L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:
I'm looking for a Tablet with USB so i can be away from my desktop and transfer my Memory Cards Raw Files to the Tablet in order to be able to reuse them.

my budget is maybe $250 at the top end.

BTW, IF this is the real reason you want a tablet, I would rethink the whole thing.

If you are transferring to the tablet and quickly reusing the cards, you stop having any backup or redundancy for your images, which is a TERRIBLE practice.

Buy more memory cards, PERIOD.

If you get a tablet, use the tablet as a backup copy, but do NOT reuse the cards until you have confirmed that everything has been successfully copied to your desktop AND the images have no issues.

In the workflow you're describing, you could very easily screw yourself over and lose images.  What if there is an error in copying a photo from the card to the tablet.  What if someone steals your tablet?

Reuse the cards before you confirm the integrity of the images after copying them to your desktop, HORRIBLE idea that is just asking for trouble.

CHAD ALAN wrote:
No, because it seemed to me that the repetition of the word "magnetic" implied that the medium was more susceptible to becoming corrupt due to magnetic fields.

Also, it was misinformation, and could have led some to think that SD and CF cards were a less desirable method of backup.

likewise compact discs are not affected by magnets.

DougBPhoto wrote:
BTW, IF this is the real reason you want a tablet, I would rethink the whole thing.

If you are transferring to the tablet and quickly reusing the cards, you stop having any backup or redundancy for your images, which is a TERRIBLE practice.

Buy more memory cards, PERIOD.

If you get a tablet, use the tablet as a backup copy, but do NOT reuse the cards until you have confirmed that everything has been successfully copied to your desktop AND the images have no issues.

In the workflow you're describing, you could very easily screw yourself over and lose images.  What if there is an error in copying a photo from the card to the tablet.  What if someone steals your tablet?

Reuse the cards before you confirm the integrity of the images after copying them to your desktop, HORRIBLE idea that is just asking for trouble.

le me state again that i will be using a portable hard drive (WD my passport) to store the images.

i will be travelling to NYC for a few days and plan to do a few days worth of photo sessions, so buying more memory cards is not economical nor practical. i plan to shoot during the day and then in the evening transfer the images to the portable hard drive.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:

likewise compact discs are not affected by magnets.

Most writeable Compact Discs, DVDs and Blu-Ray LTH discs are dye based.   They tend to fade over time - no magnets required.

While optical media can play a role in data archiving, if your goal is archival storage, I would suggest that you don't keep your only copies on non-archival optical media.

I suggest keeping copies on appropriate optical media and hard drives.

If you use SSD media for storage, keep it powered up.   I just had to update the firmware in my Samsung 840 EV drive.  It seems the old firmware was rewriting files often enough.  It seems the bits fade over time.  Every so often, the firmware needs to rewrite a block even if it hasn't been changed.   If you leave a SSD drive in a safe deposit box, none of the blocks get refreshed.


I suggest you separate the goals of a portable portfolio from on location storage.   In terms of On location storage, I would suggest getting more memory cards.  In terms of a portable portfolio, I would suggest a smart phone or tablet.  My personal preference is an iPhone or iPad, but there are other options.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:

le me state again that i will be using a portable hard drive (WD my passport) to store the images.

i will be travelling to NYC for a few days and plan to do a few days worth of photo sessions, so buying more memory cards is not economical nor practical. i plan to shoot during the day and then in the evening transfer the images to the portable hard drive.

64GB SD cards seem to be around $30 on Amazon.  $100 is well inside your budget and gets you almost 200GB of storage.   

How many GB do you intend to shoot while in NY?

Michael Fryd wrote:
64GB SD cards seem to be around $30 on Amazon.  $100 is well inside your budget and gets you almost 200GB of storage.   

How many GB do you intend to shoot while in NY?

I prefer compact flash, and i prefer 4GB cards.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:
le me state again that i will be using a portable hard drive (WD my passport) to store the images.

i will be travelling to NYC for a few days and plan to do a few days worth of photo sessions, so buying more memory cards is not economical nor practical. i plan to shoot during the day and then in the evening transfer the images to the portable hard drive.

You DO realize that is a complete contradiction to your original post?

The underlying point remains true with either scenario.

Copy everything to a tablet or to a HD, you are putting your chickens into one basket... for years, people (possibly even you) have ranted against using large memory cards because there is too much risk of losing all your images.  In fact, if you're making copies off the original cards, you have more risk of introducing corruption than from using a larger, professional quality card.

Most tablets have pretty small storage, like equal to 1 or 2 memory cards, so if you're copying everything to one external HD and reusing the cards, you're again putting everything into one basket and assuming you'll be fine.

From a professional workflow standpoint, that is foolish too.

4 gig cards?  The 2005's called and want their cards back.

DougBPhoto wrote:
You DO realize that is a complete contradiction to your original post?

The underlying point remains true with either scenario.

Copy everything to a tablet or to a HD, you are putting your chickens into one basket... for years, people (possibly even you) have ranted against using large memory cards because there is too much risk of losing all your images.

Most tablets have pretty small storage, like equal to 1 or 2 memory cards, so if you're copying everything to one external HD and reusing the cards, you're again putting everything into one basket and assuming you'll be fine.

From a professional workflow standpoint, that is foolish too.

4 gig cards?  The 2005's called and want their cards back.

but not contradictory to my posts following that one.

sheesh. yes. i started out thinking i would save everything to a tablet, but upon a little research i now see that i can use the tablet to facilitate the transfer between my memory cards and my portable hard drive.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:
but not contradictory to my posts following that one.

sheesh. yes. i started out thinking i would save everything to a tablet, but upon a little research i now see that i can use the tablet to facilitate the transfer between my memory cards and my portable hard drive.

I appreciate your thread, because I am interested in tablets, and especially as indicated in my last post on the first page, I am very interested how each of the different systems handle things like file names on photos so moving things back and forth don't get messed up.

That said, what you're saying still does not make sense.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying you prefer 4gb cards, presumably because you don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket.

So, instead of trusting larger cards, you want to copy your smaller cards onto a single hard drive and then erase your originals by writing over the cards.

I'm confused how blindly copying and hoping nothing went wrong in the copies is somehow safer or more reliable than getting 16gb or 32gb cards (whichever your camera will take) and keeping your originals intact until you get home.

If you want to get the tablet to use with the hard drive to make backup copies, that is great.

However, if you're wanting a tablet to do as you describe, so you can reuse your 4gb cards, compared to simply getting larger memory cards, what you're asking and/or saying you want to do makes no sense, even by your own rationale of only trusting small memory cards.

If you don't trust your camera writing photos directly to well tested and reliable professional memory cards, in what possible world does it make sense to copy from cards through a tablet, onto a single HD, proceed to write over your cards, and assume that is safer/smarter.  I'm sorry, that makes no damn sense.

Buy larger cards, use tablet to facilitate backup to HD and keep cards intact until you get home, fantastic.

Buy tablet to keep using small cards because you don't trust all your photos in one place on larger cards, so you copy everything to one place on a single HD, assume everything copied fine and intentionally write over all your originals, yeah, that is crazy talk.  (Even the linked article's suggestion of copying to 2 HD's and assuming it's all good is riskier than not writing over your cards until you get home and visually validate/confirm all images.)

Great illustration of how a tablet can make a great tool in someone's workflow, but also a great illustration of how it can be used as a potentially disastrous one.

Very good thread, lots to think about and discuss!!

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:

I prefer compact flash, and i prefer 4GB cards.

Per GB, CompactFlash seems to cost about double SD cards. 

I am still curious as to how much storage you need.

I will also suggest that using many small cards is more dangerous than using fewer large cards.

By and large, memory cards are very reliable.   The real danger is that you will drop or misplace one while changing cards, or accidentally reuse a card from earlier in the day.   Fitting a day's shoot onto one card, reduces the chances you will lose images while changing cards in the field.


The other issue is card failure.   Larger cards seem to have the same failure rate as smaller cards.  If you use 4GB cards, you need 16 times as many as 64GB cards.  You are 16 times as likely to see a failure, but at least the failure will only affect a smaller portion of your images.


With CompactFlash you have the danger of bending a pin in the camera when you change cards.  The less often your change cards, the less likely you will bend a pin.


If you are really paranoid, get a camera with dual memory slots.  Put large cards in both slots and have the camera write images to both.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:

but not contradictory to my posts following that one.

sheesh. yes. i started out thinking i would save everything to a tablet, but upon a little research i now see that i can use the tablet to facilitate the transfer between my memory cards and my portable hard drive.

This was the main reason I went with the ASUS tablet and dock, card reader on one side HD on the other and about the same transfer speed as a regular laptop.

L A U B E N H E I M E R wrote:
i have come to a solution for myself. no need to try and sway me this way or that way.

but feel free to continue debating colorspace and the horribleness of compact flash and using 4GB cards, etc etc.

If you are happy with your choice, then you have your answer.

No need to insult those who point out various issues that most in your situation would want to consider.

Michael Fryd wrote:

If you are happy with your choice, then you have your answer.

No need to insult those who point out various issues that most in your situation would want to consider.

not insulting at all. but feel free to debate that.