Hey,
So my wife and I have just come back off our honeymoon and all our photos are saved on my iPad Pro. Is there anyway I can save the photos on a external hard drive? Struggling to find a simple answer. If so which one should I be looking at?
Thanks
iPad Pro 11-inch Wi-Fi
There is really NO simple answer.
Sorry.
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, etc.
Regular, “Old Skool” mechanical spinning hard drives WILL need/require additional external power support for these drives to work with ANY iPad model.
Mechanical, spinning platter hard drives use too much power and cannot be powered by the just the iPad’s own internal power alone.
For iPads with Apple's Lightning Port, 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 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 external power sources, you CAN even use portable, carry-able, rechargeable power banks that can be found everywhere online ( try Amazon ) that can power the iPad and external drives, as well.
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 the links below.
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
exFAT
USB-C port equipped iPads need NO additional adapters, as long as the extenal drive, itself, uses USB-C as well.
If not, you will need to purchase thesd adapter from Apple.
OR
For “old skool” mechanical, spinning plattef hard drives
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter?
Apple Website external drive help links here below.
Tap the links below.
Connect external devices or servers with Files on iPad – Apple Support (UK)
Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support
Best of Luck to You!
There is really NO simple answer.
Sorry.
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, etc.
Regular, “Old Skool” mechanical spinning hard drives WILL need/require additional external power support for these drives to work with ANY iPad model.
Mechanical, spinning platter hard drives use too much power and cannot be powered by the just the iPad’s own internal power alone.
For iPads with Apple's Lightning Port, 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 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 external power sources, you CAN even use portable, carry-able, rechargeable power banks that can be found everywhere online ( try Amazon ) that can power the iPad and external drives, as well.
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 the links below.
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
exFAT
USB-C port equipped iPads need NO additional adapters, as long as the extenal drive, itself, uses USB-C as well.
If not, you will need to purchase thesd adapter from Apple.
OR
For “old skool” mechanical, spinning plattef hard drives
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter?
Apple Website external drive help links here below.
Tap the links below.
Connect external devices or servers with Files on iPad – Apple Support (UK)
Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support
Best of Luck to You!
Saving your photos to external USB storage is relatively straightforward from a a hardware perspective. The tags appended to your post suggest that you have an iPad Pro 11”. The iPad will therefore have a USB-C port.
Although it is possible to use a USB Hard Disk Drive, you may wish to reconsider doing so - and instead consider using solid-state SSD or other USB storage device - as these are considerably less power demanding. Either way, you are likely to require an appropriate USB Adapter and/or a USB-C hub with which to connect USB storage media to your iPad. Both options will provide means to simultaneously connect both storage device and your iPad Power Adapter - this being almost certainly needed for an HDD.
For a USB-C to USB Adapter, you might consider an Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter:
https://store.apple.com/uk/xc/product/MUF82ZM/A
I would recommend, however, that you instead consider a USB-C Hub that supports USB PD (Power Delivery) that is explicitly compatible with iPad - as this will be considerably more flexible. There are many third-party USB Hubs that have a USB-C connection for iPad plus a USB-C PD (Power Delivery) pass-through power connector to which you can connect your USB-C Power Adapter - along with the hub itself incorporating a combination of additional USB-C ports, USB 2.0/3.1 Type-A ports, Ethernet LAN, HDMI, VGA, SD and microSD card-readers.
Perhaps consider Kingston, Anker, Hyperdrive and Satechi - although there are many others from which to choose. A Google Search for USB-C Hubs compatible with iPad will find a number of articles and recommendations.
Speaking of personal experience, the Kingston Nucleum has proven itself to be particularly flexible for connection of high power USB storage devices - featuring twin USB3.1 Type-A, downstream USB-C and SD/microSD card slots, HDMI, plus a power pass-through USB-C port that can accept +45W from a suitable USB power source. Use of a USB PD Power Adapter of 30W or greater is recommended - providing adequate power for most scenarios.
You might also consider using a third-party File Manager App - as this will considerably simplify bulk transfer of photos/files from your iPad to external storage - be this be external storage media or other Cloud Storage. The are many from which to choose in the App Store - but, from experience, I recommended Stratosperix FileBrowser - Document Manager, or its “pro version” FileBrowser Professional:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/filebrowser-document-manager/id364738545
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/filebrowser-document-manager/id364738545
You might review the extensive online Manual and help files to determine suitability for your needs.
To be recognised by iPadOS, the attached USB storage device must be formatted to FAT, FAT32, exFAT, APFS or HFS+ with a single partition. Microsoft NTFS and other proprietary device formatting are not supported. Formatting and partitioning, if required, must be performed using a separate computer; iPad does not provide any facilities to format an external storage device.
Additional information about connection of external storage devices, along with other information, can be found within the iPad User Guide:
Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support
iPad and external hard drive
