Portable hard drive?

Maltese Falcon · Feb 2, 2020

I finally own a mavic air but I keep having to delete stuff as I'm still saving up for a cheap laptop to edit video, what is the cheapest portable hard drive that doesn't require a laptop to store memory? I've checked the passport one, DJI copilot but they too expensive for my budget, any suggestions. And what budget laptop should I go for that can get the job done?
Thanks.

Unknown Pilot · Feb 2, 2020

What kind of phone do you use? I keep an android phone around just for the SD Card slot when I'm on the road. I just copy the mini's SD card directly to it.

Deleted member 94047 · Feb 11, 2020

If you have an Android phone with a SD card slot and OTG capability, you can put the SD card from the MA into your Android phone and then copy its contents to an external hard disk. Check these guides

How to connect an external drive to your phone via USB

Want to connect your smartphone to a flash drive or hard disk? Then you need USB OTG (on the go)! Here's everything you need to know!

www.androidpit.com

scoble08 · Feb 11, 2020

Maltese Falcon said:
I finally own a mavic air but I keep having to delete stuff as I'm still saving up for a cheap laptop to edit video, what is the cheapest portable hard drive that doesn't require a laptop to store memory? I've checked the passport one, DJI copilot but they too expensive for my budget, any suggestions. And what budget laptop should I go for that can get the job done?
Thanks.

Might be difficult finding a budget laptop that can edit the Air's 4k camera footage.

The Editor · Feb 11, 2020

Maltese Falcon said:
I finally own a mavic air but I keep having to delete stuff as I'm still saving up for a cheap laptop to edit video, what is the cheapest portable hard drive that doesn't require a laptop to store memory? I've checked the passport one, DJI copilot but they too expensive for my budget, any suggestions. And what budget laptop should I go for that can get the job done?
Thanks.

What is your budget ?
What capacity are you looking for?

Bluehook · Feb 27, 2020

Maltese Falcon said:
I finally own a mavic air but I keep having to delete stuff as I'm still saving up for a cheap laptop to edit video, what is the cheapest portable hard drive that doesn't require a laptop to store memory? I've checked the passport one, DJI copilot but they too expensive for my budget, any suggestions. And what budget laptop should I go for that can get the job done?
Thanks.

I throw everything on to Youtube - but that's not good for you if you want to edit later because YT compresses the video and reduces the quality a bit.

But the there's a LOT of free and cheap online storage sites (cloud) - even Google gives you 15G's for free. A decent external HD will run you about $60 bucks for 2T's - $90 to $100 for 4T's.

External storage devices should be a lot cheaper than they are, I've been thinking for years that the price is going to drop dramatically any day now.

PAW · Feb 28, 2020

WD 5TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drive
$99 w/free shipping

Deleted member 94047 · Feb 28, 2020

Not that it matters much now since the OP seems to have abandoned this thread; but the issue here concerns copying of files from an SD card to to an external drive without the use of a computer. For this, one would need a WiFi capable external hard drive with integrated SD card reader (such as the WD My Passport Wireless) or a phone with an SD card slot and OTG capability. Neither of these solutions come cheap though.

Unknown Pilot · Feb 28, 2020

Doppler said:
Neither of these solutions come cheap though.

A $40 kindle fire tablet has a micro SD slot and can accept a card reader or external HDD/SDD via an inexpensive OTG adapter. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Deleted member 94047 · Feb 28, 2020

Unknown Pilot said:
A $40 kindle fire tablet has a micro SD slot and can accept a card reader or external HDD/SDD via an inexpensive OTG adapter. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

That would indeed be a great solution. However, it is not as simple as hooking up the external hard disk to the fire with the OTG cable. This is from a reddit post and explains the intricacies involved.

Unknown Pilot · Feb 28, 2020

Doppler said:
That would indeed be a great solution. However, it is not as simple as hooking up the external hard disk to the fire with the OTG cable. This is from a reddit post and explains the intricacies involved.

You could be right - I've just tested it on my 8" Fire and powered up my SSD right away but I can't find my 7".

Edit. I’ve found the 7” and I’m giving it a bit of a charge now.

Unknown Pilot · Feb 28, 2020

Doppler said:
That would indeed be a great solution. However, it is not as simple as hooking up the external hard disk to the fire with the OTG cable. This is from a reddit post and explains the intricacies involved.

Turns out it may well be. At least with the card reader I tried and a SSD. I did have to reformat the SSD but I'm browsing photos on it without any problems.

I don't currently have a HDD to test but the OTG is clearly able to provide power to external devices.

A nice thing about the 8", I haven't tried it with the 7", is that it also runs DJI Go4 reasonably well.

DanMan32 · Feb 28, 2020

One reason external drives might not work out of the box with Androids is how the external drive is formatted. Many times they are pre-formatted NTFS but Androids (and I believe iOS) can't natively read or at least not write NTFS. Just about everything can read ExFAT but that file system doesn't have much protection from file table corruption.

If the drive is over 2TB, you also have the issue of compatible partitioning. The older more common MBR partition table only supports up to 2TB. GPT has replaced MBR and supports larger drives but older OSs either can't read drives with such formats or at least can't boot off of it.