I'm looking for a reliable way to backup my photos onto an external SSD while traveling. For me going lite means not taking a laptop. So far I'm investing in additional CFExpress cards because even finding a cheap tablet that could fill the function is tough. They all use WiFi instead of cables. When you are backing up multiple cards WiFi seems like it would be a slow process. Any advice or ideas are welcome.
You can do this with an Android smartphone with USB-C and an USB-C hub. Plug an additional USB(A-C) "to-your-standard" card reader if necessary and an external SSD (like Samsung T5, T7 etc. ) to the hub and you will be able to copy files from your card to your SSD. Not always very fast (depending on hardware/Phone/Android version) but functional.
One hub that worked for me : https://www.fnac.com/Hub-USB-Type-C-7-en-1-HyperDrive-HD22H-GRAY-Gris/a16829616/w-4 (this one has an SD card reader BTW)... there are others standard Hubs "Apple's like" that will work too.
Also, there may be some constraints about the disk format. ExFat should work on an Android Phone, not APFS, for instance.
On the other hand, any USB-A or C compatible card reader should work.
For "IOS" solutions, I'll let others answer ;).
@prg-lagarde Thanks for the ideas. I currently use an iPhone. I do have an old android phone but it only has a micro-USB port, so is incompatible. Your comment though does make me think an inexpensive android tablet might be the most cost effective way to go, as long as it has 1 USB-C port.
@photofan Indeed ! My own phone is an inexpensive one and it still works well for that purpose.
You just need to be careful about switching OTG on, use "File Transfer" as a default configuration setting for USB on the android device and have a "sane" format for the disk.
For instance, I had to format one again recently because the phone wasn't able to read it anymore while it was seen as a regular ExFat on my computer. The fact is, on one hand, I'm on Apple's mac and on an Android device on the other hand, so I guess it can be kind of messy sometimes and there may be processes that disturb partition management on either Os... Still, that kind of behavior is an exception, just good to know in case you have the problem ;) ...
BTW, micro-USB should work too if you got the right OTG cable and if your device/OS is OTG capable, but it may be slower than USB-C as it's only USB 2 standard. Though, for instance, reading from SD card with some USB-2 maxing speed card readers may not make a big difference in global speed, even if all the rest of "cabling" is USB-C.
That's an interesting option I had never considered. I have an Android phone and a USB hard drive (not SSD), and wonder if with my cheap Vivitar USB dongle I can do this between a card reader and that. Will have to try it.
I don't know if i's the best way, but several years ago I used a backup device which was an earlier version of this current one:
NEXTO DI NVS2801-Plus Nexto Video Storage Doc+ with 1TB SSD
I just picked up an Apple Lightning to SD card reader for the same reason. It worked really well transferring several hundred RAW files to my iPad's photo library. Haven't tried it on my phone yet but I'd expect similar results. Happy travels!