Portable Digital Photo Backup

I may just be using the wrong search terms, but it is surprising to me how little information I am finding on this topic. Nothing here, that I could tell.

Has anybody had any experience with any of these units (e.g., Epson P-2000 - 7000 series; Digital FOCI, Wolverine PicPac, Jobo, SanHo)? B&H has some of them and others can be seen directly at mfgrs. sites.

Customer reviews seem to be all over the board from 5-star to "crap". I am asking here, as I respect the views of the members here and their personal experiences.

I would like to replace my laptop with something like this for traveling. My usual MO is to shoot during the day and then download onto my laptop, with copies on a portable HD, and then reformat my CF cards in camera for the next day's shoot.

My big concern here is reliability. Would hate to rely on one of these and lose all my images (part of the reason for redundant backup). But have been traveling some with the iPad only for shorter trips lately and would love not to have to lug the laptop around on airplanes.

Andy, I've relied on my older Epson P-5000 for several years, and have never had a problems with it. uploads photos rapidly, shows them after loading (so you're sure they are there) and you can enlarge the screen shot so you can check an image closely. It's small and compact and easy to carry.
There are surely newer models by now - this one will not handle my 16 GB CF cards.
Sandy

I studied and studied this issue too. I wasn't comfortable with a only a single copy of my photos either. Nowadays for a fairly nominal cost you can buy a laptop with 500GB hardrive. So I finally bought a refurbished 11in laptop (not one of the little web browsers) and a 500Gb external drive for less than $400 all in. So I copy my cards to both media and then reformat them for shooting.

One difference vs your situation is that I don't have/use an iPad so I would travel with a laptop anyway. The small laptop is light and convenient with pretty good battery life. It tends to take a beating the way I travel but at that cost it is basically a throw away if something goes wrong with it.

Andy -

I'm not sure if I correctly understand your question, but if you are after a rugged, external portable hard drive I can strongly recommend the LaCie 1 TB Ruggedized external drive. I've carried one around Alaska, South America and the Southern Ocean. It's worked great and is as rugged as advertised. I keep it in a freezer-weight ziplock when not in use.

Hi Jim. Question was not the model of clarity :-(. I am looking for a stand alone solution. I have a portable HD. The problem with them is that you have to have a computer (laptop) to use it. I am wanting to leaveve the laptop at home.

Ah, I understand now. I had a similar problem, but wound up with a MacBook Air as my laptop, which solved half the weight problem and left me with the ability to review the photos as well. Not inexpensive, but a wonderful computer.

I have used the P5000, like Sandy and found it easy and clear enough. It is a solid unit, doesn't take up a lot of space. In the cold weather I use the car adapter cable for power and just load the CF cards while driving back from the locations. Saves alot of time. You can also access the P5000 to import into your main system.

I purchased a Wolverine with 80 GB drive in 2008 and find it great for making backups of cards.

The card connector slot can be a bit fragile, or maybe I am a bit careless as I have had to straighten pins on more than one occasion. The display is very low res so it is pretty useless for review, but that is not why i bought it,

I am sure there are several generations of improvements since I bought this one.