SD Card -> HDD - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 01:48:53 pm
content: During my holiday to japan i will be shooting lots of video, i will be taking 240gb worth of sd cards with me but i suspect i will fill all that so i was wondering if there is something like a portable hard disk that i can simply put the full sd card into and dump it's contents onto the HDD freeing the card to use again without needing a laptop etci have seen a few devices but seem to be oriented at the pro-photographerany suggestions / recommendations?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 01:53:55 pm
content: Not that I am aware of but it would be neat.I always had the idea for a device using a microcontroller, LCD, and two female USB ports, it would allow you to pop a blank usb drive in, and then it would copy the data over to it, as a more covert way of cloning the drive if you needed that for some reason.You can probably find a cheap netbook locally to copy stuff over to an external drive.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 02:29:07 pm
content: you could use a colourspace udma , theyre quite expensive though for what they are .http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/UDMA-2/EDIT : thats color not colour !

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 02:37:06 pm
content: i do have an old dell mini9 netbook i could use, but i would rather not take it and it's chargeri found this on amazon, but it's £150 just for the shell without a disk!http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00II4HIDW/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=computers

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 02:39:13 pm
content: theres another alternative on amazon ,with a 500GB drive .http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ex-Pro%C2%AE-Picture-Drive-EX205K-Storage/dp/B005R1738Y/ref=pd_sim_sbs_ce_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=09Y8Q31BC0R1DA0WPG0E

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 02:58:54 pm
content: thanks guys, a few options therebut, you know... should i be worried about entrusting my videos to a device like this?my paranoia is kicking in!

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:02:01 pm
content: Also:http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/IUSBHD-1TB.html

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:16:16 pm
content: Man, looking at those prices I'd rather just bring a netbook along. Charging an extra like, 200 bucks for a hard drive enclosure, sheesh

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:25:42 pm
content: At those prices I would just get a few 64 GB or larger SD cards, I use 64 GB in my camera and that holds 17875 frames at 14 M pixels and more at lower go down to 2 M pixels and it holds 99529 frames.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:31:00 pm
content: Quote from: dexters_lab on June 30, 2014, 02:58:54 pmany SD card or hard drive can fail at any time.If you can find an internet cafe where youre going you can always backup to cloud storage .

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:35:14 pm
content: yea i know... though i have found it cheaper on amazon uk:http://www.amazon.co.uk/iUSB-Port-Wireless-1TB-HDD/dp/B00L411TOU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404140928&sr=1-1&keywords=iUSBport+HDbut still £160 is the same as buying 192gb of additional storage and wont take up any extra space

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 03:41:26 pm
content: Quote from: fluxcapacitor on June 30, 2014, 03:31:00 pmyea i thought about the cloud storage option, but surely it's just going to take too long to upload?

author: rexxar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 04:29:53 pm
content: I wonder if you couldn't do this with a RaspberryPi and a USB hard drive?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 05:55:39 pm
content: You should be able to find decent Internet in most of Japan, IIRC quite a few hotels have 10Mb or faster upload speeds, some even do gigabit Ethernet in each room.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 10:18:57 pm
content: Do you have an android phone .If you do you could get an OTG cable, a powered usb hub,card reader and external 2.5" HDD/flash drive .Copy the files from sd to the hard drive/flash drive using file explorer or total commander .If youve got a galaxy s3/s4 samsung have an official 3 port usb dock with hdmi,audio out and charger .http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Multimedia-Smart-Galaxy-Series/dp/B009KZ3XE6

author: eliocor
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 10:28:39 pm
content: Being a photographer (even if this is not my daytime profession) I warmly suggest you to search (eBay, ...) for the old and not more produced VOSONIC line of portable HDDs with SD/CF/... interface.I own a VOSONIC VP8870 HDD (I think it was the top of their model line) and I'm more than happy. I have swapped its internal 320GB HDD with an equivalent SSD unit (much lighter, faster and safer).I'm really happy* about this device: I'm used to IMMEDIATELY backup my memory cards (SD or CF) when they are full. Once this saved me for the loss of a session of about 32 GB of photos!!!Please take care that the some of the old models (VP2160 which I own 2 units) support only a 32GB partition and it is surely not useful for your needs.http://www.shuttertalk.com/2010/07/vosonic-vp8870-photo-storage-review.html*) I really do not understand why they stopped the production of those wonderful devices!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 11:46:53 am
content: If you just want the very most basic functionality (plug in an SD card, automatically have it copy and delete everything from it onto the HDD) it could probably be done with an MCU with sufficient pins, and a SATA<>PATA bridge or USB. The code wouldn't be all that complicated either.The second option would be better from a hardware point of view - you may be able to hack this into an external HDD case. The only additional work would be to interface with USB which is a bit harder than a PATA port.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 12:00:29 pm
content: thanks everyone for all the great repliesa few options to investigate there, will see what might be the best option for me

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 12:25:16 pm
content: Quote from: fluxcapacitor on June 30, 2014, 10:18:57 pmi'm using a similar setup - but instead of phone using a tablet.i'm using an cheap adroid tablet for dumping the content of a SD card to a HDD. using a 1TB low power external USB drive connected to a cheap android tablet. and of course using 32G microSD cards with adapters - micro fits into the tablet and with adapter it fits to the camera.

author: ConKbot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 12:54:02 pm
content: Quote from: fluxcapacitor on June 30, 2014, 10:18:57 pmIf youre using an android phone and an OTG cable with a usb flash reader, make sure you dismount the device before removing it. It causes corruption on the flash card/usb stick if you dont. Its not as easy going as on a PC where you can just yoink it at will.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 02:38:45 pm
content: IMHO You're overthinking it.1. Get card reader2. Get an external bluray drive like this one:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151272or this one :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=105-000D-00001(this one needs 2 usb 2.0 ports or one usb 3.0 port, probably for more power)3. Find a laptop/computer (whatever) with two usb ports.4. Copy contents of SD card to hdd.5. Burn 1 or 2 bluray discs with the content of the card.6. Put the bluray discs in a jewel case (plastic) and then in a cardboard mailer.7. Mail them to your grandma/ to a friend at home / to your workplace (after telling them to expect mail from you)The bluray writer is less sensitive to moving around (compared to a classic hdd) and is lighter and you can easily protect it from damage. You can get bluray disc in Japan from shops or you can buy a 25 pack from home and carry it with you, they're not expensive at 1-3$ for 25GB. There are some compatibility issues so you may want to buy some discs and make some tests to see if the media is compatible in advance. Here's an example of 25 pcs pack :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817279007&cm_re=bluray_disc_blank-_-17-279-007-_-ProductMost of Japan has good internet connections (10mbps or more) BUT it's mostly fast speed within Japan.You could for example rent a dedicated server with 1 TB of disk space or more for.. maybe 60$ a month and cancel it after the first month. For example see Hetzner in Germany :http://www.hetzner.de/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex40- 45 euro a month, for 2 x 2 TB drives and it would probably cost about 10-15 euro extra for windows (so you could connect to it using remote desktop connection and setup a ftp server easily if you're not good with linux). They also have older hardware, for example some dual core AMD servers with 2 x 400 GB hdds for 25 euro a month.Ideally, you could upload from an internet cafe to your dedicated server using ftp or some other method and then mail a friend of yours at home to download the stuff for backup on his computer until you come home.The problem is there's a high change speeds outside Japan will be slow - even though your server in Germany may be connected to the internet with 1gbps link, you may only upload from Japan at 100-300KB/s, so a 64GB card would take ages to transfer.A trick you could do would be to upload the videos (only videos unfortunately) to Youtube. If your camera splits the video automatically in 2 GB or less segments, you could upload the videos in a Youtube account (mark them as Private or Unlisted). Youtube probably has dedicated servers in Japan so uploads will be much faster to Youtube compared to uploading to a cloud or your own dedicated server.You may think that you can't download what you uploaded to youtube or that you can only download stuff that youtube recompressed, but you'd be incorrect: there is a way to download the original content you uploaded to youtube.Go here:https://www.google.com/settings/takeoutand once you do the request, they take all the videos you uploaded to your youtube account and create zip files that are up to 2 GB in size (for example if you upload a 1 GB video and 5 x 500 MB videos they may do 2 zip files, one with 4 videos (4x500) and one with two videos (1x1gb + 1 x 500 mb)So this may be a nice trick of making a backup of your videos.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 04:00:40 pm
content: i found something else that looks promising called a RAVPower FileHub .http://www.amazon.co.uk/RAVPower-FileHub-Wireless-External-Portable-White/dp/B00AQUMZRAWith one of those you would need the filehub,phone - ios/android and portable hard drive .Theyre not bad for £30 .

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2014, 05:53:06 pm
content: Any solution that is easy will cost ya more than will seem fair, and any inexpensive solution will involve a time commitment from you. You're gonna pay with time or with money, so pay with whatever you have more of.There are a million middle ground options in between the easy & costly and cheap & fiddly extremes. If you go middle ground, a balance of time required and cost that works for you, pick a set of technologies that you're familiar and/or comfortable with.----And that is how I answered a million forum questions with one post.