Backing Up Photos From SD to Portable HDD

[RAC]

I am looking for a way to copy files from my camera's SD card to a portable hard drive as I do at the moment with my netbook computer. The "Walled Garden" that is iOS seems to make this quite a challenge.

For the SD card the choices seem to be the Camera Connection Kit or AirStash. One ties up the physical port on the iPad and one doesn't. The choice made here affects the options forth portable HDD.

For the HDD, one choice is the HyperDrive which requires the use of the physical port and is quite expensive. I have looked for a suitable wireless (or even Bluetooth) HDD but haven't found one yet.

Generally, wireless seems to but the best way to circumvent the physical connection limitations of the iPad, so wireless (AirStash) to wireless is another possibility.

Of course a hardware solution only gets us halfway. The other half is an App that acts like the file manager that iOS doesn't have. FileBrowser is the nearest App the I can think of but I don't know whether it would do the job in this case, there is a good chance that would I think.

 

[deckyon]

I tried a quick search. There used to be USB cables that were able to plug into either a card reader or camera and a portable HD and then, with the press of a button, transfer all the files from one to the other.

I used to use a 2.5" portable case that had the card reader built in to transfer off my cards onto a HD. It was rechargeable and didn't cost more than $50 (drive not included).

There are solutions out there - just have to be inventive.

 

[RAC]

There are solutions out there - just have to be inventive.

I agree but I haven't found quite what I am looking for yet.

Part of the solution needs to include viewing the photo's on the iPad which AirStash would do.

One difficulty is that you don't really know flexible an offering is until you buy it. For example, can FileBrowser connect to AirStash? That would get you more than halfway there. You would then just need a USB or wireless HDD that can also by connected to by FileBrowser.

AirStash is talking about file transfers using WebDav (in the future) but I am not sure whether this would be standalone or via the Internet.

 

[romeosc]

I agree but I haven't found quite what I am looking for yet.

Part of the solution needs to include viewing the photo's on the iPad which AirStash would do.

One difficulty is that you don't really know flexible an offering is until you buy it. For example, can FileBrowser connect to AirStash? That would get you more than halfway there. You would then just need a USB or wireless HDD that can also by connected to by FileBrowser.

AirStash is talking about file transfers using WebDav (in the future) but I am not sure whether this would be standalone or via the Internet.

Airstash does use WebDav and FileBrowser works the A02 version, the newest, has the links to show how to use with, most programs including, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, PDFreader, and many more!