This may sound kinda obvious, but I’ve found a (relatively) el-cheapo backup solution to use while I’m on the road – A 250GB Western Digital “Passport” drive.

It all began before my recent trip to Bermuda. I was thinking about where the hell I could keep a full weeks worth of photos and at one point I was really close to grabbing another Epson P-3000. I knew my old laptop wouldn’t have the space available to store the gigs and gigs of photos I was planning on taking, and I really didn’t want to pony up the cash for another P-3000.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my Epson and it has it’s uses – but they’re wayyy overpriced (and the batteries crap out too quickly). They’re priced anywhere from $360-$799, which (if you ask me) is simply ludicrous for a hard drive with a high-end 4 inch lcd screen slapped on the back. You can buy a not-so-low-end laptop for the price of just about any of the P-3000, 6000, or 7000 units.

Anyway – I decided I wasn’t going to go down the road of the Epson, or try using my iPod, or another kind of hinky external hard drive mess while on the ship, so the “Passport” drive it was.

Although I have been burned by WD drives in the past, I ponied up and grabbed a Passport drive a few months ago at BestBuy when I first noticed my laptop drive getting cramped.  I had no idea that it would be so handy for massive photo backups on the go and it’s proven to be a reliable drive so far. WD Passport drives are basically just laptop drives in a plastic enclosure.

They’re small, utilitarian, thin and tough (i’ve sat on mine plenty of times). They’re also relatively quick, with pretty decent capacity (250GB), and most importantly – they’re powered solely by the usb port – which means no extra power adapter, batteries or cables are needed. They’re also relatively cheap compared to anything else out there – $130 bucks is a lot easier to swallow compared to Epson’s wallet bruising P-series.

Each night before I hit the sack on the ship, I’d come back to the room and hook up the WD Passport and CF/SD card reader to my laptop. I’d throw one card in one at a time, then I’d open Lightroom and transfer all the images from the day directly into a new catalog that I’d created on the Passport drive that contained all images from the trip. I was basically using the laptop as a conduit if you will – just a way to get the images from my CF cards to the hard drive.

Using a fresh Lightroom catalog had the added benefit of enabling me to come home after the trip was over, plug in the Passport drive to my desktop, and just hit “Import From Catalog” – bingo… (in a matter of about an hour or so) I had all my images on my desktop. The images were all cataloged, some were keyworded and some were touched up already since those settings all carry over from the original Lightroom catalog. Incredibly easy and time saving.

The WD Passport drives definitely get two thumbs up from me… and backing up photos is just one of the many things you can use them for!