Today’s Question: I’ll be traveling soon on a vacation with very strict size/weight restrictions, and I’d like to have a way to back-up my SD memory cards. Is it possible to plug a USB hub into a cell phone’s USB-C port and use some phone app to copy from the SD card to an SSD drive? Any other suggestions for back-up on the road, without access to WiFi?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, in most cases you can download memory cards directly to your smartphone or tablet and then transfer them to a portable storage device.
More Detail: If you’re traveling without a computer, you can use a smartphone or tablet to back up your memory cards along the way. This requires a couple of accessories to enable the data transfer but will work with most recent smartphone or tablet models. I recommend testing everything before traveling to make sure the accessories and workflow will work on your device.
The first thing you’ll need is a card reader for your smartphone, or an adapter to enable you to connect a card reader. For example, if your smartphone or tablet has a USB-C port you can connect a card reader directly to that port or use an adapter if needed for your card reader. If you’re using an iPhone with a Lightning connection, you can use a Lightning-to-USB adapter. The point is you’ll need to connect your memory card to the device.
You can then use the Apple Files app on iOS devices or the Files by Google app for Android devices to transfer your photos from the memory card to the storage on your device.
If you want an additional backup or need to remove the photos from your device, you can use another storage device for that purpose. For iPhones with a Lightning connector I recommend the SanDisk iXpand drive (https://timgrey.me/lightningdrive), which includes a Lightning connector for the iPhone and a USB-A connection for a computer. For devices with a USB-C connection I recommend the SanDisk Ultra (https://timgrey.me/luxe256).
So, the overall process would generally involve transferring photos from your memory card to your device, then copying them to another storage device (or moving them if you don’t have enough storage on your device. You could repeat the transfer to another storage device a second time to provide a backup, or be sure to bring enough memory cards so you won’t need to format your cards during the trip.
