How to hook up an iPad Pro 5th gen to printer's external hard drives?

Next.

External hard drives.

Depends on whether you have/own a base model iPad with a propreitary Apple Lightning connector port or an iPad with a USB-C port

You can purchase either any USB/USB-C flash drive stick or any USB-C SSD ( Solid State flash memory Drive ).

SSDs, unlike older, old school data storage hard drives are less power hungry and have no moving/spinning, electro-mechanical parts that need lots of power to operate.

Popular SSDs are from SanDisk/Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate.

For Lightning connector port iPad models.

Forget trying to use “old skool” spinning platted hard drives with these types of iPad models.

You need to purchase the actual, genuine Apple Lightning to USB-3 camera adapter, from Apple, and plug that adapter into external power using your iPad charge cable and Apple power/charging block!

Tap on the link below.

Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter - Apple usb-3-camera-adapter?fnode=37

You NEED TO PURCHASE THIS EXACT genuine Apple adapter above!!!

This is THE ONLY adapter that works!

Cheaper ( cheap in price and quality ) third party “knockoff” adapters WILL NOT WORK!!!!

With Lightning connector equipped iPads, you need this adapter as it has a Lightning connector power connection to power both the iPad and to connect a commonplace USB flash memory drive or portable SSD drive.

Without the additional power to the iPad, USB flash drives and portable SSD drives will NOT work with older iPads with the Lightning connector.

The Lightning connector alone cannot convey the,necessary power requirements needed for normal USB style flash memory drives.

YOU NEED TO CONNECT AN EXTERNAL POWER SOUCE TO THIS ADAPTER for that adapter to work with ANY externally connected drive!!! Even to get any standard USB flash memory drives to work on older Lightning connector equipped iPads.

For an external power sources, you can even use small portable, rechargeable, “go anywhere” battery power banks.

You can find various wattages and price points of these online, from places like Amazon.

There are lots of YouTube videos that discuss and demonstrate this.

Here are just two references, as an example.

YouTube video reference links below.

Tap on the links below.

https://youtu.be/1Jm-xcrbFy8

https://youtu.be/8iHc1mc5SJE

You must use a full Mac or Windows PC computer to do the re-formatting of any external drive to use with iPad/iPhone/iOS/iPadOS.

My experiences have recommended that any external drive needing to be used with ANY Apple iPadOS device really needs to be formatted on an Apple Mac computer to ensure/insure correct operation.

If NO Mac computer, find and family member or friend that owns a Mac to possibly help you format this drive

OR

You need to search online for your nearest, “local” Apple store location and call contact phone numbers and call to make an appointment to ANY external drive you have properly format by Apple employees who have access to a Mac.

They will be glad to assist you.

In addition, the external drive needs to be formatted using a single data drive partition into one of these file/data formats below.

Apple Mac computer native drive formats - APFS ( Apple Proprietary File System ) OR Apple HFS+ ( Hierarchical File System+ )

FAT 32

Ex Fat

Apple Website external drive help links here below.

Tap on the links below.

Connect external devices or servers with Files on iPad – Apple Support (UK)

Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support

For USB-C models, many USB flash memory stick drives and SSDs can be directly connected to these iPad models with the use of this adapter.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1M2AM/A/usb-c-to-usb-adapter

These USB-C iPad models can use “old skool” spinning platter hard drives, but you may need to use this adapter and the use of a an externally powered USB-C hub to power the spinning platter hard drives to get sufficient power to power these conventional hard drives as NO iOS device have an internsl power supply powerful enough to power such hard drives.

USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter - Apple

Best of Luck to You!

This is a pretty complicated question, but has answers.

First, Printers and Printing.

All print functions are done wirelessly from the iPad using either WiFi from any Wifi, wireless network/home wireless,,WiFi network or through a Bluetooth connection.

You need to purchase a printer with AirPrint capabilities and install the printer manufacturers iOS Printer model app, to use with AirPrint compatible printer manufacturer models, to be able to print to an AirPrint compatible printer.

Another option if you use a Mac or Windows PC already connected an external printer is to look for a third party iOS printer app ( there are some with some of these being a one-time paid app ) install this third party printer app on your iPad, install a secondary companion app, that the third party iOS printer app maker will recommend, to your Mac or Windows PC and have that Mac or Windows PC running this app.

Make sure your Mac or Windows PC is on the same wireless, WiFi network.

That Mac or Windows PC app acts as a local print server that your iPad can accesss from any iOS device running an aprpropriate third party printing app.

The print setup and request is setup in the thrid party iOS/iPadOS printer app and that data is sent wirelessly to your Mac or Windows PC ( on the same wireless/WiFi netwotk your iOS devices are on ) that has another third party printer server app running on it that will processs the print data through the Mac or Windows PC and sent to the externally connected printer that is already connected to a Mac or Windows PC.

I am glad someone here, occassionally, appreciates my help, advice and information I rountinely/regularly and voluntarily give here.

Thank you and you are VERY welcome.

Best of Luck to You!