great news! Is this feature really coming to iphones as well? I remember Apple introduced it as part of iPadOS...
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iPad External Storage Support is here.
- Thread starter Trhodezy
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Yes got my Lightning to USB3 Camera Adapter today, was able to plug in a portable SSD, but noticed you do need to power iPad at same time, so make sure you have the USB dongle with the power port on it because they do sell one without it also...
You may need a stronger power source. How much power can your battery backup provide?
APFS is NOT supported on external storage on iOS 13 or IPadOS. It looks like the drives have to be formatted to HFS+ for them to read. Haven’t tried any other formats yet. Now on macOS I know if external drives are formatted in APFS work way faster...
I want to buy a Samsung USB-C to USB-C SSD (Samsung Portable SSD T5 1 TB USB 3.1) for my iPad Pro 11". So this would work with the iPad?! Omg that would be so awesome! Can anyone confirm that? I could completly leave my old Macbook Pro 2013 out and mainly use my iPad!
Yes it as long as it's formatted HFS+ or exFat it will work. It will show up in the Files app. Worse-case if you need to be plugged to external power which means you would need a dongle but that may just be on Lightning devices.
Confirmed, only on lightening devices will you need a dongle, as it doesn’t carry enough power alone. USB-C, however, does.
I have one on order for my iPad Pro 10.5”. Can you tell which iPad did you use?
If your iPad is 12.9” or 10.5” which have USB 3 pins is able to transfer at USB 3 speeds from your iPad to SSD or vice versa?
I'm using iPad Pro 10.5. Make sure you get the adapter with the extra power port because they do have one without also. I was able to read and write very fast, almost instant with my Transcend portable SSD...
Can you time your transfers in seconds? Use a stopwatch.
Size of file in MB divided by time taken in sec will give us a good estimate of transfer speeds in MB/sec
Tested it with a normal USB hard drive, it works! Its kinda slow to copy files from a to b, but it works! Will it be faster with a USB-C SSD? And what I also don‘t like is that photos do not show up in full resolution. I hope it will get fixed and won’t be a „feature“. Because otherwise it will be useless for saving photography work and showing it to others.
This is very good, especially for iPhone.
For the 1st time in about 15 years I’ll be able to get .gpx files off my Garmin GPS onto my iPhone and then process them easily. This is when I’m on expedition (sea-kayaking mostly) and don’t have access to a laptop.
I used to do this a long time ago with a Palm Pilot and an ordinary phone. It was before iPhone !!
It’s the last thing I couldn’t do with the current tech, if I wanted to stay with iOS. Though there are BT options that have just become available, so I guess it’s better late than never .
For the 1st time in about 15 years I’ll be able to get .gpx files off my Garmin GPS onto my iPhone and then process them easily. This is when I’m on expedition (sea-kayaking mostly) and don’t have access to a laptop.
I used to do this a long time ago with a Palm Pilot and an ordinary phone. It was before iPhone !!
It’s the last thing I couldn’t do with the current tech, if I wanted to stay with iOS. Though there are BT options that have just become available, so I guess it’s better late than never .
Thanks for mentioning write support! I hoped you wouldn't need to copy files from the external disk to internal. Would it be possible to work with iMovie/Garageband files directly on an external disk?
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I did some more experimenting tonight with a little more success. The earlier drive I tried was a 2tb drive split into two partitions: one APFS Encrypted; the other Journaled (Extended). It did not see either of the two partitions. I didn't think it would see the encrypted drive, but thought it might see the second partition.
I had a 500g FAT32 drive on a spinning platter and it saw that one.
So, I think my earlier problem was less power related and more the partitions.
On my iPad Pro 11" I tried following:
Samsung T5 formatted APFS - no
Samsung T5 formatted ExFAT - works fine
SanDisk USB3 thumb drive with USB to USBC adapter works and I was copying files to it. Can't remember what it is formatted as, will check later.
I notice that Apps that access documents through Files other than Files App (eg. Word) don't see the external drive yet... maybe is because they are not compiled with latest APIs which support this.
This feature is a big deal and makes the iPad a much more flexible device.
Samsung T5 formatted APFS - no
Samsung T5 formatted ExFAT - works fine
SanDisk USB3 thumb drive with USB to USBC adapter works and I was copying files to it. Can't remember what it is formatted as, will check later.
I notice that Apps that access documents through Files other than Files App (eg. Word) don't see the external drive yet... maybe is because they are not compiled with latest APIs which support this.
This feature is a big deal and makes the iPad a much more flexible device.
Not yet, you likely have to wait until the final release and apps are updated to support the new Files API.
I suspect 3rd parties will bring to market drives with a lightening connector instead of USB A or C