Portable hard drive vs USB thumb drive

I went through this a couple months ago and had been using a thumb drive. My concern was always losing it because it's so small. I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.com …oh_aui_detailpa​ge_o01_s00

It's blazing fast and has a loop so I use a small clip to keep it attached in my laptop case.

ShotByTom wrote in post #17950339
I went through this a couple months ago and had been using a thumb drive. My concern was always losing it because it's so small. I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.com …oh_aui_detailpa​ge_o01_s00

It's blazing fast and has a loop so I use a small clip to keep it attached in my laptop case.

Hey, I like that.

eelnoraa wrote in post #17947498
If you do this per photoshoot, then USB flash drive is a much better IMO. Reason being the capacity you need isn't too large, and you will be doing transfer often. USB flash drive is a lot faster than 2.5" HDD. USB is dirty cheap today even for a fast USB3.0 drive. And NO, USB thumb drive is no where as expansive as CF, not even close.

If you do this once a while when the files accumulateate enough, then HDD. Flash drive is still expansive at high capacity

It will be one or two shoots at most. USB thumb drive will be enough. Now my dilemma is how to sync the lightroom catalog on both computers. I am unsure how I can work on photos in LR on my laptop and have everything sync up somehow, so i can just come home and work on those same files with LR on my desktop.

ShotByTom wrote in post #17950339
I went through this a couple months ago and had been using a thumb drive. My concern was always losing it because it's so small. I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.com …oh_aui_detailpa​ge_o01_s00

It's blazing fast and has a loop so I use a small clip to keep it attached in my laptop case.

That's cool. I like that idea. Gonna look to see what the cost is in Canada.

I think an HDD vs SSD depends on the stress you are going to put on the physical drive.

I used to take a 1TB My Passport drive on road trips / vacations.
So long as I didn't drop it, it was much more than I needed, but available.
If I were going to go hike up a hill or go camping, I would NOT take a HDD.
Even in a hard pouch I would fear the drive could get slightly damaged and fail to boot completely.

If it were me, I would have a very large SD card, like 256Gb in my camera. your laptop, maybe with an SSD as well,
and a second 256GB SD card for exports / backups of raw files.

That way you can have all your raw on your original card, then the PC with the imported library, and the other SD with exported files.

Or whichever combination is right for you.
I never delete me raw files until they are copied to another source entirely,
and even then I am in no rush.

InfiniteDivide wrote in post #17961275
I think an HDD vs SSD depends on the stress you are going to put on the physical drive.

I used to take a 1TB My Passport drive on road trips / vacations.
So long as I didn't drop it, it was much more than I needed, but available.
If I were going to go hike up a hill or go camping, I would NOT take a HDD.
Even in a hard pouch I would fear the drive could get slightly damaged and fail to boot completely.

If it were me, I would have a very large SD card, like 256Gb in my camera. your laptop, maybe with an SSD as well,
and a second 256GB SD card for exports / backups of raw files.

That way you can have all your raw on your original card, then the PC with the imported library, and the other SD with exported files.

Or whichever combination is right for you.
I never delete me raw files until they are copied to another source entirely,
and even then I am in no rush.

I follow a plan kind of like this.

On my last trip, 8 days Florida, I used a 128GB SD card in the camera. I left all the pics on the card until I got home. Every day or two, the card was backed up to a small external HD. I had to use hotel computers for this, a bit of a nuisance, because my Android tablet couldn't read the card.

Instead of an external HD, I might have used an SSD or a big USB key. The advantage of an HD is that there is lots of room for other stuff too, like travel info, movies, work stuff, etc.

BTW, I never filled that 128GB card in the eight days. There were around 3800 shots on it, and that made it about 80% full. 128GB is an immense amount of data, and had an impact on the desktop when I got home.