Tips / Portable Storage - DVD Burners & Hard Drives

When traveling, you need to have plenty of memory cards.

You'll want to backup your photographs.

When a memory card is full, copy your photographs to a portable storage device.

You have three options:

1) Use your laptop.

2) Use your iPod.

Go to Portable Storage - iPod

3) Use a portable DVD burner or a portable hard drive.

Read below for more about these devices.

Features to Look For

• Capacity, in the case of portable hard drives

• Does the device accept the memory card type that you use?

• Can you download from the camera to the device via a USB cable?

• Can you save your camera manufacturer's RAW file format?

• USB port for camera or card reader

• LCD screen

• Backup software

• Bulk and weight, including that of accessories such as an AC adapter and battery charger

Redundancy

You may want to backup your photographs twice.

If you're using a portable DVD burner, create two discs, and mail one home.

If you're using a portable hard drive, remember that every hard drive will fail eventually.

Consider doing one of the following:

• Don't format your memory cards after copying the photographs.

• Backup to two portable hard drives.

• Backup to a laptop and a portable hard drive.

• Backup to a laptop and an online storage service such as those listed here.

If you use online storage, choose a well-established service that will not close without notice.

Portable DVD Burner or Hard Drive?

Portable DVD burners offer:

• Unlimited "memory"

You can bring along many blank DVDs.

• Redundancy

You can make two copies of the files on a memory card, and you can mail one home.

Portable hard drives may be lighter and more compact.

RPM

A portable hard drive will read and write files more quickly if the rotation per minute (rpm) is higher.

Reliability

The features and specifications of the devices, such as rpm, are well-described on the manufacturer and dealer websites, of course.

The most critical specification, reliability, is harder to research.

There is a specification for reliability, mean time between failure (MTBF).

It's not useful.

Because nonuniform testing protocols are used, the MTBF specifications from different manufacturers can't be compared.

And, there's no independent organization that verifies the specification.

Which Model?

Avoid purchasing a new model, and do the following to investigate reliability:

• Check for reviews:

Consumer Search Collects reviews

Digital Photography Preview

Magazines:

Peterson Photographic Online

Popular Photography & Imaging

Shutterbug

• Use a search engine to find out if there's a pattern of failure.

Enter the name of the portable hard drive into Google, and the word forum.

You may find a forum in which users of the device describe any problems with the model.

Also enter the name of the portable hard drive into Google, and the word problem, and then, complaint.

Manufacturers

Epson P-2000 and P-4000

Nikon CoolWalker