Laptop or photo stoage when on the road

[mx4eva]

Has anyone taken a small laptop (10" screen like the Acer with 160GB HD) with them on the road for sorting and storing photos.
Or is a small HD ok for secondary storage.
I generally use a RAW format so the files are relatively big.

I'm just worried that the laptop will fall to bits being strapped onto a dirtbike for a few months.

I prefer offroad riding where possible.

Any suggestions ?

Kim

[PanEuropean]

Some companies (notably Panasonic) make 'ruggidized' laptops that are designed to cope with dirt, dust, and heavy vibration or shocks. Although these are quite expensive to buy new, a used one (perhaps from eBay) might be the answer for you.

The product line is called "Toughbook". Only problem I can foresee is that they are typically towards the large end of the size range for laptops.

Having said all that - I have carried a regular IBM Thinkpad around in the pannier of my ST1100 for about 10 years, well over 100,000 km, with no problems ever. The ST is, however, not a dirt bike.

Michael

[markharf]

Have you tried a search? Typing "laptop" in the search box, then "sort by date" if you're feeling fussy will turn up dozens of pages addressing exactly this topic. Similarly "netbook." Or just go to the communications section of the HUBB and scroll away: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/communications/.

Hope that helps.

Mark

(who just had my EEE PC motherboard replaced at no cost despite being woefully out of warranty and having carried the poor thing unpadded on the back of my bike for many tens of thousands of miles)

[brendanseaton]

I'm typing this on a macbook that was in a side pannier (caribou - pelican) when I wiped out on the Dempster highway in northern Canada in July. The pannier popped off and bounced a bit. Unfortunately my leg didn't fare as well. So long as the laptop is tightly packed in something waterproof with lots of padding, it should survive almost anything. When space is at a premium I carry a small backup drive (Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA) which is 500gb. You can do limited playback but no processing. It worked well during a month long trip to India last year (sans motorbike but had to travel light). I also usually carry enough 32gb CF cards so I don't have to erase them which ensures at least two copies of my images.

[dzguy]

+1 on the EEE Pc netbooks, cheap, small in size, and light. Took mine from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Buenos Aires, Argentina last winter then around Europe and Morrocco this summer with. Great battery life and powerful enough to do whatever you need/want while on the road. Had mine in a neoprene sleeve and sometimes had it stashed in the tankbag and sometimes in the panniers with no issues.

Have a blast on your trip!

[TurboCharger]

Originally Posted by mx4eva

Or is a small HD ok for secondary storage.
I generally use a RAW format so the files are relatively big.
Kim

I went for this option, 250GB ext HDD 2.5" so as to reduce space and not carry and possibly destroy an expensive laptop. This was good but I ran out of space and it still left me open to what happens if the HDD fails as I only had one BIG backup and I was using PC's in internet cafes to backup from my camera SD cards to the HDD.

But let me however restate what I think are the main problems:

Dust, Vibration (will what you are carrying survive a crash?), Humidity, Security, Safeguarding Data, Geographical redundancy, Viruses (when using other Internet Cafe PC's to backup data), Space (arguably the most important consideration), Price.

There are many solutions, even Canon has an external harddisk with SD Card adaptor to backup SD cards but it costs the price of a Netbook at around US$400.

I have friends that just regularly burn CD or DVD's and send them home. (this provided the geographical redundancy, incase all your gear goes in a fire or gets stolen/destroyed).

Personally I like the Idea of having a laptop but the cost and extra gear needed to charge it would cost too much space. Maybe if we didn't take a tent...

[colebatch]

packed in soft luggage ... usually mounted behind the rider, are all you need.

I had a meet up in Mirny in an out of the way corner of Northern Siberia with Josef Pichler, KTMs sponsored adventure rider. Myself, my co rider Sherri Jo and Josef, all flopped out laptops.

Sherri Jo had a garden variety Macbook
I had a 12 inch eee netbook
Josef had a 12 inch Vaio netbook

All just normal garden variety laptops. All made it across Siberia and Mongolia to / from Europe.

Its my second year in a row travelling with a standard eee netbook. No solid state stuff .... just regular spinning hard drive. Josef and Sherri Jo also had regular hard drives.

There's a lot of paranoia about computers ... thinking you need solid state drives. Or thinking you need a very expensive and insanely heavy toughbook.

As far as I am concerned, its a load of old cobblers. Just take a normal netbook, pack it in soft luggage, mounted behind the rider.

[mailking]

Get a new MacBookAir, with Solid State Disk inside. No moving parts, excellent Light 11.5 " perfect travel companion.

Adventurous greetings,
Coen

[oldbmw]

When going to internet cafes etc. It is a good idea to move the r/w tag to read only. that way your cameras sdhc wont get any unwanted 'extras' added to it.

[Simon R]

EEEPC's are the way to go. I carried mine from Japan to Spain no worries. survived desert heat and freezing cold in Finland. My back up 500g hard drive did not fare well for no known reason, so I glad that I didn't delete the photos from my laptop after transferring them to the back up.

Simon

[Oo-SEB-oO]

Originally Posted by mailking

Get a new MacBookAir, with Solid State Disk inside. No moving parts, excellent Light 11.5 " perfect travel companion.

Adventurous greetings,
Coen

Euh... that doesn't exist.
In an Air there is Flashdrive, so already no physical HD, so it is the same as your flashdrives etc...

Anyways, I use a 11" MacBookAir with a 1GB external HD. Works PERFECT.
And yes, I do offroad and yes, they both survived africa and europe etc...

I am no fan (=I hate) anything from Windows, so if you are willing to spend the money take the Air, wheights nothing, is solid and take the Apple Care Protection plan for 3 years. Basically you don't pay if something goes wrong with your mac. And it always could happen driving offroad... ;-)

[John933]

Take a small lap top or net book that you can down load information you have collected that day or the day before. I can't for the life of me where you can see any problem's in taking one. If you are using video. then you can down load and see what you have. Same with picture's. You can post on the net saying where you are. And what you are going next. Mine is packed in a leather cover with packing in side, then packed in a large cloth bag with a zip. It has about four layers of packing. And so far it's worked perfect every time. Just get one and you don't need to pay a lot of money for one. remember you are only going to use it for one reason and for a short time.
John933

[mekongfrank]

For two years and 72000km, 1/4 of that on dirt roads in South America, my HP Mini 5001 (aluminum case and waterproof keyboard - designed for educational intitutions) held up well in the pannier. That said, I did have my first blue screen of death recently. I assume the HD starts to fail now, probably a few sectors damaged. I hope it'll make it another 3 months through Mexico. I'll get a new one once I'm in the US. They don't have much to choose from and prices are much higher in Latin America.

I also carry an external 2.5" HD from A-Data (waterproof and rubber case). I used to do backups every month, since I had problems with the netbook HD I back up my photos every two weeks.

On an aside: That waterproof keyboard was worth the investment. A year ago a freshly arrived (!) was spilled across it. Apart from a couple of malfunctioning keys the netbook survived. So it's proof too

[Peter Bodtke]

I took a Dell laptop on a trip from New Jersey to Costa Rica and back. Looking back that laptop was on the heavy side, but had no problems with the hard drive. Always packed it in a cushioned sleeve and on top of other soft stuff. Consider tossing your laptop in a backpack if that works for you.

Replaced the Dell with a MSI that went to India for a few months on business. Towards the end of the stay I failed to use the surge protected power strip at the office one day, and the AC jack was wrecked by the drips in power that I had gotten accustom. Recently got a "Mini Mobile Surge Protectors by Targus" which should protect my equipment on the next trip. Cheap, compact, and always in place. A nice combo.

There is a new class of laptops call "Ultra Books", they run with solid state hard drives (like the chip in thumb/jump drive) and have other specification that are great for travel (ex. long battery life.) I couldn't wait for the ultr books to come out and last fall got a Toshiba Portege, large enough for my big hands, made of light plastic (quickly got a cracked corner when it fell off the bed.) Saw a Toshiba ultra that a friend got recently and was very jealous. It was very thin, back lit keyboard, light in weight and ~9 battery life. Toshiba isn't the only maker of ultra books. Intel set the standard and pour millions in to the marketing. For computer manufacturers to use the name ultra book on their products, they have to follow the specification laid out by Intel.

My Toshiba has an SD card reader, which is great for copying photos without having connect the camera with a cable. I agree, copy, don't move photos from your SD card, then back up to a small external hard drive and post the best pictures to an online storage service. I use Google's services and applications, but there are others. Am interested to hear opinions and experiences others have had with online photo storage services. Google provides a photo management and lite photo editing application called Picasa. It works hand and glove with the online service, so its easy to upload photos. You can quickly have photos "favorites", then post only the best to online storage. This process saves time backing up photos while online. I was a professional photographer for many many years, so I take a LOT of pictures when I get rolling. Selecting the best shot out of variations is quick and easy with Picasa. I suggest practicing with whatever equipment and software you choose before hitting the road.

I have heard that some folks burn their images to CDROM while on the road, but I think that is an old strategy.

Learn how to ask if you can take a picture in whatever country you are in. Learn the simple way to say it, so it's an informal request, make it fun. Buy a little something from the person if you can.

Shot early and often!