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Wondering if any of you wandering souls have an idea for backing up your recordings while away from your computers for an extended period of time.

Here's my deal...

I'm heading to Spain for a couple weeks and have decided to take a small rig along (M10, MixPre, 4060s) I have a couple of 16gb microsdhc cards to take, but it occurs to me that I don't have a laptop and, as far as I can tell, won't have a way in place to backup any recordings until I return from my trip. Oops.

One thing I do have is a 32gb iPad and I will be purchasing the camera connection kit over the weekend. From what I've read it won't handle data transfer from anything but a camera, but I though it might be worth a try connecting the M10 straight to it. Maybe the files will transfer as .movs? Anyone try this yet? But between the M10 and my camera I wonder how far this will actually get me.

UPDATE - The iPad camera connection kit doesn't like connecting straight to the M10. It gives the error of "This accessory uses too much power." I've temporarily misplaced my microsd card reader. Once I find it I'll try again, but expect to get a similar error.

I have seen a company that makes a portable backup drive that has an sd slot which is an option, albeit a pricey one. But I'm just wondering if anybody here has a more clever solution.

In the meantime, is there anyone located in Madrid or Barcelona that might be able to transfer media to DVD?

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7 Answers 7

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Hi All,

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to give my solution to the same problem Steve had. Yesterday I bought the CloudFTP by Hyperdrive, a simple wifi basestation with 1 USB input.
It has a battery and I use it to attach my recorders and backup to my iPad over Wifi. And using Goodreader I can backup the same file to an external harddrive. It works like a charm and it's not as expensive as any of the other solutions I've read here (and no I'm not affiliated with hyperdrive in any way).

I hope someone else can make good use of it.

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  • That's pretty awesome! How long have you been using CloudFTP? Have you had any bugs at all?
    – Colin Hunter
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 16:25
  • Sorry, just re-read your answer and saw you only bought it yesterday! So, maybe let us know how it works out!
    – Colin Hunter
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 16:33
  • So, if I understand correctly. You attach your recorder to the CloudFTP to transfer your audio file from recorder to iPad. Then attach a USB drive to the Cloud FTP, and using Goodreader transfer the file from iPad to the USB Drive?
    – Steve Urban
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 20:10
  • Exactly! I did run into some small bugs, but upgrading to latest Firmware 14 solved most of those. One important thing to do is have your USB drive formatted as MS-DOS FAT32, otherwise the uploading part doesn't work. I have one bug left to kill (and the CloudFTP support team is awesome, by the way) and that has to do with connecting to my Airport Extreme network. But that doesn't matter for my main purpose, backing up on the go.
    – Arnoud Traa
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 8:20
  • Now that i think about it, maybe the backup can also be direct to disk by using a USB hub. I'll check that out and let you know if this speeds up the process.
    – Arnoud Traa
    Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 8:21
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You could always bring a small cheap card reader and maybe go to a library or an internet cafe to transfer your data to a cloud based system.

Yes, I know people in Barca. Possibly madrid as well. A couple of Electro making ex-EBM fans at that. I'm sure they'd be down to help and they might even have some good suggestions of stuff to do while you're in the city. They're really good people.

I'll get in touch with them and see if they're ok with it and I'll get you their contact info through facebook (I'm James Jaret Kojac on there if for some reason you didn't mentally connect this account and that one). When will you be in both those areas? If for some reason they're out of town they may be able to refer you to someone.

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    You could always get a cheap android tablet that has a card reader or at least USB input and return it after your trip. If you're a Costco member I know they have a retarded return policy that lasts for a really long time last I was informed. I've seen there's even a cheap $99 tablet you can get at Walgreens. I'm sure you'd have to bring a spare storage drive considering it likely doesn't have much storage space for that price.
    – Syndicate Synthetique
    Commented May 14, 2011 at 5:20
  • I thought about an internet cafe, but I don't know if uploading multiple gigs would be worth the time it would take.
    – Steve Urban
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 19:53
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I am living in Madrid. Can help you with the backups no problem, depends though when you gonna be traveling through, since i am gonna be out of town for work during a couple of weeks in the coming month. Look for Peter Memmer on Facebook & we'll figure out when and how to hook up...

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Photographers seem to like the Hyperdrive, a unit like you described, Steve: A hard drive in a case with a card slots and only enough firmware to do dumps of the cards to the internal HD. If you're traveling without a host PC, it's a nice but spendy solution. The specs don't say it won't back up arbitrary file types, but worth asking the company or a salesperson at a big retailer, or getting it early enough to test with.

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  • Yeah, the Hyperdrive is exactly the model I found. It looks nice, but also a little bit of overkill. I didn't even think to see what file types it backs up, that's a great point.
    – Steve Urban
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 19:56
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do you not have an external hard drive and back stuff up at a net cafe/library?

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  • I do have a few external drives. But as I don't have a laptop, they're all desktop drives and won't travel well. This may be a good solution though.
    – Steve Urban
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 19:47
  • You know I do have a few usb thumb drives though. That may be the solution.
    – Steve Urban
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 19:54
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I would recommend that you jailbreak your iPad and get iFile.

iFile basically is a jailbreak app that you get through Cydia (probably the most popular jailbreak app store) that let's you access the files on your iPad like an actual computer. It also lets you access the files of anything you connect to it. Normally the iPad will only let you read the DCIM folder. It's a great file manager, it lets you do anything you can think of like make shortcuts, send files to apps (like Dropbox), move files around, even make zip files.

I usually take my Zoom H4n and Panasonic TM700 camcorder with me and backup onto my iPad. The H4n doesn't connect to the iPad but the TM700 does. BUT when I connect to the TM700 it only can access the internal storage not the sd card. So yeah, your M10 may not connect, but you can always use the SD card reader for that.

After I backup of the files I usually make a zip and name and date the file. Sometimes I'll zip the files and upload them Dropbox when I get a chance but usually not since I usually have a lot of 1080p video. If you have 3g, which I wish I had sometimes, I would definitely start backing up as soon as possible onto Dropbox.

If you aren't jailbroken I would definitely recommend that you do mainly for this one feature. Then you will start fixing all the other limitations Apple puts on the device. Personally I find the thing almost useless if it isn't jailbroken!

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For about 300 dollars you can pick up a netbook with built in card reader and usb ports. That would also allow you to have a small computer to still handle emails and whatnot at cafe's. Most have about 160GB of HD space plus the ability to hook up external drive. If all your doing is transferring files, then that would work fine.

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  • They are also about the size of a IPAD
    – Michael Gilbert
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 17:33

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