Yes, you can leave the laptop at home when shooting in the field. Good luck finding a way to offload all the photos and videos once your SD card gets full, though, so you might want to slip that laptop on there anyway. If you’d really rather leave the laptop at home, you might want to check out the Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD.
Equipped with an integrated SD card reader, you can quickly backup the contents of an SD card to the drive with a single push of a button. From there, just pop the card back into your DSLR, clear it, and start fresh, then load it to the drive again as soon as it’s full.
The Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD is designed to copy the full content of any SD card popped into its slot, automatically backing up all your files as soon as you hit the copy button. You can also connect other external storage via the USB slot and have its contents copied, along with the loaded SD card when you want to centralize all your files into a single drive. No need for a laptop to facilitate file transfers, as you can now do that directly onto the external drive. Whether you’re shooting aerial video using drones, taking photographs on a mirrorless camera, or capturing action cam footage, this thing lets you stash all your captured media without a computer in sight.
Because it’s meant for use in the field, the drive is fitted with a protective bumper that absorbs shocks and vibrations, allowing it to survive one meter drops on concrete floor without any trouble. No word on how well it does with splashes and rain, though, so you might want to exercise some vigilance in keeping it dry to avoid any hassles. Dimensions are 5.3 x 5.3 inches (width x depth), so you should be able to stash it in an exterior pocket of your backpack during field work.
The Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD has an integrated 6,700 mAh battery, which powers the drive’s auto-backup capabilities, along with the integrated Wi-Fi, which it uses to create its own Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing you to read and write files wirelessly from a phone, tablet, or computer. According to the outfit, the battery holds enough charge to keep the Wi-Fi running for up to 10 hours of continuous use, ensuring you can do a whole day’s worth of work without losing power. Oh yeah, the battery can also be used as a power bank, allowing you to use it to charge your mobile devices in a jiffy.
The drive is compatible with the FiLMiC Pro app (iOS and Android), allowing you to wireless save footage recorded from your phone directly into the drive, along with Lumafusion, so you can perform multi-track editing on the go from your phone or tablet. It comes in capacities of 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB.
Pricing for the Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD starts at $230.