How to use an iPhone 4 as a USB storage device.

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How to use an iPhone 4 as a USB storage device.

It has been about two (2) years since I last asked this question: What is the best method for using an iPhone 4 as a USB storage device? The answer two years ago was essentially: "Go Fish". Well, I did "Go Fish":

I've been using an unauthorized ssh over usb with tcprelay.py and usbmux.py to store my 20GB database and I synchronize via USB interface with ForkLift 2 between the iPhone 4 and the my three OSX 10.6.8 computers. I'd like to upgrade my iOS from 5.0.1 to 6.1.3 or 6.1.4, but not at the cost of losing the ability to use the iPhone as a USB storage device for instant access to all of my office files in a centralized database -- like a regular computer and like a regular USB storage device.

Is there any application that would let me accomplish this goal with a current verison of iOS without jailbreaking?

Posted on Aug 11, 2013 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 11, 2013 2:57 PM in response to lawlist

lawlist wrote:

Is there any application that would let me accomplish this goal with a current verison of iOS without jailbreaking?

Searching the App Store for "USB Drive" brings up quite a number of apps.

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Answer 2

lawlist Author

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Aug 11, 2013 3:05 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Last time I researched this a couple of years ago, there was a limit of something like 2 gigabytes per iOS application of sandboxed storage. Has anything changed to permit a single iOS application to hold or access more than 2 gigabytes for file types other than media?

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Answer 3

lawlist Author

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Aug 11, 2013 3:31 PM in response to lawlist

It looks like Macroplant has made a lot of progress in the past couple of years from the prior version of Phone Disk to the new I-Explorer for Mac. Next week, I'll borrow my friend's iPhone with iOS 6.1.3 and see how it works with I-Explorer for Mac. Unless the approximate 2 to 3 GB iOS sandbox data storage app restriction has been removed for non-media type files, it would be doutful that an iOS application would do the trick because my database is 20GB. That i-Explorer for the Mac application looks promising.

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