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ipad for travel - how to backup files

D

Dentifrice

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 27, 2008
448
85
Hi !

I'm going to travel with only an ipad. I have a lightning to sdcard adapter.

I have a DSLR (shooting raw) and a gopro.

When I'll return to my hotel each day, I want to copy my files from my sdcard to somewhere for backup.

If I had an ipad with a lot of storage, I would just import everything in it but I don't have enough place.

If I had a macbook, I'll just copy file on it or copy it to another sd card.

Now with only an ipad, I don't know what to do. I think you can import files to you ipad with the lightning sdcard adapter but you can't export. So I can't copy files from a sd card to another.

I don't want to relay on cloud app because I don't know if the internet will be good enough there to backup lots of gb.

Do you have an idea on how to make copies of photos and videos with only an ipad ?

thanks
[doublepost=1494445775][/doublepost]I may have found something

https://www.kingston.com/en/wireless/wireless_readers/mlwg3

With this device, it seems I can insert my sd card and connect a usb external drive and from an iphone/ipad app, I can connect to it, browse both sd card/external drive and copy from one to another !
 
On a trip to the Galapagos, I took my Air 2, a portable hard drive, and this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T5XQE3U

I had tens of GBs worth of RAW photos, and camera and GoPro video over three weeks there and I used this wireless device to transfer files from my SD & microSD cards to the hard drive. I used both my Air 2 and my Android Note 4 smartphone to control the transfer using the app associated with the FileHub. Normally, I would have had my laptop but due to limited storage on the boat we were on I left it at home and went with this strategy to back up my imagery and it worked great. I do also have a similar Kingston device but prefer the RavPower as it supports my 4TB hard drives; the Kingston only supported up to 2TB drives. With either device, this approach works very well. I also use the FileHub to stream movies from the HDD and have also used it to create a wireless network in environments where only hard-wired Ethernet was available.
 
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yes I'll be sure to do that.

I'm going for a one week trip and plan less than 100gb of files. My external drive is 250gb so ...for the moment it's not an issue.

Which app do you prefer, filehub or kingston one ?
 
Dentifrice said:
yes I'll be sure to do that.

I'm going for a one week trip and plan less than 100gb of files. My external drive is 250gb so ...for the moment it's not an issue.

Which app do you prefer, filehub or kingston one ?
Click to expand...

Definitely the FileHub app as I had problems at times connecting with the Kingston but the RAVPower has always been rock solid. I have also used 3rd party apps like FileBrowser with it. For simple file transfer between the SD card and the HDD, I found the provided FileHub app to work well. I generally used my phone to do large transfers because I could start them and just set it aside. The transfer rate was around 1 GB/minute so it's neither slow nor super fast. I was usually transferring around 15GB of files at a time. (My backup strategy for both my camera and GoPro were to copy the new files daily from the cards to the HDD. I'd then rename the DCIM folders on the cards to that days date - a new DCIM folder is created when you reinsert the card and turn the camera on. This way I always had two separate copies. I used 128GB cards in my gear to provide the space to support this but I could have just used multiple smaller cards.)

ps Be sure to note that none of these devices support Apple-formatted hard drives, just NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, etc.
 
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thanks ! that's a complete answer !

you said you use 3rd party app like FileBrowser. So the communication between the device and the app isn't a proprietary protocol ? Same with kingston ?
 
Dentifrice said:
thanks ! that's a complete answer !

you said you use 3rd party app like FileBrowser. So the communication between the device and the app isn't a proprietary protocol ? Same with kingston ?
Click to expand...

Correct - neither use proprietary protocols so 3rd party apps do work (even on Windows I was able to use Explorer connecting via the device's network).
 
oh that's nice

so I suppose you only need the official app for configuring the device (wifi, etc..)

thanks again , I'll buy one
 
sorry last question, before buying the RAVpower, I just want to be sure that when you copy files from sd card to usb drive, the data doesn't pass through your iphone/ipad. It's a local copy , right ?

And if so, what happen when your iphone/ipad sleep (and probably disconnect from the device at some point) ?
 
Dentifrice said:
sorry last question, before buying the RAVpower, I just want to be sure that when you copy files from sd card to usb drive, the data doesn't pass through your iphone/ipad. It's a local copy , right ?

And if so, what happen when your iphone/ipad sleep (and probably disconnect from the device at some point) ?
Click to expand...

Not sure about what occurs on a disconnect. If you use their app for the transfer then I know the data does not go through the iphone/ipad but if you use a 3rd party app, it may (I thought card to HDD transfers were slower so I always used their app for that. I used FileBrowser to copy to the iPad and to stream movies from the HDD). Give me a little time and I'll test both of these open questions out - I'll reply a little bit later on it.
 
wow thank you

you can maybe try a large transfer and 1- wait for the ipad to sleep and 2- try to manually close the wifi connection of your ipad
 
Dentifrice said:
wow thank you

you can maybe try a large transfer and 1- wait for the ipad to sleep and 2- try to manually close the wifi connection of your ipad
Click to expand...

Just tried it. I copied a large fle using their app and disconnected the Air 2 from the WiFi connection mid-copy - the copy continued and completed. I copied the same large file from SD card to HDD using FileBrowser and the copy did seem to go through the Air 2 as it was much slower.

Edit: I interrupted the WiFi during the copy of multiple files and found that the file being copied when interruption occurred was fully copied but the others were not.

Edit 2: If I just close the iPad case and leave the WiFi connected, all files get copied.
 
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ok thanks ! So official app for copying files (and need to stay connected when copying multiple files) and 3rd party app for steaming

I hope when the ipad sleeps (screen turning off) the copying continue
 
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Dentifrice said:
ok thanks ! So official app for copying files (and need to stay connected when copying multiple files) and 3rd party app for steaming

I hope when the ipad sleeps (screen turning off) the copying continue
Click to expand...

In my 2nd test, I did put it to sleep by closing the case and the copies continued.
 
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Dentifrice said:
sparksd, a another thanks , I appreciate !

now I'll click "buy" :)
Click to expand...

Just a couple of other usage notes: between disconnects, fully close their app by swiping it closed and reopening it. Also, I found that it worked best when I put the SD card in and/or plugged in the USB drive before I turned the FileHub on. Other than those quirks, like sracer said above (and elsewhere, I know), it works great. I like the copy capability but I probably use it more for streaming videos I put on the HDD (they stream and do not need to be copied to your iPad).
 
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Whenever I travel or stay at the hotel I always bring portable wireless hard drive to transfer photos/video from my iPP. Also I am able to watch ripped movies from my wireless hard drive. you should try Seagate Wireless hard drive.
 
Badrottie said:
Whenever I travel or stay at the hotel I always bring portable wireless hard drive to transfer photos/video from my iPP. Also I am able to watch ripped movies from my wireless hard drive. you should try Seagate Wireless hard drive.
Click to expand...

I have a Seagate too but prefer the FileHub for its ability to use any drive with it (plus the SD card reader and Ethernet support).
 
Has anyone tried using Documents by Readdle to access or copy files to or from a stick drive with one of these FileHub units?

I've been looking for a good solution to back up files I normally store in the cloud, just in case of an accidental deletion. I would like to back up the files to a USB drive. However, the lightning USB drives come with these proprietary apps that don't allow access to cloud drives.

If one of these FileHub units could be accessed by Documents by Readdle, that would allow for easy backups from the cloud to a USB drive or SD card.
 
Eric5273 said:
Has anyone tried using Documents by Readdle to access or copy files to or from a stick drive with one of these FileHub units?

I've been looking for a good solution to back up files I normally store in the cloud, just in case of an accidental deletion. I would like to back up the files to a USB drive. However, the lightning USB drives come with these proprietary apps that don't allow access to cloud drives.

If one of these FileHub units could be accessed by Documents by Readdle, that would allow for easy backups from the cloud to a USB drive or SD card.
Click to expand...

I'll check it out and report back.
 
Eric5273 said:
Has anyone tried using Documents by Readdle to access or copy files to or from a stick drive with one of these FileHub units?

I've been looking for a good solution to back up files I normally store in the cloud, just in case of an accidental deletion. I would like to back up the files to a USB drive. However, the lightning USB drives come with these proprietary apps that don't allow access to cloud drives.

If one of these FileHub units could be accessed by Documents by Readdle, that would allow for easy backups from the cloud to a USB drive or SD card.
Click to expand...

I connected to the FileHub and in Documents I created a connection to the HDD plugged into the FileHub. Documents could see the folders but not access them - it came back with a connection failure messaged. But I could access the folders and files using both FileBrowser and GoodReader. And with a Internet pass-through connection to my home WiFi set up in the FileHub, I could access the Internet and my cloud drives (iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive) and the HDD on the FileHub. For some reason, a connection using Documents wouldn't work properly.

Edit - Apparently, Documents doesn't like a 4TB HDD. I tried with a 500GB HDD connected to the FileHub and Documents works as well as FileBrowser and GoodReader.
 
Last edited:
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sparksd said:
I connected to the FileHub and in Documents I created a connection to the HDD plugged into the FileHub. Documents could see the folders but not access them - it came back with a connection failure messaged. But I could access the folders and files using both FileBrowser and GoodReader. And with a Internet pass-through connection to my home WiFi set up in the FileHub, I could access the Internet and my cloud drives (iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive) and the HDD on the FileHub. For some reason, a connection using Documents wouldn't work properly.

Edit - Apparently, Documents doesn't like a 4TB HDD. I tried with a 500GB HDD connected to the FileHub and Documents works as well as FileBrowser and GoodReader.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I appreciate it!
 
I received my Filehub today and having a lot of fun so far ! Thanks sparksd

Works very well so far
 
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