be using my new laptop (palmtop) when it arrives later this week. I ordered a ASUS eee which is a very small (7") computer with limited resources (but everything I need for it's intended purpose). Having USB ports and a SD reader I could transfer from one card to another, or from the camera to a flash card for backup. Also, if there is a Wi-Fi signal I could email the file to where ever I want. I plan to take it along with me when feasiable and adding it to my Lowepro Road Runner AW will not be a burden.

[Jon]

Ok. Then there are two solutions I can think of...

This is the first: http://www.beachaudio.com/Alera/330100-p-63738.html?utm_campaign=froogle&utm_content=AD_ID&utm_term=330100&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=froogle&GTKW=330100&GCID=C12585x003 (I don't know anything about this retailer) - it seems you can use this little unit to copy your CF cards so take twice the number and just copy each card.

There have been units that will write a CF card's contents to a DVD but I can't at the moment find one listed anywhere.

Interesting looking device. I don't see others using it and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig. Thanks for showing it to me though.

I guess from what everyone is saying here and from what I've been reading in other "which portable backup?" threads there doesn't seem to be much card failure and probably a greater chance of hard drive failure before a CF card.

So I'll just keep buying good quality CF cards (I use SanDisk Extreme III's) and keep extras on hand.

Thanks for the input.I've got one of those on order from Adorama; they had it on special at $29.99 through the 14th.

If you don't trust your cards, why would you trust any other form of flash memory more? Worst case, if you want to use 2 GB cards in camera, get the 8 or 16 GB cards to serve as your backup media. But personally, I'd worry more about losing the cards than having them fail and in that case, less is better. Fewer cards, the easier it is to keep tabs on them.

[rhys]

Quite honestly, at $100 for 16GB from NewEgg, there seems singularly little purpose in having bulk drives any more. I can envision a day coming soon when we'll have 4GB cards going for around $10. I imagine that it will be cheaper to buy a shed load of 4GB cards, to take the photos and just leave them on the cards and store the cards in a shoebox!

I just noticed. It's $90 for 16GB from Newegg and 32GB cards are available! I paid $200 for a 40GB Hyperdrive about 18 months ago and have hardly used it because it's so fiddly to use and takes up so much valuable bag space. My 4GB CF cards are in constant use by comparison. I also note that I paid $200 for 40GB while you can now get a 32GB CF card for $229. Not much difference in price or capacity there. A hell of a lot of difference in portability and ease of use though!

IMHO the days of the magnetic hard drive are in sight.

[CyberDyneSystems]

The DVD solutions are slow, ungainly, very large and really offer no better means of instilling confidence than a hard drive. Plus with memory cards 2x and 4x the capacity of a DVD.. ?

The Hyperdrive and many other units allow you to install the hard drive, they use standard laptop drives for the most part.

You could populate them with flash versions of hard drives, but I don't see this as remotely cost effective, in fact CF cards are for more affordable per MB at this time for some reason.

I know you say backup, what camera? all 1D models from the mkII on can use two cards to write to at the same time, creating an instant back up. This would be a more affordable and more importantly a VASTLY less time consuming means fo back up then a hyper drive with flash hard drive installed.

On another tack, if time is less a concern than back up, I solved the "I'm not so sure about a hard drive" solution with a simple poor mans RAID concept.

Buy TWO hyperdrives and copy your CF cards to two laptop hard drives..
When I did this I even took this to the same level we do with archival backups, by keeping the two drives seperate during travel, one in my checked baggage, one in my pocket.

Lastly, I'm with Rhys on this one from a cost basis, Cards are too affordable to use anything else now, but again if having two copies is the prioroty, do one of the following;

1.write to two cards (requires 1D)
2. get a hard drive based storage and don't re-use the cards (requires one hyperdrive, enough cards that you won't need to re-use them, and time to make the copy to the HD)
3. get two hard drive backups and then re-use cards (requires two hyperdrives, should have at least two cards so you can shoot while copying one, and the time to copy your cards twice)

FYI I shot over 4,000 RAW files with the MkIII and MkII in Africa onto CF and SD cards. (mostly 8GB cards)
I did not bring a back up solution. My intention was to simply have enough Cards to handle the task.
About two weeks into the three week trip I became concerned that I might run out of cards, and did copy some to a freinds laptop. But I did not end up needing this back up as I did not run out of card space in the long run.
My point being that when I revisited the idea of a means to copy cards on a cost vs. weight vs. convenience basis, it made most sens to just get a lot of cards IMHO.

[*Sonic*]

Yeah, but when are you going to backup?
My point being - if the data card dies between camera and computer you're still not going to get it into a backup.
SanDisk have data recovery software built-in (need to load on computer), otherwise you just save to computer and then backup after processing. (unless you have a different workflow?)

Scandisk recovery software is completly useless if your PC cant read the card, as I found out to my dismay last week

[rklepper]

I have this unit. -->CLICK (http://www.hypershop.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=50)<--

Works quite well and comes in smaller sizes for less money if you do not need a 250GB drive.:D

[hastur]

Does anyone have any experience with this? It looks like the perfect solution.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/21/delkin-takes-burning-on-the-go-with-dvd-burnaway/

Rob

[salexande867]

I have this unit. -->CLICK (http://www.hypershop.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=50)<--

Works quite well and comes in smaller sizes for less money if you do not need a 250GB drive.:D

That's a nice unit. I have some extra laptop hard drives laying around, so I could purchase the case only version.

I don't think multiple cards is a good solution for backup. I worry about losing a card or having something damage card during transport (not when uploading or downloading images). With one of these, there would always be a backup copy of the images (in a different location).

I know some wildlife photographers carry two hyperdrives for redundant backups. Better safe than sorry.

[_aravena]

Creative's new Zen Vision works work with CF's.

[rhys]

Does anyone have any experience with this? It looks like the perfect solution.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/21/delkin-takes-burning-on-the-go-with-dvd-burnaway/

Rob

At that kind of price, you might just as well get the $400 palmtop and an external USB DVD burner and get more opportunities for very little extra cash.

[nadtz]

'Quite honestly, at $100 for 16GB from NewEgg, there seems singularly little purpose in having bulk drives any more.'

I can think of one, losing the 16gb card. 'losing' includes stolen, misplaced, or whatever. The purpose of a backup is just that, backup.

I cant imagine what you mean by fiddly with the hyperdrive. You turn it on, pop in the card and it copies everything on the card to the unit. Its been a good companion for me on my travels in the last year and a half that i've had it.

If I were never worried about losing camera or card Id worry less, but when I don't prepare for the worst Mr. Murphy always kicks me in the nuts. (CDS is correct though, if I wanted something more bulletproof Id have 2 hyperdrives).

[Jon]

Ok. Then there are two solutions I can think of...

This is the first: http://www.beachaudio.com/Alera/330100-p-63738.html?utm_campaign=froogle&utm_content=AD_ID&utm_term=330100&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=froogle&GTKW=330100&GCID=C12585x003 (I don't know anything about this retailer) - it seems you can use this little unit to copy your CF cards so take twice the number and just copy each card.

There have been units that will write a CF card's contents to a DVD but I can't at the moment find one listed anywhere.

I've got one of those on order from Adorama; they had it on special at $29.99 through the 14th.

If you don't trust your cards, why would you trust any other form of flash memory more? Worst case, if you want to use 2 GB cards in camera, get the 8 or 16 GB cards to serve as your backup media. But personally, I'd worry more about losing the cards than having them fail and in that case, less is better. Fewer cards, the easier it is to keep tabs on them.
Just got the Aleratec in and tried a transfer from a 4 GB Extreme IV card to an 8 GB USB drive. Took an hour 8 min. to get 2.2 GB of the 4 GB card copied over. Then the thing shut down; I suspect low batteries. I wouldn't rely on it as a backup device, but maybe to transfer selected files between a couple of devices (like maybe move some MP3s onto a player). If I'd paid more than $30, I'd be upset.

[TMR Design]

Thanks for that brief review Jon. I'll pass on that device. :D

[rhys]

Gee.... I feel guilty for suggesting that CF copier now. It seems to be somewhat of a lousy device. Mind, it seems to me that the successful devices really take off. The weird oddities never do - hence the pocket wizard takes off but the Chinese cheap kinda-sorta-copy is only available on ebay.

I'm waiting for Apples new computer in January.

[Jon]

Nah. I'll be able to use it - but none of the "bypass-the-computer" gadgets are exactly stellar performers, which I knew going in. I can use it, like I said, to refresh my MP3 player, or back up downloaded web pages, things like that. The only reasonable computerless backup device I've seen is my Addonics DVD-Writer +(discontinued), which burns direct from card to CD/DVD and doubles as a burner for the computer, several card readers, and a stand-alone DVD player. I think Delkin's making, or has made, one similar.

[rhys]

Nah. I'll be able to use it - but none of the "bypass-the-computer" gadgets are exactly stellar performers, which I knew going in. I can use it, like I said, to refresh my MP3 player, or back up downloaded web pages, things like that. The only reasonable computerless backup device I've seen is my Addonics DVD-Writer +(discontinued), which burns direct from card to CD/DVD and doubles as a burner for the computer, several card readers, and a stand-alone DVD player. I think Delkin's making, or has made, one similar.

I do believe you're absolutely right. IMHO, even though it apparently costs more, the 32GB CF card from NewEgg at $200 seems to be the way to go. Let's look at it another way... At 8mb per image shooting raw with a 30D we can store 4,000 photos.

[Jon]

Until I move past the 12 -15 MB files of my 5D, a 4 GB card's plenty big enough. They back up nicely to a single DVD, and you don't have so many shots you lose track of what's what. A Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket holds about 10 cards, plus 2 in the cameras. That's a lot of photos.

[britt777]

Not sure if this is what your looking for. They have smaller/cheaper models and they work great for backing up on the go.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63061068

[TMR Design]

Thanks Brittany and others,

I'm not sure which solution makes the most sense and I can appreciate all those that talk about the odds of failure from a CF card. That's all well and good but why not have the same mentality about your home computer and all the thousands of images stored on the internal hard drive. To me, media is media, some more reliable than others, but I'd rather have a backup or safety that I never have to use than no backup and that one time that I'm totally screwed.

Thinking that "it won't happen" or "I've never had a problem" is not a great attitude in my opinion. I've never had a battery go dead in my camera but I always bring a spare. I haven't had a flat tire on my car in 10 years but I still carry a spare in the trunk. There's a lot to be said for "better safe than sorry".

[rhys]

Thanks Brittany and others,

I'm not sure which solution makes the most sense and I can appreciate all those that talk about the odds of failure from a CF card. That's all well and good but why not have the same mentality about your home computer and all the thousands of images stored on the internal hard drive. To me, media is media, some more reliable than others, but I'd rather have a backup or safety that I never have to use than no backup and that one time that I'm totally screwed.

Thinking that "it won't happen" or "I've never had a problem" is not a great attitude in my opinion. I've never had a battery go dead in my camera but I always bring a spare. I haven't had a flat tire on my car in 10 years but I still carry a spare in the trunk. There's a lot to be said for "better safe than sorry".

You could minimise this risk by carrying smaller cards. I'm sure this would rapidly become a pain though. If you take only 128mb cards that means that with 8mb per image you should be able to store 16 images per card. This means that should a single card go bad enough that you lose all your images then you will lose only 16. I had a card go bad and it lost 2 images out of the whole lot.

[Vermin87]

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=15752

Creative's Zen Vision W can copy files from a CF card into its hard drive. This is a much cheaper solution than hyperdrives, but I'm unsure of complete compatibility with different CF types and file types. This would be something to look into though, as you could also view JPG's off of it...maybe even shoot RAW+JPG and transfer that over so clients can see the pictures initially took, then you still have the RAW's to edit later.

[Vermin87]

Well I guess it isn't much cheaper at all, but you do also get a portable multimedia system on top of being able to backup your photos. You can even partition part of the drive to just be for storage, apparently