Best Solution To Back-Up Footage?

I hope to get some insights from people who know the best way.

I am thinking of my next trip and I shoot a fair amount of 4K footage (about 30 GB/day). On my last trip, it was sheer agony - I brought a chromebook and used it to transfer my footage from my SD cards - it took hours to get it done every night and I lost a lot of sleep. I was thinking this time of using my Galaxy tablet to transfer the data to some 256 GB flash drives, but it might not be much faster. It wouldn't work with my 2 TB travel drives anyway since they're not independently powered. Something lightweight would be definitely preferable.
Around 20 years ago I used an X-Drive where you just insert the card and the whole contents are automatically copied over. These days it is woefully obsolete though. I have seen something like the WD My Passport Wireless Pro but honestly, it seems to have a number of negative reviews and I can't seem to find any alternatives.
Most likely I will need less than 250 GB of back up space and by the time it is filled up I can get some sort of PC access and copy over my data that way.

Does anybody have any convenient yet cost-effective solutions?

Thanks in advance.


Staff member
Nexto and Gnarbox provide products that will automatically copy a card onto a hard drive, sounds similar to a modern version of what you’re describing with your X-Drive.

Depends what you mean by cost-effective. Surely the most cost effective would be to simply purchase a 256GB card for your camera, or a number of smaller cards?
Thanks for the replies. I thought I was clear before, but maybe not. I want to back up my footage just in case. So that I'll have at least 2 copies of it in case something goes terribly wrong. I can't simultaneously record to my SD card as well as some external drive (like a Ninja?). The Nexto and Gnarbox look very much like what I used long ago. Though I can't find any current models for Nexto and in any case, they both look exorbitant. The WD models can hold 1-4 TB and cost way less. Their reliability seems a bit iffy though. I just want to back up the data; I don't care about using wi-fi really.
For some new tests I ran, I can transfer about 30 GB from an SD card to my Galaxy tablet in about 25 minutes, and then transfer that to a 256 GB flash drive in about 55 minutes. It is fairly painless and a lightweight idea, I just wonder if there is an easier way aside from what I've mentioned. Given the time and trouble many people take to shoot something, you'd expect a whole range of products to address this issue.
What camera are you shooting on? My camera has a USB port for attaching a backup drive. For everything else, I use my laptop for cloning the SD cards (if I'm far from my office) and optical (BluRay) disks for final archiving.
I appreciate the reply, but if possible I'd like to avoid bringing a laptop this time. It's just more weight to carry around. I use a Sony AX53 and Panasonic FZ1000, and neither has any USB port. After about a week of travel, I will likely have access to some PC to back up my SD cards, but it will be run and gun every day til then, and I want to back up my footage every night.