Memory card backup

[Tri Danimal]

As a hobbyist photographer, I'm not too worried about losing my work. However, I often do long weekend outings like leave Fri morning and come back Sun night. Im wondering if I should look into some sort of SSD (I guess it doesn't have to be SSD, as long as its faily afforaidable and works reliaby) to back up my work. I currently have 2x 128g cards and 1x 64g card.

Do you guys as hobbyists back up your stuff? What do you do to put this worry to bed?

[DanK]

I never have, but I have never had a card fail. (I use only SanDisk cards.) If I were going on an extended trip, I might, although one of my cameras has two card slots, and I can simply set it to record to both, giving me an automatic backup. The advantage of a separate backup is that it might survive if you lost the camera to theft, a river, or whatever.

[dje]

As a hobbyist photographer, I'm not too worried about losing my work. However, I often do long weekend outings like leave Fri morning and come back Sun night. Im wondering if I should look into some sort of SSD (I guess it doesn't have to be SSD, as long as its faily afforaidable and works reliaby) to back up my work. I currently have 2x 128g cards and 1x 64g card.

Do you guys as hobbyists back up your stuff? What do you do to put this worry to bed?

I certainly backup whilst travelling, every night if possible. It's something only you can assess given the circumstances. I just use an Android tablet with a 64GB micro SD card, and sometimes I'll connect it to a small portable HDD. A portable SSD is probably overkill for this task alone.

Dave

[Manfred M]

When I am on the road for a longer trip I will have my laptop along as well as two Western Digital My Passport mechanical hard drives (2TB and 3TB capacity). I also have enough memory cards to last the whole trip 7 x 64GB cards.

I back up every night onto both drives and do not delete any of the data on my memory cards until I have returned home and loaded the cards onto both my computer and two external NAS units. I carry the used memory cards and two HDDs in different places to ensure that if something happens and something gets lost or stolen, I have some redundancy.

[billtils]

It's up to you Daniel! I shoot with a 64GB Lexar CF card and a 32GB Sandisk SD card as overflow (just in case, but it's never been needed). I download the card to my catalog/editor software, check there are no problems, then copy the card to an external USB disc.

I also backup the catalog after each download/editing session, and the whole shebang either after each session (where it is "big") or weekly (if the sessions have been small).

[DickyOZ]

I used to worry about using one card for multiple days shooting, especially when camping far from home. I got round the problem by backing up each days photos to two USB memory sticks using USB OTG (On The Go) on my mobile phone; I didn't even need to install an App to do it. I've got an Orico USB Hub that has three USB ports and an SD card port, just plug it into the USB port on my phone and away I go. The USB port on older phones may not support OTG but you can get a very cheap OTG adapter for the phones USB port.
I copy my SD card DCIM contents to a new folder on the first USB stick, And then copy that folder to the second USB stick. If the second stick has the same number of files as the SD card all is well. I then store the USB sticks in different places for good measure. The whole process only takes a few minutes.
Dicky.

[shreds]

An SSD drive has no moving parts so should be more robust for travelling. Backup every night, and have a few spare cards so that you do not have to delete all images every day.

If you can get an internet connection you could also do an online backup but you are reliant on connection and the web/hosting provider. I would not rely on this alone.

[NorthernFocus]

As a hobbyist photographer, I'm not too worried about losing my work...

The classic definition of risk is probability x consequence. Seems like you've defined consequence as approaching zero. The probability of a card failure also approaches zero. Therefore the defined risk is extremely low.

Steps taken to mitigate risk are chosen based on cost vs benefit(regardless of whether one calls it that). With risk approaching zero then benefit also approaches zero. So how do you want to spend to mitigate near zero risk for near zero benefit? That should define your budget.

[Donald]

I am bit like Manfred. If I am going somewhere where the chances of a return visit are slim, i.e. Yosemite in 2016, then I will take reasonable steps to back up (external portable hard disk; loading on the laptop; and info on cards). Otherwise, I take a chance.

We back up because we can do. In the days of film, we prayed and hoped for the best .... and threw a hissy fit if they tried to x-ray it at airport security.

[William W]

I back up all shots when I am traveling: I do that each evening. The device varies, usually a small laptop, simply because that's what I tend to travel with. I usually take a portable HDD too or a couple of large capacity USB Sticks and make the 'back up' (i.e. second copy) on that device. The copy to the laptop is not the 'back up' - because I regularly reuse the cards which taken to use in camera(s).

I always capture raw + JPEG(L), and I copy both files (i.e. to the laptop) and I 'back up' only the raw files.

WW

[CP140]

I use one of the Western Digital "My Passport" portable USB drives... it has the advantage of having an SD card slot on the side so it can copy from the card to the drive without needing a computer to act as a "go between".

If it is a longer trip I usually have a laptop and first copy to the portable drive, then copy to the laptop.


Of course... if you don't use SD cards, then this approach will not work for you...