can you use portable hard drives in Thailand internet Cafes etc.

Hi,

im thinking about taking a portable hard drive to SEAsia with me so i can store all my photos. Ive nevever had an external hard drive before, so wanted to know if i can walk into any internet cafe , plug my camera into a computer.. then transfer the pictures onto a portable hard drive?

Thanks for your help

I can't see any problems with that as most PCs have USB ports (the PC will need to have 2 - one for your camera and one for the portable hard drive).

As a word of caution, I would make sure you do a thorough virus scan of the portable hard drive once you get home as the risk of virus infections at these internet cafes can be high.

Personally I would never trust a Internet Cafe, especially in SE Asia.

Buy a cheap netbook and do a double back-up on the netbook and the external drive on your time and your own terms, preferably on a nice patio sipping a cold beer...

Cheers,
Terry

Yes, you can, but indeed you will copy all kind of nasty viruses on it too.
I would not want my hard drives with images on it near those internet cafe computers.

Try to find another way to back up your images.

What format you shoot? Raw or jpeg?
How many pictures per day, roughly?

How long your trip?

Do you have any teach toys you could bring with you? Smart phone, tablet?

Edited by: tools4fools

Do try and use a decent internet cafe so you don't get a virus and lose all your photos.

There is no way to discern a "decent" internet cafe anywhere, especially SE Asia.

Cheers,
Terry

The computers in Interent cafe's in Thailand (and SEA) are riddled with viruses .... you DO NOT want to be hooking your external drive up to any of them.

Okay ive taken into consideration all the advice given on here, so ive decided to to bother with a portable harddrive since risk of virus is ultra high,

Think i will just take lots of SD cards with me to store pictures on- seems to be the least expensive way to do it

Thanks again for all your help guys :)

Yes but it's your own responsibility f you loose everything

OK, from experience:

HDD option is a good option but it is storing all your eggs in one basket. Always back up your important shots elsewhere (eg online storage, or leave a copy on memory cards)

Internet Cafes in SE Asia - Most allow anyone to plug any device in (hence all the viruses). Some do not allow it at all. A few will allow it ONLY after they have virus scanned your device (which can take hours for a full large drive, though they're unlikely to charge you for this time).

Viruses - I find there's a lot of scaremongering about viruses. As far as I'm aware there isn't one that will wipe all the images off your drive. I picked up a lot on my portable HDD travelling around China - I probably helped spread them, unknowingly. But when I got home and plugged it into my PC my virusscanner cleaned them off, no harm done.

http://imaging.carbonmade.com