Help me back up 10k photos/videos from a micro SD card

[Hornin04 261]

So I got in the habit of backing up my cell phone camera photos and videos from the phone to a 128gb micro SD card on my original Galaxy Note 4, then carried that same SD card over to my Galaxy Note 8 and continued to do the same. Part of the problem was that I only had 64 gigs of internal storage space in those phones, so I had to remove the photos and videos or the phone wouldn't work.

 

I upgraded to the new Note 20 ultra and said F that shit, never again and I have 512 gigs of internal storage as well as an expandable micro SD slot.

 

Prior to migrating to the new phone I had moved about 100gb of photos and videos to the micro SD card. All of these are backed up to Google photos, but I've always felt that I should have a physical backup as well. The initial plan was to move the micro SD card to the new phone, but when I insert it the phone gives me a message that I have to format the card, which I obviously don't want to do.

 

I decided I wanted to put everything on a portable hard drive and researched some that had built in SD card slots. I have a WD My Passport wireless pro 2TB HDD on the way that I snagged for about 100 bucks but now I'm reading that it's not necessarily the best option. I picked it because I thought transfer would be easier just putting the card into the HDD, and because my surface pro 4 laptop only has one USB port.

 

What is the easiest and best way to back up these photos with a hard copy? Leave them on an SD card? SSD instead of HDD? Flash USB sticks?

 

I'm contemplating putting the 100gb from the micro SD onto the internal storage of my new Note 20 ultra and then transferring from there to a newer larger micro SD in the same phone, but that transfer process will take hours.

 

Suggestions?

 

Sent from my SM-N986U1 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Parliament 14,316]

If they're all upload to Google Drive, why not download a copy to a physical HD?

Edited August 28, 2020 by Parliament

[TwiceHorn 31,538]

Unless he pays for Google Photos, the ones stored there are reduced resolution.

I do the same thing with the SD card, but only a 32.  I periodically move them off the card and onto a HDD so I don't have to deal with massive transfers.

Edited August 28, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Sam Lin 3,561]

Surface Pro 4 has a microSD slot. Plug the card in there. Buy a USB external hard drive, preferably an SSD. Plug it into the USB port. Go to My Computer. Find the SD card. Copy all contents to the external hard drive. Store in a safe location.

[Hornin04 261]

Surface Pro 4 has a microSD slot. Plug the card in there. Buy a USB external hard drive, preferably an SSD. Plug it into the USB port. Go to My Computer. Find the SD card. Copy all contents to the external hard drive. Store in a safe location.

Well I'll be damned. How have I owned this thing for about five years and I'm just now seeing a Micro SD slot? This is the magic of surly. Thanks. Much better idea than the poorly rated HDD I ordered.

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[markstanco 12,614]

My Passporr isn't a bad product. We have a few for local backups of client machines and they work beautifully. Carbonite as well in case of fire on the same machines.

[luke duke 6,414]

The real question is why do you have 10k photos? Are you a Japanese tourist or ROFLBOX?

[luke duke 6,414]

.

[Hornin04 261]

The real question is why do you have 10k photos? Are you a Japanese tourist or ROFLBOX?

Not japanese.

Basically they are photos dating back to 2011, and in that time I've had 3 kids. That's explanation enough.

So I just got this on Amazon and it will arrive tomorrow:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0874XJL6M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XWrsFbQ2F2YVX

But this is the one that's already being shipped :
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F5LVTO4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_RVrsFb2PN43B7

From what I've read the Samsung is very quick for transferring and the ssd is less likely to fail. Obviously less storage for my dollar but I'd probably not even fill half of the 500gb with what I have to transfer now.

Thoughts?

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[ztejas 43,538]

12 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Unless he pays for Google Photos, the ones stored there are reduced resolution.

I don't think that's true. At least, it isn't true for my photos and the only thing I pay for is extra storage each month, which is like $2.

It looks like the cutoff for original file size versus compressed is 16 MP - or 48 mb. If it is below that cutoff, res won't be reduced or compressed. Most people are not taking or storing 16 MP photos.

Edited August 28, 2020 by ztejas

[TwiceHorn 31,538]

"Original Quality

Full resolution backup, first 17GB free"

"High Quality

Free backup at high resolution*"

*Photos compressed to 16MP, videos compressed to high definition

That's generous, but could be a limitation and certainly is with 100GB of photo/video.  And when I said "Google Photos," I really meant a paid google account.

Edited August 28, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[ztejas 43,538]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

"Original Quality

Full resolution backup, first 17GB free"

"High Quality

Free backup at high resolution*"

*Photos compressed to 16MP, videos compressed to high definition

That's generous, but could be a limitation and certainly is with 100GB of photo/video.  And when I said "Google Photos," I really meant a paid google account.

Unless he is hitting his storage limit on Google (which I assume he isn't, otherwise he would have told us) then the backed up photos will be the same resolution - unless he is backing up 16MP photos - which I would bet my left kidney that he isn't.

I assume google would tell you you are out of space before compressing your photos to something ridiculous like less than 2 mb. I would look it up to confirm but it would be a waste of my time. I have spent a lot of time in gsuite.

[TwiceHorn 31,538]

10 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Unless he is hitting his storage limit on Google (which I assume he isn't, otherwise he would have told us) then the backed up photos will be the same resolution - unless he is backing up 16MP photos - which I would bet my left kidney that he isn't.

I assume google would tell you you are out of space before compressing your photos to something ridiculous like less than 2 mb. I would look it up to confirm but it would be a waste of my time. I have spent a lot of time in gsuite.

That came directly from the Google Photos app.  He has more than 17GB of photos so they are being compressed, if they are larger than 16MP, which is indeed iffy.  I think they upped that fairly recently, which makes me wonder what happens to older ones that may have been compressed.  The videos might be more of a problem, again depending on what resolution they start at.  I see their current definition is 1080p, which is nice, because not that long ago it was 720p.

Actually, it appears that those limitations were the same as far back as 2015.  I have been using various photo backups for a long time, but I couldn't tell you precise dates.  When I first started using Gphotos, the limitations were different and more problematic.

Edited August 28, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[immamac 43,094]

if you want them full resolution on the cloud surly can host them for you

[Jerry Callo 8,728]

18 minutes ago, immamac said:

if you want them full resolution on the cloud surly can host them for you

But it'll cost you tree fiddy.

[Hornin04 261]

But it'll cost you tree fiddy.

And your dignity when the risqué ones are shared.

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[Todd Gack 432]

7 hours ago, luke duke said:

The real question is why do you have 10k photos? Are you a Japanese tourist or ROFLBOX?

because he's horny

[atomheartbevo 89,807]

8 hours ago, luke duke said:

The real question is why do you have 10k photos? Are you a Japanese tourist or ROFLBOX?

My wife and I have more photos than that, albeit going back to the iPhone 3G.

I didn't have that many photos until my first kid was born.  And somehow since he and the second kid were born, I've increased my photo-taking by a 4.7 metric shit-tons.

And because I've upgraded phones every few years, with the max storage, I've been able to avoid having to go through and cull the photos.

And I'm pretty sure out of the 10,000+ photos we've accumulated on our phones, 5-8,000 of them are probably worthless. 

[atomheartbevo 89,807]

18 hours ago, Horny04 said:

I decided I wanted to put everything on a portable hard drive and researched some that had built in SD card slots. I have a WD My Passport wireless pro 2TB HDD on the way that I snagged for about 100 bucks but now I'm reading that it's not necessarily the best option. I picked it because I thought transfer would be easier just putting the card into the HDD, and because my surface pro 4 laptop only has one USB port.

What is the easiest and best way to back up these photos with a hard copy? Leave them on an SD card? SSD instead of HDD? Flash USB sticks?

You have the right idea.  

We've got our photos taken with our phones automatically backed up to iCloud, and I've also got them backed up to a physical drive that is backed up with my desktop to BackBlaze. 

I've also got a couple of 14TB hard drives that everything is duplicated/backed up to, but then again, that's because I've also scanned thousands of family photos (plus associated film) going back over 100 years and have no desire to rescan everything, so I'm a little paranoid.

[Hornin04 261]

OK so I'm having a harder time with this than I think I should.

I put my micro SD card into the port on my Surface Pro 4.  It can read all the files and I can see the photos and videos just fine.

I got this new Samsung Portable SSD T7 500GB in the mail today.  I plug it into the USB port on the Surface Pro 4.  I set it up, created folders for transfer, etc. 

So I drag and drop the files - chunks of them transfer, but all of a sudden the transfer speed slows down to a crawl then it freezes for a while.  Then it gives me this message: "request could not be completed because of an i/o device error " and lists the specific file it can't transfer.  So I have to skip that individual file, and sometimes it moves on and completes the transfer, other times it freezes so long that nothing can get done.

I researched it and made sure to download the latest drivers for the USB external storage device through Windows, tried different cables thinking maybe the USB 3.2 cable included with the new SSD was not compatible with my older Surface pro 4 regular USB 3 port, but it keeps happening.

Any ideas as to what to do?  Is this SSD too "new" to work well with my older Surface Pro 4?  Is the SSD defective?  Should I try the older HDD that I ordered (arrives in like 4 days) instead?  

In the meantime I just decided to back up the old photos and videos from my note 8 to the Note 20 using Samsung Smart Switch - luckily it is a smooth process between Samsung phones and gives the option to transfer all media from the SD card over to the internal storage on the new phone.  I might then try plugging the SSD into my note 20 ultra and seeing if I can transfer the files to the SSD that way without issue.

What a fucking headache.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Horny04

[Sam Lin 3,561]

Don't automatically assume it's the destination device, could also be a read error or damaged file on your source microSD. You can try copying your "chunk" of files to a folder on your Surface first; if the same file errors out, then it's a source issue. It could also just be a buffer fluke from too large a file transfer. As much as Windows has improved, dragging and dropping a ton of files still can get flaky. Try moving your files in smaller chunks.

Regarding your new USB HDD vs USB SSD, my advice is keep and use both. Put a copy of your photos on each, and store them in separate physical places. Neither of them is totally reliable, and it's minimal cost compared to the personal value of the photos.

[atomheartbevo 89,807]

Something I forgot to mention - think of the 3-2-1 strategy for important files - 

• 3 copies of a file.
• 2 locations (could be a phone or camera + backed up to a laptop or external drive)
• 1 remote (cloud storage, or a hard drive in a storage unit or at a friend or relative's house).

That's paraphrasing and stripping it way down.