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Modern technology makes life easier, and tools are milestones in technology.

Photo backup without PC: hard drive with SD card reader


Backup photos and videos on the go, preferably without a notebook? This requires special hardware. In addition to commercial products, we also demonstrated the clever self-built functions based on Raspberry Pi.
Drone pilots, amateur photographers, divers: What they have in common is that they rarely have a PC to save photos quickly. This is a special niche market for devices that combine data storage and card readers for backup anytime, anywhere. We reviewed the finished products and DIY solutions of this guide.
Only for smartphones: Asus Travelair AC
's simplest solution should be Asus' Travelair AC. However, the biggest limitation is that you can only backup from your smartphone. The device is reminiscent of white ice hockey, and provides 32 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded by an SD card. Small devices can work on 2.4 or 5 GHz WLAN. To use it, you need the free Aidrive app.
Travelair AC can directly communicate with mobile phones in its own WLAN, or it can connect to existing networks. For example, you can open the visitor box and display a picture. Yes, the equipment is limited, but very cheap, less than 25 euros. This is an easy way to quickly back up pictures and videos from a local smartphone.
For example, if you have installed drone or action camera video on your smartphone and want to have an additional backup location anytime, anywhere, this makes sense. Unfortunately, the micro USB port is only used to charge the internal battery and cannot directly access data from the PC.
Big and expensive: Lacie Rugged Boss
If you are a serious person, you must study in depth. Then you will get the so-called boss drive from Lacie. Boss does not represent any Deutschrapper, but represents the Set on Backup solution. The advantages of these drives: an SSD or HDD in the enclosure, and the intelligence needed to back up data directly on site. There is also a power bank that not only keeps the hard drive running, but also charges external devices such as smartphones (providing applications for the hard drive).
Lacie offers two versions of hard drives. The cheap Lacie DJI co-pilot provides 2 TB HDD to prevent collision. If you want to use trendy orange instead of gray, you can use a 1 TB sturdy SSD-twice the price. Both products provide a three-year data rescue service and a one-month free membership of Adobe Cloud.
In the test, we like the speed of Lacie Rugged Boss SSD. The Micro SD card with 16.9 GB photos saved the device in less than 7:30 minutes. The hard disk is so smart that it can only perform incremental backups. All work steps are controlled by a single button on the front, and the integrated display informs you of progress or data, such as battery power and remaining space. The data is finally neatly sorted according to the folders on the hard drive, and the data can be read out on Mac or PC using Lightning, USB-A or USB-C.
Alternatives: Using Raspberry Pi to make homemade
For amateurs, the cheaper alternative is based on the mobile backup system of Raspberry Pi, there are many instructions on the network, an actively developed solution is Little Backup Box. The idea is that the Raspberry Pi automatically copies all data from the inserted SD memory card to a USB memory stick.
Now, the project brings it into an impressive feature pack. Little Backup Box not only has different backup modes (manually or through the integrated web interface), but also can directly transfer the images in the compatible camera to the USB memory stick in the compatible camera, can handle multiple SD cards or in the integrated web The data is displayed on the server.
The small parts box itself is very flexible in terms of parts selection. In the forum of the project, different users are working on solutions based on Raspberry Pi Zero W. If you want to increase the speed, you should switch to Raspberry Pi 4. As always, you need a micro SD for the operating system and scripts, a card reader for photos, a data storage device, and a mobile power bank to provide enough power anytime, anywhere. If you need information about the status, you can integrate different displays. The small spare box forum is very active and is a good contact.
Conclusion
Obviously, mobile backup of SD cards is a very small field. Well, you usually bring a laptop to back up data. Or, you only use multiple SD memory cards and allocate the risk of losing data accordingly. However, if you are taking photos at least semi-professionally, you should consider investing in an off-the-shelf solution or building at least a Litle Backup Box.
Even if you use a large USB memory stick, the price of the latter should be less than 100 euros. On the other hand, TravelairAC is a good head. This is not to keep up with the pace of large backup solutions, but it can be used anytime, anywhere.
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Choose the right method: it is best to let the operating system help you

The first step is the most difficult. So take a deep breath, take some time-and then go! Since most important data may be processed on a Windows or Mac computer, we will process it first. We will explain how to back up data from a smartphone or tablet in step 3. First, you should determine a backup method. If you want to fully back up the data yourself, select "Manual Backup". If you want your operating system to help you, select "Use onboard resource backup".
Manual backup
You only manage some important files, but can't work on your computer often? Then simply copy the file to an external storage medium to back up the file. For this, it is best to connect an external hard drive or USB memory stick to the computer and create a folder with a descriptive name on it, such as Sicherheit_Stand_April2020 ※. Place the files to be backed up in this folder. After copying all the contents, please unpack the storage medium.
Advantages: This method is simple and easy to use, and does not require a large amount of prior knowledge.
Disadvantages: This method is only applicable if you manage several files and always know what data has been added since the last backup. If you are backing up a large number of files from different subdirectories, this will quickly become tedious and confusing. Then it's best to use the computer's onboard equipment, because its automation is less error-prone.
With backups and available materials
, do you want your entire database to be regularly secured—security strength, or even your operating system and settings? You don't have to buy a backup program for this. Windows 10 and MacOS have built-in well-functioning backup software. In Windows, it is called "Backup" and can be found in the settings under "Update and Security". For Apple computers with MacOS, the integrated backup program is called "Timemachine". It can be called and activated via "Settings". The software regularly backs up data to an external hard drive. You can find detailed instructions about Windows and MacOS for free in our test data backup, including free video tutorials.
Advantages: The backup function takes over the tedious work and automatically performs the backup. After backing up all data for the first time, for each new backup, only the added data is added, and you do not need to track it yourself. If necessary, you can also back up files of different versions. In this way, different processing states of the file can be retained. If the system fails completely, you can restore not only the documents, but also the operating system and all settings.
Disadvantages: The first backup may take a long time, depending on the amount of data for many hours. When the computer is backed up, it may become very slow. Subsequent backups are faster.
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Recycled plastics for electronic equipment


From an environmental and resource point of view, the specific figures on the current status and emerging trends of plastics for electrical and electronic waste are not very satisfactory. Such an advanced electronics industry has done revolutionary work for humans on the one hand, but it is also one of the main causes of pollution caused by old electronics and the plastics they contain.
Despite the European Union's WEEE Directive and Germany's "Electrical and Electronic Equipment Law" (ElektroG), it is still impossible to completely collect old equipment and recycle them as seamlessly as possible. Recycle raw materials and return them to the economic cycle.
There are many reasons for this situation: society, organization, economy and technology. Overall, their impact is that key parts of old equipment are still buried in landfills, or valuable combustible components are burned.
Inequality: Metal and plastic
electrical and electronic devices are composed of many materials. In recycling these devices, more and more efforts are made to recycle as many metal parts as possible-ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and precious metals-. Are these metal components "objects of desire"? Various techniques can be used to achieve almost complete metal recovery.
E-waste also contains other valuable materials, such as plastics made from ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer), PS (polystyrene) and others that are valuable from an environmental and resource perspective material.
So, in addition to resources, are there metals? Are there any resources? plastic? Play a major role in recycling. However, in reality, so far, this has not actually been the case, because recycling clean plastic fragments from e-waste is much more complicated than recycling metals.
The reason is that the currently available classification options only partially utilize the full raw material potential of plastics. Therefore, a large part of these valuable materials will be lost, for example for thermal energy. Therefore, the task is to convert a higher percentage of plastics from electronic waste to valuable clean plastic fractions, as this is a basic requirement for the electronics industry to use more recycled materials.
The purity of the abrasive material that can be obtained by, for example, electrostatic separation is very high, and in some cases exceeds 99.5%. The recovered material is very clean and can be easily reprocessed into high-quality compounds, which can then be processed into new technical products. In this way, particularly valuable technical raw materials are recovered from materials that cannot be processed. Expensive new products can be replaced with Neu depending on the application, and all or part of them can be replaced by cheap recycled materials. Then, many products can be made entirely from recycled plastic.
Another possible and even more decisive reason for the massive loss of metal and plastic materials in old equipment is their deposition in landfills. If both are controlled in the form of a circular economy, the future environment and raw material supply will be of great help. Therefore, the task is to increase the quantity, quality and efficiency of plastic recycling.
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