Like many of us, I take hundreds of photos every week, most are taken using my smartphone, but I also have a DSLR camera, a ‘bridge’ camera, a GoPro and of course my trusty Mavic Pro drone. The smartphone stores the images internally and the other cameras write the images to either SD or Micro SD cards. On top of this, I also carry around an Apple MacBook Pro which allows me to edit my images and video on-the-go.
The golden rule with any data is making sure you have at least 2 copies of images or documents you really don’t want to lose. Having been in IT for over 30 years, I have witnessed a catastrophic loss of data (meaning everything was lost) on a number of occasions and it continues to be the case that you MUST backup your data.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been testing the Transcend ESD350C Portable SSD. SSD means ‘Solid State Drive’ which means that there are no moving parts. SSD’s are now commonly using in many computers as they are generally much faster than traditional hard disks and use less energy, so your laptop battery lasts longer.
The drive is about the size of a credit card and about 12.5mm thick, it comes in a ruggedized, blue silicone rubber, shock resistant case. Connectivity between the drive and your PC, laptop or mobile device is over a USB3.1 Gen 2 interface using a USB Type-C high-speed connection. Transcend bundle both USB Type-A and Type-C cables, which accommodates desktops and laptops featuring the USB Type-C or USB 3.1 interface and also USB OTG (On the Go) compatible mobile devices with Type-C ports.
The speed of transfer is comparable with internal hard disk drives with quoted speeds of 1,050MB/s giving the potential of copying 20GB files in around 30 seconds!
The unit I tested was the 480GB model, but the drive is also available 240GB and 960GB variants all providing compatibility with desktops, laptops, gaming consoles and on-the-go mobile devices.
Transcend also provide their ‘Elite’ software to allow users to manage backups and encrypt their data synchronization with cloud services.
Everything worked out of the box and was really just a matter of plugging in the cable to my MacBook or Xperia 1 mobile, I didn’t need to install the Elite software and no power supply was needed.
The drives are priced competitively at £85 for the 240GB, £125 for the 480GB or £180 for the 960GB models and available from your favourite online shopping sites.
