Ipad–external hard drives and USB connected devices

Hi and welcome to the Discussions. Alas, it is no to both questions. There are apps that let you easily share files with your computer via wifi, but you can't just plug an external drive of any kind into it. The closest thing is the camera connection kit that allows SD card reading but only reading (and deleting) and only photos. As far as layers go, I don't know how long it will be before you see that, if ever. Certainly not until the RAM on the iPad goes above its current 255M. Current photo editing apps are quite limited.

Message was edited by: StevePug2

Is there anyway to hook up an external hard drive to the iPad?

Yes. There is a wireless flash drive called airstash. Works great and gives you up to 32gigs of extra space on your iPad.

where do you get this and is it safe to use?

I ordered one and they said 2 months waiting list. it uses SD cards as storage via wifi.

Another good alternative is dropbox. first 2 gigs of storage are free and all your pc's and devices can access it.

Thanks! I checked out the first you mentioned and see there's a long wait. I'll check out drop box.

Hi wavart77!

I'm not sure if it will help you, but there is a way to use your iPad as an external drive (legally) http://www.macxperience.com/2010/07/14/ipad-usb-flash-hard-disk-drive-max-os/

I tried to install drop box on my new IPad and I get a prompt telling me that I can't use Safari. Any suggestions?

Did you try to download for the DropBox site? Like all iPad apps, you have to download the DropBox app from the iTunes Store.

I did try to download from the drop box.com site. Thanks so much! I'll try from ITunes.

I downloaded the app, but I can't figure it out even with reading the info posted.

All I want to do is backup files on their site while I'm traveling.

I don't want to share anything and I don't know if there is any privacy with the app.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

L

Does some of what air Share offers have what you are looking for ?

I have played around using a net disk connected to the home network.

Are you able to leave the home system running and use the internet ?

I don't understand what you're saying in your message.

Would connecting to an external hard drive on your personal network over the internet or via wifi do what you want ie a wireless external disk ?

the Apps airshare and goodreader migh do some of what you want.

This is a question I would also ask. I have a Canon pro camera with 8Gb Compact Flash and I would like to be able to connect my camera via USB2 through an iPad to a portable HDD as a solution for downloading in the field. Why on earth did Apple not include USB functionality in this device. Even cheapo $300 netbooks all have multiple USB ports. Sure the current config is ok for most users, but why not have options on a more expensive model such as USB ports and an internal HDD for those needing such. My same gripe with the iPod. I have the 120Gb Classic. I really wanted an iPod touch with 120Gb HDD, but Apple don't make it. Sigh

"This is a question I would also ask. I have a Canon pro camera with 8Gb Compact Flash and I would like to be able to connect my camera via USB2 through an iPad to a portable HDD as a solution for downloading in the field. Why on earth did Apple not include USB functionality in this device. Even cheapo $300 netbooks all have multiple USB ports. Sure the current config is ok for most users, but why not have options on a more expensive model such as USB ports and an internal HDD for those needing such. My same gripe with the iPod. I have the 120Gb Classic. I really wanted an iPod touch with 120Gb HDD, but Apple don't make it. Sigh"

Your Classic uses a standard spinning hard drive. Every other apple portable device uses solid state storage drives which are much more expensive than a hard drive. While 120 is certainly doable it would also increase the price quite a bit.

I have a 64 gig iPad and with the camera dock connector your photos are transferred to your iPad and can be previewed, including raw file types. In addition to my sd cards the space on my iPad is just perfect because with the quality of the iPad screen it is also easy to properly preview and delete the throw away pictures. I chose the higher capacity iPad specifically for photo transfers.