Last week I wrote about the struggle I had backing up photos while on my honeymoon. I had a few thoughts for how I would solve the issue in the future, but did not find any ideal solutions and said I would update the blog post if anyone emailed me with good tips.

With feedback from 21 individual people (mostly photographers), I think I have a grasp on the solutions.

Backup to a Hard Drive Device
Most people suggested some hard drive backup. These devices take a memory card and copy the photos to the built-in hard drive. The complete set of devices:

Digital Foci
Epson P-3000/6000/7000
Jobo
MemoryKick
Nexto DI
Sanho HyperDrive
Vosonic
Wolverine
Xs-Drive

All of these devices perform effectively the same function. The main differences are:
* Is there a screen to view the photos?
* How much space is available on the hard drive?
* How much does it cost?
Below is my summary of these items for each of these products.

The companies also try to differentiate the devices on a variety of other features:
* File transfer speed
* USB 2.0 support
* Zoom, rotate, delete
* Screen size, quality
* Ability to save videos/music
* Tethering (save directly from camera)
* Number of cards that can be inserted at one time
* Size, weight
* Maximum size of an individual file
For your specific needs, consider whether these other items are important.

Which one of these is the best? I don’t know and I’m sure it depends on what you’re optimizing. However, based purely on the sample of responses I got, the HyperDrive received the most kudos, with the Epson and Digital Foci models tied for second.

Backing up SD-to-SD
Having said all of that…one person actually found exactly what I wanted: an SD-to-SD card backup:

The iMONO HD-2400 sold by USB Geek

It copies one SD card to another, is fairly small, battery powered, and costs just $22.

One thing I do worry about with the device is mistakenly copying the blank SD card onto the full one. I am hoping the device has some protection against that or at least makes it really obvious which way the copy is going.

I just ordered one now and will let you know how well it works when I get it.

Backup to SD Card versus to Hard Drive
I love the backup-to-hard-drive devices above. Many of them look sleek, store all the photos you could take on a yearlong trip around the world, and allow you to preview and work on the files as you go. For many people these devices are lifesavers.

However, while traveling, keeping these devices in the same bag as your camera means that your photos are not fully protected. If they were backed up online, fantastic, but the whole issue here was that I wanted to travel without a laptop and not have to worry about finding a blistering fast Internet connection. Thus, having a card-to-card backup where I send one of the cards home periodically means losing my bag will not cost me my data.

Either way – it’s great to see that there are some options. Stay tuned for my review of the iMono device.

Two weeks ago I returned from my honeymoon – a trip to Kenya that included an amazing safari. While the trip was incredibly relaxing, I was nervous until a few days after I returned home.

You see, since this was a honeymoon, my wife made a firm request: no laptop. Checking email and doing work could wait until we were back. A few days into the trip I realized the photos we were taking would be great memories, but we had no way to backup the SD cards while we were on the road.

What if I dropped the camera? If our luggage was lost? If the SD cards got soaked?

I started putting the camera and SD cards into a zip-lock bag and then into the hotel safe whenever we did not bring them with us. I thought about backing them up online, but waiting for a slow satellite-based Internet connection in a game reserve in the middle of the Masai Mara was not practical. I figured I could go to an Internet cafe and burn backup copies onto DVDs, but the computer DVD burners did not work.

In the end I just continued to be paranoid throughout the trip. When I got home, I downloaded the photos to my wife’s PC, then to an external hard drive, then to my Mac. Within a day they were also backed up online by Backblaze.

Finally, I felt safe.

How would I backup my photos while traveling in the future?
Backup to an iPod
Backing up to an iPod seems like the most natural option. iPods are fairly inexpensive, capacious, sturdy, and most people have at least one. Looking around, this seems to be one of the best iPod SD card reader options available. However, “best” does not mean “good”. This Belkin device is over six years old and customers have said it is very slow and only works with old iPods (think actual click-wheel.)

Backup to an iPod Touch or iPhone
I actually had an iPod Touch with me on the trip, but had no way to transfer photos to it. This seems to be the only iPhone or iPod SD card reader available that has been reviewed. Again, the reviews are not fantastic – but it does seem to work.

Backup to an iPad
Apple has developed its own SD card reader for the iPad. The reviews are good. It’s developed by Apple. It’s not too expensive. But… it requires taking an iPad with you on your travels. This is not an ideal solution because a) at over $500 not everyone can afford one, b) it is somewhat fragile, c) it is a bit large if all you want is an SD card backup.

Backup to an external hard drive
Using an external hard drive to backup the SD card to versus using the memory inside an iPod should be fine. However, most external hard drives are designed to be plugged into a USB port on a computer.

Backup to an SD card
I would love to just have a small device that would duplicate one SD card to another. SD cards are cheap and I would put the backup SD card in the mail and send it back home. Unfortunately, I can’t find a single device that does this. Belkin? Sandisk? Kingston? I’m looking at you.

Of course, as soon as possible I would do my Backblaze online backup – but while traveling without a laptop, next time I will bring one of the options above.

Have you found a better approach? Email me with tips at and I will update this blog post if someone suggests something really useful.

UPDATE: After receiving a lot of feedback, I published a detailed blog post summarizing the feedback about how to backup photos while traveling.