Using your phone to backup SD card?

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Once in a while we go on extended vacations without a laptop, and I want to be able to back up photos from SD card to another drive. I can spend $40 and purchase one of those dedicated filehub/wifi travel router gizmos, but I thought I'd first try what I already have at home...

My phone has a USB-C port. I've got a USB-C to USB-A cable going into a USB Hub, and SD card reader and USB flash drive plugged into the hub. I am able to transfer files from SD card to flash drive, but is it safe long term? I don't know if this USB-C port on my phone was designed to handle all these devices at once...

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what do you mean by safe? you mean safety of the data? Safety of the physical device?

Safety of the Data:
If you are paranoid, backup twice to two different drives that you keep separate. Or use wifi and backup to the cloud.

At a software level, either it works or it doesn't. If there is some weird conflict, then it just doesn't work, but it shouldn't damage anything.


For the safety of the physical device, as long as you are using good cables, I think you are fine. It looks like the devices are unpowered so I don't see any potential for disaster. When dealing with powering devices you do need to be careful. For example, you can brick certain batterypacks if you attach it to itself.

For physical safety, more concern should be placed on care of attaching and removing cables, and not dropping the device (especially with cables attached, which can torque the connector and pins).
 
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Originally Posted By: raytseng
what do you mean by safe? you mean safety of the data? Safety of the physical device?

I don't know how much current these devices draw. I just don't want the phone port to melt, rendering my phone useless and possibly also corrupting data on SD card.

I guess I should check if the connector does not get too hot when transferring large amounts of data.
 
If it's USB-C doesn't it need to meet all the requirements of the USB-C protocol?

If so, I'd say it's fine. My wife's MacBook has two ports, a USB-C and a headphone/mic port. Everything needs to be done through the USB-C, power, display, external storage and you can do it all at the same time if you have the right adapter.
 
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