iPad Pro iPadOS is still dough on the bottom.

[romanof]

IPad Pro, M4, 13", 1tb.

The new iPados 26 is not the nirvana that I thought it would be. With a "real" filesystem I was planning to make it my traveling companion, putting lots of stuff (music, videos, books) on a small SSD that would give enough entertainment to last for a entire summer's vacation.

My testing with a few files went well - books could be read, movies could be watched, music could be played. Then I loaded the Sandisk SSD to the top of the 4tb. Worked great on both my laptop and desktop. Then...

iPadOs will not open anything in a folder on an external SSD unless it only has a few files. It definitely will not open a folder that has a folder(s) inside. It will not open a folder that has a lot of files - the max number not yet discovered by me. A single file in the home directory will be opened ok, until it won't - again, some randomness that I have yet to determine. Opens ok one time, not the next.

____________________
CONTENT UNAVAILABLE
The folder contents could not be... blah blah
____________________

A total reset and reload did nothing, and I had no reason to expect it to. Trying it on a friend's Ipad did the same thing, but not exactly. A folder with 50 files would open where one with 3 would not. ????

BUT... We have a startling new Liquid Glass look that Apple spent untold amounts of time on. Time that might have been wasted in fixing the basic usability of their products.

A thought. Could it be possible that a discussion arose that if just anyone could attach a cheapo SSD to our slab, who would pay the obscene prices for our own storage?

On a second thought. Nah... "It works pretty good. Ship IT!"

 

[sparksd]

IPad Pro, M4, 13", 1tb.

The new iPados 26 is not the nirvana that I thought it would be. With a "real" filesystem I was planning to make it my traveling companion, putting lots of stuff (music, videos, books) on a small SSD that would give enough entertainment to last for a entire summer's vacation.

My testing with a few files went well - books could be read, movies could be watched, music could be played. Then I loaded the Sandisk SSD to the top of the 4tb. Worked great on both my laptop and desktop. Then...

iPadOs will not open anything in a folder on an external SSD unless it only has a few files. It definitely will not open a folder that has a folder(s) inside. It will not open a folder that has a lot of files - the max number not yet discovered by me. A single file in the home directory will be opened ok, until it won't - again, some randomness that I have yet to determine. Opens ok one time, not the next.

____________________
CONTENT UNAVAILABLE
The folder contents could not be... blah blah
____________________

A total reset and reload did nothing, and I had no reason to expect it to. Trying it on a friend's Ipad did the same thing, but not exactly. A folder with 50 files would open where one with 3 would not. ????

BUT... We have a startling new Liquid Glass look that Apple spent untold amounts of time on. Time that might have been wasted in fixing the basic usability of their products.

A thought. Could it be possible that a discussion arose that if just anyone could attach a cheapo SSD to our slab, who would pay the obscene prices for our own storage?

On a second thought. Nah... "It works pretty good. Ship IT!"

I'm not seeing that at all. 13" 1TB M5 Pro, 26.2, using multiple Samsung T5 & T7 SSDs. No issues at all using Files & FileBrowser Pro for file access, other apps for video and image display.

Edit: Did specific tests with folders nested 7 deep and folder with 1600 JPEG files. SSDs are formatted exFAT.

 

[Soccerrick10]

I just moved 27,000 raw photos from Adobe Cloud to a Samsung T9 ssd. Those took 1.6tb of the 2tb drive. I have them nested by location> year> month> date> purpose. So, nested 4-5 folders deep. It seemed to take some time for indexing on initial plugin. But, then everything has been great. I can transparently open on either my Mac mini for printing or editing on my iPad Pro.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I have a 1TB M5 13" and connect a 2TB SSD to read folders nested in sub folders without any problems.

What you described is not typical. Your external drive could be the culprit.

Before you rant and rave against Apple and put down the M5 iPad, which is a powerhouse, and can easily do what you were griping about, make sure what you are doing or using isn't the problem.

 

[PandaPunch]

I'm not trying to be funny when I ask this but you bought 1 TB of storage for an iPad Pro 13" M4, then you have a 4 TB external SSD and this apparently is for a lot of entertainment. I understand movies/tv shows especially can take up a lot of space but is that really needed for travel? Where are you going that requires literal terabytes of entertainment?

If you're at home, you'd be better served with cheaper, large internal drives in a cheap desktop reused as a Jellyfin server.

And if you're traveling, why aren't you just picking a few books and movies to put directly on the storage?

 

[Abazigal]

Hmm, I have no issues with getting my iPad to read files from either my Samsung T7 drive or this "PNY" branded flash drive. I wonder if it's an issue with Sandisk drives? My impression of the brand isn't too positive overall.

 

[sparksd]

Hmm, I have no issues with getting my iPad to read files from either my Samsung T7 drive or this "PNY" branded flash drive. I wonder if it's an issue with Sandisk drives? My impression of the brand isn't too positive overall.

I don't think the OP is interested any longer.

 

[G5isAlive]

I don't think the OP is interested any longer.

The truth is inconvenient for his rant. I too have no problems with external ssds on any of my iPads

 

[TumbleDryer]

Drive format?

 

[rui no onna]

Hmm, I have no issues with getting my iPad to read files from either my Samsung T7 drive or this "PNY" branded flash drive. I wonder if it's an issue with Sandisk drives? My impression of the brand isn't too positive overall.

SanDisk is pretty decent.

Mind, I've had issues with iPadOS corrupting a drive (circa iOS 13). I haven't had that problem lately although I rarely use external drives with my iPad.

 

[Runaway Train]

No such issues here.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Echoing what others have said, I've had terrible luck with sandisk products. It would not surprise me to hear that their SSDs don't like to be packed to the gills.

Samsung is usually much better in this space. PNY is good too. Same with Crucial, though, they're exiting the consumer market to ride the AI bubble 🙄

 

[TumbleDryer]

I've had problems with Sandisk before too. If I recall they keep a hard partition on their drives for some reason or other and it doesn't play nicely with MacOS. That was a long time ago and it may be different now but after my experience I don't buy Sandisk for that reason.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

not expecting a response at all, but, is it possible OP was using a USB 2.0 cable for a 3.0 drive?
iPadOS sometimes doesn’t play nice with that, I have a drive that simply will not show up unless it’s connected via a USB 3.0 cable.