Never run out of memory.

I currently use and have travelled with an X's drive (http://www.xs-drive.com/). I put a 60gb laptop hard drive in the shell I purchased and haven't had any trouble to date.

what about a nextodi CF with a 120 gig hd in it then keep another 120gig hd in a tupperware case then swap em over (dead simple 4 screws)

I'd go for the portable DVD burner - it's no bigger than a personal CD player. Burn a couple of DVDs. Mail one home and keep the other with you. Sure - a pack of DVDs weighs a bit but you have no option. Either take less photos or buy more memory cards.

Another option would be if you have an iPod you could get the iPod Camera Connector and download all the pictures and videos from the camera onto the iPod. I have the iPod 80GB Video and is perfect when you need to free up space on the camera.

Thanks for all the advice guys - some really good options here. I've found a web space provider that has a integrated FTP option so I basically just type ftp://www. etc and it gives me windows explorer type access to the web space. I'll take a USB CF card reader with me and upload data straight to the site so my brother can download and clear out the photos on the other side thus enabling me to fill it up again and keep my webspace size to a minimum.

Michael.luczkow is right that it will take me a long time to upload, but I reckon I'll be able to manage it whilst I am writting my blog and emails, thus it shouldn't be to much of a bind. However Michael did miss the backpacking element to the trip with the suggestion of taking a laptop and seperate HDD backup - this is okay if you are staying in secure hotels and making trips from them, but we will be travelling across the country by foot, mule, train, bus, etc. so won't have this option & I'd rather take a heavier tripod or additional lenses than a laptop.

The Nexto CF OTG machine from Angry hamster looks superb! Definately want one of those, but not for this trip I think... my fear is getting robbed; as with the laptop, if we have all our bags stolen then we lose everything anyway, so I must send things back if I am to guarentee getting things home.

So my take on this given all the suggestions is to take the following steps:
1) Take 5*2Gb cards
2) Take photos as Jpg and Raw for first two to three cards depending upon how long we will be away from internet cafe, then go to raw only if running out of space.
3) Take USB card reader and cards to internet cafe and review the photos that I have in Jpg. Ditch the poor ones and thus reduce the number of files to transfer.
4) upload .raw files using FTP to webspace
5) backup all .raw files to DVD to enable me to wipe the cards if necessary.
6) If all else fails, fed-ex the DVDs home.

no doubt this will be refined with experience!

For shorter trips/ trips based from hotels, get one of those lovely Nexto machines!!!!

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated.

www.fotki.com

annual subscription for unlimited online photo storage. i stick most of my photos on there as an "off site backup", upload isnt too bad depending on your connection speed.

personally i've got the archos AV420 with a 20GB hard drive. I like the portable drive toys with CF card slots in them. Mine is a bit old and small but the newer ones go up to 120GB. This would be a great option for you.

There are a whole bunch of brands but I like the archos myself. I've had it for years and have had no problems at all. Plays mp3s and videos too, I watch movies with it on the airplane. Transfers files really fast too (from the card to the disk). You shouldn't need more than 2X 2GB CF cards and one of these. One in your camera, the other pulling dumping data on the disk. I shot autocross all day like this just cycling the cards back and forth. and the 120GB option should be enough for your entire trip. Personally that's what I would do. (aside from bringing my laptop)

Just as a rough rule of thumb:
1GB @ 100KB/s = 2.777 hours
1GB @ 1MB/s = 18 Minutes

I wouldn't bet my life that you're going to be able to find an internet cafe with a 1MB/s (8 megabits per second) upload pipe.

youre looking at over an hour for 1gb on average imho.

The above mentioned The XS-Drive Centre VP6250 looks VERY sweet and is making me think about upgrading my archos!

michael.luczkow wrote in post #2420297
Just as a rough rule of thumb:
1GB @ 100KB/s = 2.777 hours
1GB @ 1MB/s = 18 Minutes

I wouldn't bet my life that you're going to be able to find an internet cafe with a 1MB/s (8 megabits per second) upload pipe.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Paying for time on the internet cafe computers and uploading will cost more than a Nexto or any other option. As for getting robbed, just keep in your pants!

I used internet cafes in the former USSR that ran a roomfull of PCs on a single 48k line. Transfer rates were measured in bytes a second. I saw the rate drop to 1 byte a second at one point!