external hard drives and how do you set up, and save old images and memory card files?

[Brownie]

Just paid £106.00 for the 5tb ssd wd better prices if you are a member Tim free postage here as well

There were tons of deals out there, I was looking specifically for something small that would force me to wipe it and start over each time, else I'd end up leaving a bunch of folders on it and thinking I'd take care of them later, and I'd end up like you!

I really didn't need to buy one at all, I have plenty of storage available on my other backups, but I wanted something dedicated for this use to keep them separate.

 

[Brownie]

I picked up a new SSD today to use as my transient drive and tested it. The Sony Tough 128Gb 277/150 had just under 400 files from the A7 IV and uploaded at a bit over 200MBps, same as to the other SSD.

This time I also tested the Pergear Express A 260Gb. It also had about 400 files but from the A1, so a lot larger. It uploaded at 300MBps for about 2/3 of the files, then slowed to 240MBps for the remainder. No idea why it slowed, did I read somewhere they slow if they get hot? The card was warm when I removed it from the reader, but not hot.

In any event, this is a simple and elegant solution that will work just fine until I decide to upgrade the computer.

 

[Richard A]

The reason the transfer of files slows down is because the cache fills up. Like the buffer in your camera. That’s why I build my own.

BTW, having a drive dedicated to that task is a good idea I think.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Since we're on this subject, has anyone ever seen an external drive or a docking station that holds a drive or two, and also has a card slot or USB for direct transfer? I saw something once that suggested it would do that. I'd like to be able to go from the card to the drive and not even involve the computer until I'm ready to process.

Not an external drive, but I think there are some NAS boxes which will do that. Trying to remember which brand it was, and I am drawing a blank. Sorry about that.

Of course, with NAS boxes is you'll get some data redundancy.

 

[Brownie]

Not an external drive, but I think there are some NAS boxes which will do that. Trying to remember which brand it was, and I am drawing a blank. Sorry about that.

Of course, with NAS boxes is you'll get some data redundancy.

See the many previous posts. It works well.

 

[Brownie]

The reason the transfer of files slows down is because the cache fills up. Like the buffer in your camera. That’s why I build my own.

BTW, having a drive dedicated to that task is a good idea I think.

Is there a cache in the SSD, or do you mean the cache in the computer?

 

[Richard A]

The cache in the SSD...

Not all SSD's are equal.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

<<Only for Linux folk>>
Although others could use the same methodology

Copying from camera...

I copy pics from camera to computer via a staging location. I use a gui app called grsync (Linux) but it is a front end to rsync and it tells me that this would be the command line:

rsync -r -t -v --progress --ignore-existing -s /media/[me]/C816-666C/DCIM/ /Library/pictures/0-a7iv/DCIM

I have to change the "C816-666C" when I format the sd card, as it gets a new label.

As you can guess, it is a sync process rather than just a copy. It won't copy files that have been copied already.

I manually copy the new directories from that location to my pictures/year/month folders. I keep the camera-allotted folder names, just appending the event name. "Create New Folder" on the camera covers multiple "events" per day. (so long as I remember to do it!)

Copying to backup disk...

Here I use my own scripts, also using the rsync command. My script looks for a connected drive and puts it in a variable. But basically does...

rsync --delete -r -t -h -p -o -g -x --progress -l -H -s --exclude=.Trash-* <current year directory> <Backup-Drive>/path/to/same

I do this whenever I have done some adding, culling or editing. The delete option replicates deletion on the backup.

No, I don't remember what all the letter options do. I worked all this out and scripted it several years ago.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Another idea. Has anyone ever tried just transferring between two USB ports on a computer? Example:

Card reader in USB port 1
Portable SSD or HD in USB port 2

Open both drives, drag and drop.

Seems to me this could do a direct transfer from card to drive via the computer without getting the internal drive involved. Would it transfer as quickly as the USB ports allow, or at least a lot faster than going to my internal HD?

Unless someone shouts me down, I am going to give this a try tonight.

Yes, that works. It’s still going via the computer (my first read of what you wrote was that you wanted it to transfer without the computer - blame too many long days and an excess of blood in my caffeine stream), but the data skips the slow internal drive in the computer - card to RAM to external drive.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It’s still going via the computer

One of my brain cells says that SCSI could transfer direct between two attached devices. Is it right? It's a long time since I had anything to do with it.

Anyway, I don't think that SCSI is a viable alternative these days. At least not for home use.

 

[Brownie]

Yes, that works. It’s still going via the computer (my first read of what you wrote was that you wanted it to transfer without the computer - blame too many long days and an excess of blood in my caffeine stream), but the data skips the slow internal drive in the computer - card to RAM to external drive.

I was looking at two options, one an external drive(s) with a docking station that has card readers/USB ports built-in and would transfer sans computer, and the other using the computer's USB ports to transfer from card reader to external SSD without getting the computer's internal HD involved. I tested and opted for the latter, it works better than anticipated.

 

[AlphaWorld]

One of my brain cells says that SCSI could transfer direct between two attached devices. Is it right? It's a long time since I had anything to do with it.

Anyway, I don't think that SCSI is a viable alternative these days. At least not for home use.

SCSI did have the ability to do that (device to device commands), but you won't get that by dragging and dropping files on the GUI.

I think that may have been limited to old-school parallel SCSI (I used both "narrow" (50 wire) and "wide" (68 wire) SCSI - it always amused me that the narrow cables were wider than the wide). I don't know if it still has that ability when we start talking about SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). Back when I was assembling my own computers I built systems using ESDI, SCSI, and eventually IDE/PATA. It went almost entirely SATA for a while (SAS in enterprise), but I haven't built a machine in almost a decade, and I suspect that these days NVMe has probably taken a lot of the share.

 

[AlphaWorld]

I was looking at two options, one an external drive(s) with a docking station that has card readers/USB ports built-in and would transfer sans computer, and the other using the computer's USB ports to transfer from card reader to external SSD without getting the computer's internal HD involved. I tested and opted for the latter, it works better than anticipated.

The specialised boxes that can do the copying for you tend to be a lot less flexible. Attaching the external SSD - so much more flexible (and it's exactly what I do!)