A way to transfer photos from an SD card to a hard drive w/o computer

[rockymtnhigh]

My WD Wireless Passport arrived today. I got the 1TB model. It is a solid device. I can access it wirelessly through my mac or iPad, and can copy SD Card files directly to the hard drive. I did the firmware update, but will really test it out in a couple days when I am in Chicago. I am going to use the trip as a test run. I'll have my camera, the HDD, and my iPad, and see how it goes.

It is not a small hard drive. Quite large casing, but it does have a lot of extra stuff built in, including a battery, SD reader, and controller. I have setup the WD private network, that seemed to work pretty well. Still learning.

 

[Ilya]

I saw this device at a MicroCenter store last night. Almost purchased one. What stopped me was its weight: it felt kind of heavy. I guess the battery adds to the weight. If the main purpose is to travel light and to back up SD cards, then the weight might be a deal breaker for me. I would rather bring extra SD cards and replace them often.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I saw this device at a MicroCenter store last night. Almost purchased one. What stopped me was its weight: it felt kind of heavy. I guess the battery adds to the weight. If the main purpose is to travel light and to back up SD cards, then the weight might be a deal breaker for me. I would rather bring extra SD cards and replace them often.

For me, I will not trust a lifetime of memories on just having them on SD cards. I will bring a bunch of cards, probably 5 or 6. I will not delete photos from the cards, but I will have a backup, in the field, of all of them on the hard drive. And that is worth a few extra ounces. I am holding it in my hand right now, and it is more bulky than heavy.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Plus, this weighs a lot less than carrying my laptop along with charger.

 

[Ilya]

Are there any ways to copy one SD card to another? That would be best, I think.

 

[Ilya]

The advantage of having a small laptop with you though is that not only you can use it to store copies of your photos and videos, but you can also quickly preview them and even edit them. And whenever you have WiFi at your hotel, you can upload them to a cloud storage, which is probably better than having a backup device, which too can be lost or stolen with all your luggage...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

The advantage of having a small laptop with you though is that not only you can use it to store copies of your photos and videos, but you can also quickly preview them and even edit them. And whenever you have WiFi at your hotel, you can upload them to a cloud storage, which is probably better than having a backup device, which too can be lost or stolen with all your luggage...

Nope. Not when I am carrying a DSLR with a couple lenses. I can do basic edits to photos on the iPad, and plan to do the bulk of the photo cleanup when I get home. I can't rely on high speed internet for cloud backups, so this provides me a second backup of my materials. I am not even staying in hotels for half of my trip.

I don't intend for the small bag I am carrying to leave my side for 2 weeks. So, theft is a risk I will have to take. If I had a laptop, I would not have bothered with this drive.

 

[Ilya]

Well, let us know how it works for you. And we definitely look forward to the pictures from your trip!

 

[harshness]

As I will be traveling in some amazing places for 12 days, I expect to have a LOT of photos, and do not want to rely solely on SD cards. Nor do I want to risk losing them all if the cards fail.

Pretty much anything that hoses SD cards will probably frag a hard drive.

Flash cards aren't as delicate as you might imagine. Here's a BBC article on some real-world testing they did a little over ten years ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3939333.stm

The only caution I've seen is that you shouldn't use flash cards for very long term storage but I think that's probably true of most media (including optical discs).

 

[rockymtnhigh]

This device is very nice. I have it set to auto import. It creates a folder for each SD card, and one subfolder for each day. All I do is pop the card in and it starts transferring. The new firmware is very fast. The iPad works great with the WD my Cloud software. I can confirm that everything has transferred and see what is on it.

 

[mike123abc]

For me, I will not trust a lifetime of memories on just having them on SD cards. I will bring a bunch of cards, probably 5 or 6. I will not delete photos from the cards, but I will have a backup, in the field, of all of them on the hard drive. And that is worth a few extra ounces. I am holding it in my hand right now, and it is more bulky than heavy.

The lifetime of an SD card is 10 years max. It is very wise to transfer them and probably use cloud backup to keep them forever.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

The lifetime of an SD card is 10 years max. It is very wise to transfer them and probably use cloud backup to keep them forever.

As soon as I get home from the trip, the photos get transferred to my macbook in iPhoto libraries, and then get backed up to three different drives.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Ok, my report from my experiment.

I was in Chicago for 2 days, and with new lenses to play with and great weather, I took a bunch of photos. As planned, I brought just the iPad, WD hard drive, and a bluetooth keyboard. I took several hundred photos.

First, the good news. The WD hard drive, worked great. it was fast, took about 2 minutes to transfer a couple hundred photos. The private wireless network works well, and enables you to see what you have transferred using the MyWD Cloud app on the iPad.

Now, the bad. To review the photos, in full-screen iPad size, is slow as molasses. This is an issue because since I want to be able to upload some photos to the iPad to post while I am gone, I am stuck with using the iPad SD Card connector. And the thumbnails it uses in iPhoto are ridiculously small. Very hard to tell which photos are worth uploading to the iPad (and there isn't unlimited space to upload everything; plus it is not really ideal to just upload all of them, and then delete the ones I don't want). What my experiment found, was that I spent a LOT of time, trying to manipulate images, and in the end, I am not convinced it is worth the time. Yes, I don't want to bring my laptop with me, but it will save a lot of time, if I do.

The downside, this was an expensive experiment ($160 for the Hard drive, $30 for the iPad SD card reader). But I do like having the hard drive as a backup in the field. I am going to play a little to see if I can delete files quickly from the iPad photo library after an import, before making my mind.

 

[Ilya]

Thanks for the update! You've confirmed my suspicions... And saved me a couple of hundred dollars toward the purchase of a Surface Pro later this year.

 

[harshness]

Now, the bad. To review the photos, in full-screen iPad size, is slow as molasses. This is an issue because since I want to be able to upload some photos to the iPad to post while I am gone, I am stuck with using the iPad SD Card connector.

This is more of a hazard of choosing the Apple ecosystem than it should be an indictment of the theory. One could argue that tablets practical for your application should have much better (direct) access to storage media.

My tablet doesn't have an SD slot on it but my camera has a hot spot feature that works pretty well. If I were going to be doing this professionally, I'd probably upgrade my tablet rather than trying to build a complicated environment around a less suitable tablet.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Your assumption is that other than for transferring photos that I want anything to do with a Microsoft or Android tablet. There is no hazard with the iOS environment. It does everything I want. If this is the one limitation, so be it. And even here, I can transfer files via SD Card reader, or direct USB to th camera (which would be a better option, given that I can view each photo on the LCD screen.

But I am not indicting the theory either. The SD Card/Hard drive combo is very nice. I just wish its wireless network was a bit faster. but the experiment was a good one!!

 

[harshness]

Your assumption is that other than for transferring photos that I want anything to do with a Microsoft or Android tablet.

My assumption was that all you wanted to do was transfer photos. The happy part about using a non iOS device is that you can afford to buy one just to do one thing.

There is no hazard with the iOS environment.

That is a long-held and patently wrong assumption. Ask anyone who upgraded to the latest OS version before it was patched; and that's just the malware released by Apple.

It does everything I want. If this is the one limitation, so be it.

Apparently it does it but not in an ideal way. Is a false sense of security worth the compromise?

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Ok, you don't like iOS. I get it. The 8.0.1 update was out for a day. One day. The world did not come to an end.

Yes, there is no doubt that if there was a way to directly connect a hard drive to the iPad it would be better FOR this particular endeavor. That said, I am perfectly ok with having had the experiment demonstrate to me that when taking what will literally be thousands of photos, I will be happier having my macbook, rather than a tablet.

But I am quite happy with the convergence of all of my information between my computer, my phone, and my tablet. That is worth far more than the inconveniences of having to shift to what I consider less appealing operating systems.

 

[harshness]

Ok, you don't like iOS. I get it. The 8.0.1 update was out for a day. One day. The world did not come to an end.

If I'm not misinformed, the current version is 8.1.2. There must have been more to be fixed than the issue(s) that bricked the flagship phone.

Justifying something based on a "truth" that isn't particularly true is illogical. Microsoft does the same thing in denying (often vehemently) that issues exist until after they've been patched. Microsoft also likes to assure users that the latest versions of whatever it produces are the most secure ever.

That is worth far more than the inconveniences of having to shift to what I consider less appealing operating systems.

Would you prefer to use iOS as the operating system for your TV, car stereo, AVR, digital camera or DVR?

Finding the system best suited to a particular application isn't easy but it probably beats the inconvenience of compromising and/or jumping through hoops on too many things.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Going far form the topic. iOS 8.0.1 was buggy, and bricked some phones. They pulled it within hours and released 8.0.2 the next day; there were and are no problems with that. And yes, a newer release is out today, 8.1.2 (which came out in December). It was a one day screw-up.

As far as iOS on my TV; I use iOS for my streaming tv on Apple TV. So, sure. I'd be fine with it on my tv.

But in the end, I tried to see if I could do a 2 week trip to the Middle East without my laptop, by doing an experiment on a short trip to Chicago, where I took a ton of photos. The experiment did not confirm that this would be a good choice, so I moved on, and am going to use my macbook. If my trip was one where I would not be taking a LOT of photos, then I think it would be doable, albeit inconvenient. But I see no reason to change my entire computing ecosystem (both iOS/OS X) for one application, that I need on one trip.