2.5" hard drive for travel backup?

eelnoraa wrote in post #17584852
Everything can fail. For the particular usage, backup during traveling, I think it is fair to say the main failure mode of mechanical drive is a lot likely than the failure of SSD. And multiple backup copy?? we are talking about traveling here. How many harddrive are you going to bring?

That depends on the kind of travel, the locations one is going, the duration of travel, and the volume of data expected to be generated. I've traveled with 4 small portable hard drives, dozens of CF cards, and bags of equipment for the purpose of AV work, and even more than that for scientific projects. For most of my casual stuff I'll only bring along two drives.

If you are traveling with friends and recording important data, then ideally everyone's main bag is going to bring along a backup copy of it. If you are on your own then ideally at least two different bags can hold a copy of your data.

That single SSD backing up all your data 'more reliably than a hard drive' isn't going to help you if some drunk throws your pack into a harbour. It isn't going to help you if you somehow lose the one bag carrying the one drive with the one copy of your data. Hard drives, if allowed to power down and park properly, are very durable, and not that much worse than SSDs. (And oddly enough, the only drives that I've had fail on me so far have actually been SSDs, CF cards, and flash drives. One or two CDs I believe, but I don't even remember having a floppy disk ever fail before I retired it. I haven't tried booting it up in a few years, but last time I tried the oldest drive I own, from 1995, was still working.)

Just to add my 2 cents to this topic.

I've always brought a netbook and a couple of 2.5" HDD with me while I traveled. But this time, I won't be able to do it. I will be traveling through Europe for two weeks with just one backpack.

So naturally, I looked into the usual suspects of memory card backup devices like the Colorspace. But I happened to find these two devices that can do it with my 2.5" HDDs for about $30 or $40.

http://www.amazon.com …rd_r=0RKEC04SET​PE36JD2CKN

and

http://www.amazon.com …fRID=1BMQS60SKS​6VQRA1QCN3


Kingston even has Youtube how-to vids: https://www.youtube.co​m …MSD5Tox6AMJ47jU​lpQj0fd3kn

Review vid of the Kingston: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=4QCKHTfqDK4

I may end up buying the Kingston. So for like $30 I will have something that can function like a Colorspace ($250 just of the case w/o a HDD) with my existing 2.5" HDDs.

I also recommend SSD for travel, mainly because there is no moving parts and there is less likelihood that a bump or drop will cause data failure. Storage travel isn't about having the most space, it's about having a safe place to put your files until you get home.

IMO

I've been using two HP 500 GB USB3 drives for "on the road" backups the past few years without any problems.

They live in my laptop backpack and I don't treat them especially carefully.

I copy everything to both drives using the "FastCopy" program that performs a verification check.

So far I've never had an error with the primary drive so the second one is truly redundant.

Cheers,

Geoff S.

As an amateur shooting only jpg, I have 2 128GB USB flash drives which I use for dual backup purposes. <link>

There are 256 and 500GB also, but I've not had need for those.

Why not make a copy of the original SD card to a 2nd SD card, mail it to yourself home instead of lugging a HDD?

USB drive is the most un-reliable solid state storage. The lowest quality flash, those that fails to qualify to be used onto SSD, CFast, CF, SD will go onto USB. So do NOT trust you data on USB especially for long term storage.

That's why I only use them for multi/portable backup. my main storage is:
1) computer HD
2) external HD
3) external HD in a firesafe

I figure I've got so many copies, my stuff will never get lost.

If I was a pro, using RAW, I'd go for SSD.

If you really doing "backups" than one or two 128GB flash http://www.amazon.com …=8-4&keywords=lexar+128gb
and mechanical USB 3.0 2TB drive like seagate http://www.amazon.com …=1-1&keywords=seagate+2tb

You use cards in camera and back them up to USB drive. If you need to clear out space on CF Card - you will have a copy on your USB Drive

The OP's 5DIII has two cards slots, so why not just record to both cards for instant backup, unless your shooting 10s thousands shots on a trip this should be the simplest, lightest and cheapest way for on tour short term backup.

whiteflyer wrote in post #17679902
The OP's 5DIII has two cards slots, so why not just record to both cards for instant backup, unless your shooting 10s thousands shots on a trip this should be the simplest, lightest and cheapest way for on tour short term backup.

Good idea! Or how about a small notebook with sd card slot and transfer your images to an on line storage.

I do most of my shoots on location and tethered to the MBP. I like redundancy so I keep RAW files on cards, MBP SSD and USB drive. Nothing gets formatted until they are copied on duplicate externals back at the studio and confirmed they are good.

I keep enough cards so that I never mix jobs on a card and I don't have to reuse a card until that job has been delivered to the client.