Year Long Trip Storage for RAW Files

<p>Ok Edward. Personally I prefer not to carry a portable HDD on a trip, but to simply load the card content onto a small portable that I use for very little else but temporary back-ups and keep lightly loaded. I don't remove images from memory cards till I've used them to load to my desktop and external hard drives at home. I suppose you'd point out that I'm loading the cards twice, but it doesn't take long, and I get the benefit of not carrying a portable hard drive on trips. And at any point I've probably got the last year's photographs on the portable if something unforeseen should happen to my main computer and back-up drive. </p>

<p>Thanks, Dave. Your plan is perfectly workable, and meets a prime directive I follow too. No card gets erased until it is properly backed up.</p>

<p>That said, I am comfortable reformatting and reusing cards in the field once I'm backed up to a hard drive and optical media - Blu-Ray discs, which I keep in a zipper binder. Although I use portable hard drives, I don't recycle them. I have used the same 2 TB USB hard drive since 2013 (or before), which has only images I've taken on vacation. It seems to be cheap insurance at a cost of about $125. On two occasions I've referred to that drive after disc failures on my desktop. Since then I've installed a 16 TB RAID-type drive (Drobo), which is able to recover from up to two simultaneous drive failures (out of five) with hot-swap capability.</p>

<p>When I have time on the road, I like to process images, such as HDR composites, to pass the time in evenings or to share with friends and relatives. A laptop and portable hard drive makes that easy to do, along with backups. Blu-Ray discs are reasonably durable, fast, and can't be accidently erased (unlike a hard drive). CDs and DVDs aren't large enough for modern memory cards.</p>

<p>Thank you all again. I am pretty sure I have a plan based on all of your comments and my personal needs and levels of comfort. I have a rather large following of individuals wanting to read about my adventures out of the country "while I'm, traveling". I never traveled with a laptop. I would write in my journal every night and when I found an internet café I would write home. On recent trips to Mongolia, Colombia and the Amazon I found it more difficult to find an internet café. But finding WiFi here and there even in a place as remote as Sagsai Mongolia is now common. I decided the next trip I needed to have a tablet with a decent keyboard or a small laptop. I have had a tablet for a couple of years (never traveled with it, just too much stuff in my back pack, AND front pack) and find it unsatisfactory for my needs anywhere. Apps are annoying as well and belong on the phone. So I will be purcasing a very small Windows based laptop primarily for writing and e-mailing. So, I will have a laptop with me, but the size of the hardrive will be small. I will stick with 16GB SD cards, because as I said earlier, I can't deal with the loss of more than 300 images if my camera is lost or stolen. The camera is the most likely item I will be traveling with that will be stolen followed by the laptop. I should point out that both my wife and I are independent travelers. We go it alone and like to blend with, experience and photograph cultures different from our own. This means we don't have some of the protection that comes with traveling with experienced guides and leaves us more vulnerable to lots more "bad things" to happen to us including theft. But this is what we like to do. I don't view backing up my images to my laptop or keeping large numbers of images on SD cards in my camera as a safe way to back up. I will carry two SSHD's, one for my wife carried in her bag (not her day bag) and one for me. We will use the laptop to upload images to these as the opportunity arrives. I may purchase several hi capacity SD cards and store the same images 0n them that are on the SSHD drives and carry these in my money belt. Finally I will try to upload to iCloud when the opportunity arises so images are not with me and can't be stolen. Yes I know that could take hours, but traveling for a year we have to reason to rush from one place to another. We may even rent an apartment or house here and there as we are also scouting for a new place to live out our "elder years" as far away from the current worldwide" insanity of humanity"' as possible.</p>

<p>Paul, have you thought about a second camera (just in case) ? Your wife could be using it...but for a trip of this magnitude it would be essential, IMO. Not so sure I'd want to use the cloud at all. You can download the photo files to an external HD/thumbdrive (this is what I used for 7 weeks in Asia) anywhere....and the most usable shots I also recorded on the laptop's HD. Furthermore, you could get a Kingston (or whatever small reader/writer) and copy your SD card to other SD card....and keep those as an additional insurance....and they'd take up minimal space. The only need for wifi would be to write or check weather ahead (or gaining info, etc).</p>

<p>If I were you, I'd consider a mesh outside or built-into the fabric of your luggage for more security....Pacsafe carries whole pile of items that might fit your needs....less headaches down the road. It may not dissuade a pro thief, but thieves don't like resistance. You could easily attach it to a bed frame or calorifer. Just a thought.<br>

Les</p>

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<p>Thanks Leszek. My wife and I will be traveling with a Nikon D610,D7100, Canon G12 (I love this little camera), and at least one GoPro. Oh yes two iPhones :-). We both have Pacsafe camera straps and backpacks. We also lock our bags closed in our rooms as well as lock the bags to something immoveable. I am still going to use the cloud when possible, but in conjunction with the other measures I mentioned above in the post just before yours. I also take one more step to avoid theft. I put off market lens caps on my lenses so the large white word Nikon does not show and I put small pieces of black duct tape on all the camera brand and model names wherever they appear on the cameras. That way the cameras are less noticeable and unless the potential thief is a photographer, he/she won't know its a Nikon, which likely is known worldwide as an expensive camera. We also have camera insurance, so replacing one out of the country is perhaps a pain, but not impossible. Great discussion !</p>

<p>Paul, I'd love to hear more about your trip plans. Starting point, direction, modes of travel, feature destinations, etc.</p>

<p>Well Gup, that is an interesting question. We tend to be "by the seat of our pants" travelers. There are definitely some places we plan on going, but where we go first depends on when we actually get out act together. We are hoping to leave late fall of this year (after a few week spiritual retreat in the Peruvian Amazon), but no later than late winter next year. It is challenging to disentangle ourselves from our home, get everything in storage so we can rent the house, store cars at friends houses, mail, etc. etc. We know we wish to spend more time in Central America. We both wish to see Cuba and likely Patagonia. We both wish to return to India. We have a young lady in Uganda that my spouse met while there in 2007 and has helped her through secondary school and college so we would like to be in Uganda for her graduation in 2017. I have lots of relatives in Italy. We want to see eastern Europe. There I parts of Mongolia I still wish to see as well as parts of Russia. All I can really say is our travel is "fluid" and with a year we could end up almost anywhere, but the above is a starter and that's all we need to get going.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing, Paul. I love the spontaneity of it. I also appreciate the necessary planning stage before take-off. My wife is 7 years behind me which I thought was wonderful when we met but now is a curse as I wait for her to retire in 6 years. I'm just spinning my wheels waiting for her to catch-up. Everywhere I travel I'm looking for a suitable place to spend our remaining winters. We always rent a car at the airport and drive for a few weeks when we are discovering new places in an attempt to immerse ourselves in the lifestyle of our hosts. I liked Costa Rica but was disappointed at the amount of barbed wire and barred windows always in evidence. Italy was wonderful from top to bottom. Sicily remains the front runner for a possible winter escape. I see us living on a yacht based out of a marina for 4 or 5 months while we wait for the Canadian winter to subside. The last two of which have worn me down.</p><div></div>

<p>My spouse is almost 5 years older than me, so never had to wait for her to retire. However, we have both been good with traveling alone as well as with each other. Both are great and very different experiences. Anyway this is something we need to do. I'm 68 and she is 72. We have never really traveled outside the US with finding a new place to live in the back of our minds. Done it in the US, but never in different country.This could be our last hurrah traveling on the edge...together anyway. We may need a yacht to live on soon instead of hostels, couch surfing and home stays. Lovely photograph. I like that its so close to Africa.</p>