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iPad Pro Use USB Flash drives and SD cards

D

Dr. McKay

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2010
821
112
Belgium, Europe
I have a 2nd gen 12,9 inch iPad Pro with 256Gb of storage to complement my iMac.
I have been looking at several solutions to be able to use a USB flash drive for transfering files (and not just pictures and movies) from my ipad to the drive and vice versa. I would also like to be able to transfer pictures from my camera's SD card to the iPad (although that's not really a problem but it would be nice to have just one device/dongle/adapter for both the USB flash drive and the SD card).

Been looking at Apple's Lightning to USB3 camera adapter, Sandisk's iXPand USB Flash drive, and wireless solutions from Kingston (Mobile Lite G3 or Pro) and RavPro.
I'm willing to fork out for the File Browser for Business app, which supposedly works perfectly in conjuction with Sandisk's iXPand flash drives, but that would mean I'd need yet another dongle for the SD card.
In essence, I'd like to be able to transfer files to and from the iPad Pro as if it were a Macbook Pro (more or less).

Is there a one-fits-all solution to my problem ?
 
I use a RAVPower FileHub for working with USB devices (I usually use a 4TB HDD with it) and SD/uSD cards that have data other than photos to work with (I use the Apple card reader for photo transfer). Been using the FileHub for 3 years now on an Air 2 and now an iPP 10.5 - works great. I like to use FileBrowser for interfacing with it via SMB.
 
I assume that I wouldn't actually need the Apple card reader to transfer photos but that I can do it just as well with the RavPower Filehub ?
And I guess the Kingston MobileLite is very similar to the RavPower. The thing is, as I live in Belgium, the RavPower is not easy to find, whereas the Kingston Mobile Lite is easily available...

Edit : do you have the regular or the business version of Filebrowser ?
 
Dr. McKay said:
I assume that I wouldn't actually need the Apple card reader to transfer photos but that I can do it just as well with the RavPower Filehub ?
And I guess the Kingston MobileLite is very similar to the RavPower. The thing is, as I live in Belgium, the RavPower is not easy to find, whereas the Kingston Mobile Lite is easily available...

Edit : do you have the regular or the business version of Filebrowser ?
Click to expand...

You wouldn't need the Apple card reader but the new reader on an iPad Pro is extremely fast. You could do the transfer with the RAVPower.

I also have the Kingston device but like the RAVPower because I found the Internet pass-through functionality to be more reliable on the RAVPower. I have both the older WD03 and the new WD09 versions of the FileHub. They have the same performance but the older version is more compact so I use it.

I have the regular version of FileBrowser - I don't need any of the additional Business version functionality.
 
Something I found on the RavPower's site :

"1) Due to the limitation of the Apple iOS system, you can ONLY access the Photos folder on your iPad/iPhone; Filehub is currently unable to sync with media files stored in iTunes to USB storage devices due to digital rights management (DRM).
2) Does not work with Mac formatted hard drive."

Something to worry about ?
 
Dr. McKay said:
Something I found on the RavPower's site :

"1) Due to the limitation of the Apple iOS system, you can ONLY access the Photos folder on your iPad/iPhone; Filehub is currently unable to sync with media files stored in iTunes to USB storage devices due to digital rights management (DRM).
2) Does not work with Mac formatted hard drive."

Something to worry about ?
Click to expand...

I never use it with iTunes. On the iPad, any file that I can get to FileBrowser can be copied to the FileHub. I've even done exports from Lightroom CC through FileBrowser directly to the FileHub. I move all kinds of files to/from the iPad to/from the FileHub. As for DRM, that's a problem with any external device - e.g., movies from iTunes can only be stored/played/moved within the Apple ecosystem. All of my drives are formatted FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS. I don't think the Kingston can handle Mac-formatted drives, either.
 
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Dr. McKay said:
Ok thx.

If I can find it, I might as well go for the new one :
https://www.ravpower.com/p/ravpower-filehub-ac750-wireless-travel-router.html

You prefer this one, I assume, because it's more compact :
https://www.ravpower.com/p/ravpower-6000mah-filehub-plus.html

I guess the newer one (RP-WD09) would be the one to get. If I can hold of it. It's strange : all the other stuff (powerbanks etc) are easy to find over here, the filehub isn't...
Click to expand...

It's really just a size preference as I have both. If buying new, I would get the WD09 as it will get firmware updates where at some point the WD03 won't (though it still does now).

I'm wondering on the availability of the WD09. It's newly released and isn't available on Amazon here in the US yet. It was put out as an update to the WD07, which had a number of issues that I documented here -

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-ravpower-filehub-model-review.2128117/

RAVPower reached out to me after that review and they addressed everything I saw as a problem by releasing the newer WD09. They provided me a copy of it, which I reviewed -

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-ravpower-filehub-model-wd009.2166261/
 
I found it on Amazon UK, and nowhere else. It clearly states it's the 2019 model (RP-WD009) so I guess I'll be fine...
Too bad it only features USB2 transfer speeds but I guess you can't have it all.

In any case, thanks, you've been a big help !
 
Dr. McKay said:
I found it on Amazon UK, and nowhere else. It clearly states it's the 2019 model (RP-WD009) so I guess I'll be fine...
Too bad it only features USB2 transfer speeds but I guess you can't have it all.

In any case, thanks, you've been a big help !
Click to expand...

There are interference issues between USB3 and WiFi and that's probably why nobody has put the two together in a compact form factor yet. But I agree, that combined with 5GHz file transfer support would be great.

Glad to help & good luck!
 
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There are some wireless external drives you can use too. I can't remember the brand but imma guess WD or Sandisk. I saw a couple Youtube videos of them.
 
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