How To Transfer Sd Card Data To Portable Harddrive

It'due south a flake of an irony that the best gadgets for taking photos with are the most frustrating to back up.

With a couple of taps, any traveler with a cheap smartphone tin can beginning automatically saving their travel shots to cloud services like iCloud or Google Photos. Throw in a low-cost USB adapter for Lightning or USB C, and they tin can copy photos to a memory stick just as hands.

The serious lensman with a fancy DSLR, however? They've got more than hoops to spring through, especially while out in the field where conditions are tough, time is short, and carrying a laptop can be impractical at best. Oftentimes, those with the most to lose from not backing upward their photos are the ones least probable to do it regularly.

With a bit of grooming and the correct gear, though, keeping those valuable photos safe can be simple and speedy, fifty-fifty when your laptop is thousands of miles away. Here's how to do it.

Back up Straight From the Photographic camera

Virtually high-stop cameras, and many mid-range versions, now come up with some kind of Wi-Fi ability built in. Exactly what that lets you exercise depends on the model, merely typically, it at least means you tin connect to an app on your telephone or tablet.

Generally, you lot'll set a wireless network proper name and password on the camera, then connect to that network from your other device. Sometimes y'all can connect both gadgets to an existing network instead, or use Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi.

Regardless, one time y'all're connected, the app will then let you send some or all of your photos from your camera to your device. Unless you've got many hundreds of them to move across, the copying usually finishes in a minute or two.

If your camera supports information technology, this is a simple fashion of keeping on top of your photo backups. Since information technology takes and then petty endeavor, it'southward easy to practice before bed each night or when you're about to head out in the morn.

For professional photographers (peculiarly those shooting in RAW mode) or shutter-happy amateurs, the limiting factor is free infinite on your device. While at that place are ways to add extra storage to those devices, if you lot're looking to back upward tens or hundreds of gigabytes of photos (or are traveling without a telephone or tablet), y'all may want to proceed reading.

Support From Your SD Carte

Person holding phone above a Ravpower FileHub device that is sitting beside on a stone wall

If your photographic camera doesn't have Wi-Fi support or the above method doesn't conform for some other reason, at that place'due south a flexible culling: bankroll up from the SD card.

In that location used to be a few different companies catering to people who wanted a portable hard drive with an inbuilt SD card reader that didn't need to exist connected to some other device to work. These days, yet, non so much.

The visitor behind the Gnarbox 2 has gone out of business, and both the HDD and SSD versions of the Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro seem to have been discontinued, although you may still notice ane on Amazon now and then.

If yous can rails 1 down, it comes in a range of capacities, and is one of the rare portable drives that lets y'all automatically back upward an SD card just by pushing a button on the front of the drive.

If y'all can't discover one, or yous're simply looking for something cheaper, in that location's a slightly less slick option that volition cost y'all a whole lot less. The RAVPower Filehub does a few different things, one of which is letting you employ the inbuilt card reader to copy files from your SD carte to a USB stick or portable bulldoze.

In that location'southward a button on the side that automates the copying procedure, and because the Filehub has its own battery and software, it doesn't need to be connected to a laptop or telephone to work. It tin can even act equally a (small) emergency USB charger if needed. Nosotros reviewed it hither.

Certain, it ways you accept to bear two separate devices, the Filehub and your selection of storage, simply you're not talking well-nigh a lot of size or weight nevertheless. It's as well far cheaper than either of the defended gadgets mentioned above, so even if they were withal widely bachelor, this would be a meliorate option for many people.

Support to a Phone or Tablet

If you're traveling with a phone or tablet, you lot tin can as well support your SD cards direct to them. It's a cheap and cheerful approach, since you're non paying for extra storage. Just make sure y'all've got plenty spare capacity on your mobile device to store everything!

For those with an iPhone or iPad, Apple makes a Lightning to SD Carte du jour reader. Plug i end into your device, the SD card into the other, and use the accompanying app to copy the files across.
As long as you're running at least iOS xiii, you'll go more flexibility with Apple's Lightning to USB 3 adapter. It lets you plug in any USB accessory similar a hard bulldoze, memory stick, or card reader, and copy files astern and forrad. Depending on what you're connecting, you lot may demand a cheap powered USB hub as well.
If your Android device has On-The-Become (OTG) support, yous can plug a unproblematic USB C or micro-USB card reader into information technology and use a file manager app to copy the photos beyond.
At that place are besides combination bill of fare readers like this, that come up with Lightning, micro-USB, and USB C connectors to use with both Apple and Android devices.

So at that place you have it. While bankroll upward camera photos requires a bit more than effort than those taken on a phone or tablet, it doesn't have to be a huge pain in the barrel.

As long every bit you've got some charge left in your gadgets, all of these approaches will work no matter where you lot are. There's no need to find a wall socket, internet connection, or annihilation else.

Just backup and become, safe in the knowledge that a stolen camera or corrupted SD card isn't going to completely ruin your trip.

Chief image via Robert Cooke, Filehub image past RavPower.

Dave Dean

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Founder and editor of Besides Many Adapters, Dave has been a traveler for 25 years, and a geek for even longer. When he'southward not playing with the latest tech toy or working out how to go along his phone charged for merely a few more minutes, he can probably be constitute sitting in a broken-down passenger vehicle in some obscure corner of the planet.

How to back up camera photos without a laptop