fastest way to offload pics from sd card to ssd WITHOUT LAPTOP

[Parisian]

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

 

[Rexgig0]

Have you used only one sample of the WD device? I have one WD My Passport Wireless Pro, 2TB, non-SSD, and it has performed well enough, though it is a recent acquisition, so I cannot address long-term reliability. I never monitored the transfer speed.

I had thought I might buy another similar or same WD device, but your report of malfunction is a concern

 

[mamallama]

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

Keep them on the original SD card. Carry lots of SD cards. They are inexpensive. Why do you need to transfer them?

 

[barbara j]

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

Keep them on the original SD card. Carry lots of SD cards. They are inexpensive. Why do you need to transfer them?

You know, my knee jerk reaction is noooooooo, but yes, Why not just take a stack of sd cards. I carry an iPad to sample the images, why carry a laptop as well

 

[a_c_skinner]

Exactly. Simple, cheapish, reliable and makes the chance of losing everything almost zero.

 

[Tom_N]

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

There's NeXTo Di, but if you think Gnarbox is "super overpriced", you're not in the market for one of those.

Some of them are over $2,000, and are probably meant for Hollywood movie producers – for whom that might be a drop in a multi-hundred-million-dollar budget.

 

[gary0319]

I tried a number of these "all-in-one" download devices and was amazed at the horrible slowness of the transfer from the SD card, even those professing to have USB 3. When out for full day, 300-400 images would not be unheard of and that slow copy rate was a deal breaker.

Finally I sent them all back and bought myself a small 11" Lenovo Windows laptop that weighs about 2.5 lbs, and fits easily in the back pocket of my camera bag or into my carry on. It has enough power for running my Olympus Workspace software for culling out images at the days end, and has USB C for fast transfer from the SD card to my small external hard drive. Cost me about $250. My bigger laptop stays home, now.

 

[Richard B99]

1. Parisian wrote:

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

This https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63192557 and a few other ideas that cropped up on the thread.

 

[mamallama]

I tried a number of these "all-in-one" download devices and was amazed at the horrible slowness of the transfer from the SD card, even those professing to have USB 3. When out for full day, 300-400 images would not be unheard of and that slow copy rate was a deal breaker.

Finally I sent them all back and bought myself a small 11" Lenovo Windows laptop that weighs about 2.5 lbs, and fits easily in the back pocket of my camera bag or into my carry on. It has enough power for running my Olympus Workspace software for culling out images at the days end, and has USB C for fast transfer from the SD card to my small external hard drive. Cost me about $250. My bigger laptop stays home, now.

I too use a small 11" Lenovo laptop for portable SD transfers on the road. I paid $160 for a refurbished one with a SD card reader and 2 USB ports. I keep 2 high capacity small flash drives in the USB ports that act like external drives. This is a conventional setup and to me is better than those other specialized devices like WD Passport droves.

Moreover the laptop is useful in so many other ways.

 

[gary0319]

I tried a number of these "all-in-one" download devices and was amazed at the horrible slowness of the transfer from the SD card, even those professing to have USB 3. When out for full day, 300-400 images would not be unheard of and that slow copy rate was a deal breaker.

Finally I sent them all back and bought myself a small 11" Lenovo Windows laptop that weighs about 2.5 lbs, and fits easily in the back pocket of my camera bag or into my carry on. It has enough power for running my Olympus Workspace software for culling out images at the days end, and has USB C for fast transfer from the SD card to my small external hard drive. Cost me about $250. My bigger laptop stays home, now.

I too use a small 11" Lenovo laptop for portable SD transfers on the road. I paid $160 for a refurbished one with a SD card reader and 2 USB ports. I keep 2 high capacity small flash drives in the USB ports that act like external drives. This is a conventional setup and to me is better than those other specialized devices like WD Passport droves.

Moreover the laptop is useful in so many other ways.

I bought a USB C card reader that absolutely flies when downloading from my UHS II cards, even though my external hard drive is not an SSD.

I added a 256gb micro SD card which acts as an internal hard drive to augment the 64gb internal drive. Having access to my e-mails and any cloud stored data is another plus not available with those dedicated storage devices.

 

[Leswick II]

I tried a number of these "all-in-one" download devices and was amazed at the horrible slowness of the transfer from the SD card, even those professing to have USB 3. When out for full day, 300-400 images would not be unheard of and that slow copy rate was a deal breaker.

Finally I sent them all back and bought myself a small 11" Lenovo Windows laptop that weighs about 2.5 lbs, and fits easily in the back pocket of my camera bag or into my carry on. It has enough power for running my Olympus Workspace software for culling out images at the days end, and has USB C for fast transfer from the SD card to my small external hard drive. Cost me about $250. My bigger laptop stays home, now.

I too use a small 11" Lenovo laptop for portable SD transfers on the road. I paid $160 for a refurbished one with a SD card reader and 2 USB ports. I keep 2 high capacity small flash drives in the USB ports that act like external drives. This is a conventional setup and to me is better than those other specialized devices like WD Passport droves.

Moreover the laptop is useful in so many other ways.

Yes, much what has been said about JUST using cards. Most likely the best way to go.

Intend to get a small laptop (13" Acer) and don't have to haul my Lenovo furniture. It would be super reliable plus it would allow me to do other things like checking weather, reservations, transport, reviewing photos (no edits) and myriad of other uses. I don't use cell enroute, so this is crucial. Small WD drives are super handy and great for replicating images enroute.

 

[Parisian]

Those who replied JUST using SD cards probably have not done a full week of shoot+filming before. For me, it can sometimes come up to 1TB of data PER DAY, so taking SD cards is definitely a no-go.

 

[mamallama]

Those who replied JUST using SD cards probably have not done a full week of shoot+filming before. For me, it can sometimes come up to 1TB of data PER DAY, so taking SD cards is definitely a no-go.

How many days are you talking about?

 

[Parisian]

typically 1 week, but on occasion can go up to 2 weeks.

 

[mamallama]

typically 1 week, but on occasion can go up to 2 weeks.

Trying to avoid a laptop may be a mistake. Some very capable laptops aren't much larger than some of those other devices.

 

[By standing on the Shoulders of Giants]

Greetings.

When I was using Fuji, I wireless copy to my Samsung Note 4. But it's only 30 pics at a time but adequate if I wanna share files fast. My Fuji has been down for months so I stopped using this method.

So I go back to using my Sony nex. I pop the SD card into a small card reader and with an OTG adaptor I copy the photos onto my Samsung Note 4.

I usually copy about 100 pics for about day or half a day of shooting. Sometimes a couple of pics would turn up unviewable, and I would delete this files. As it's not a big deal to repeat the process i jist select all the photos and command the phone to copy into the same on my phone. The phone would just copy those missing ones after prompting me about the presence of similar files.

Both the card reader and the adaptor are about 1.50 usd each. And since I use a microsd card in my Sony Nex, I'm not worried about wear and tear. I can also pop in the micro SD card into my phone and copy the contents but I don't like how my phone's OS sometimes f up the card's format and made me lose all my photos. A big no-no IMO.

PS, I can't remember when was the last time I fired up my laptop.

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

 

[Labe]

Greetings.

When I was using Fuji, I wireless copy to my Samsung Note 4. But it's only 30 pics at a time but adequate if I wanna share files fast. My Fuji has been down for months so I stopped using this method.

So I go back to using my Sony nex. I pop the SD card into a small card reader and with an OTG adaptor I copy the photos onto my Samsung Note 4.

I usually copy about 100 pics for about day or half a day of shooting. Sometimes a couple of pics would turn up unviewable, and I would delete this files. As it's not a big deal to repeat the process i jist select all the photos and command the phone to copy into the same on my phone. The phone would just copy those missing ones after prompting me about the presence of similar files.

Both the card reader and the adaptor are about 1.50 usd each. And since I use a microsd card in my Sony Nex, I'm not worried about wear and tear. I can also pop in the micro SD card into my phone and copy the contents but I don't like how my phone's OS sometimes f up the card's format and made me lose all my photos. A big no-no IMO.

PS, I can't remember when was the last time I fired up my laptop.

problem is the OP is talking about 1TB per day

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63318205

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

 

[pocoloco]

I use my phone.

- using a cardreader I copy images from the card to my phone (A Samsung S9 with 256GB internal storage)

- then I backup / copy from my phone to an SSD (a sandisk waterproof ssd)

This way I always have 2 backups on my images, that I can store in different locations during the day (theft / loss prevention).

I can even edit them on my phone (raw images) for some quick Insta posts or creating a postcard to send to family / friends.

 

[Parisian]

did you monitor your transfer speed? mine is 20mb/s regardless of which android phone i use.

 

[sportyaccordy]

I have tried the following before:

WD Wireless Pro: very unreliable, sometimes transfers 998 out of 1000 pics, missing 2 or even corrupting a few pics. Slow transfer speed, approx 40MB/s.

Transfer via P30 Pro with USB-C powered hub with 3.1Gen2 Ports, Samsung T5 SSD and Paragon exFAT app: Surprisingly even slower, approx. 20MB/s even though all my equipment can do 90MB/s when connected to PC/laptop.

Laptop is the best/most reliable, but a waste of luggage space especially when travelling, when I simply just want to transfer pics on the go.

Gnarbox looks reliable, but super overpriced for what it does.

Any other options I missed out?

Keep them on the original SD card. Carry lots of SD cards. They are inexpensive. Why do you need to transfer them?

What happens if

• SD card gets corrupted/broken/lost?
• Camera with SD card in it gets stolen?

Data backup exists for a reason. I've never had any problems with SD cards or stolen gear but I back my stuff up anyway. Might be worth getting a small cheap laptop for the sole purpose of backup.