Recently bought a 10th Generation Ipad. Wanted to get a usb drive for back up and, as I also have an older model Iphone, I went with a Sandisk Ixpand Luxe as it had both lightning and usb c connecters. Works great on the Iphone but is not being seen by the Ipad, Usb c side is ok as it works on my laptop. I've formatted to exfat. Any advice or help will be very much appreciated. Many thanks in advance
iPad (10th generation)
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.
With Apple Lightning port iPad models, forget using “old skool”, conventional, mechanical, spinning platter hard drives.
Popular SSDs are from SanDisk/Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate.
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.
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 using this adapter.
These USB-C iPad models CAN use “old skool” mechanical, 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 devices have an internal power supply powerful enough to power such mechanical, spinning platter hard drives.
USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter - Apple
USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter - Apple
Best of Luck to You!
As you have an iPad 10 with a USB-C port, you should be able to make direct connection between your iPad and USB-C storage.
However, some USB Storage devices may require more power than the iPad can provide. In some circumstances you will need to use a third-party powered USB-C hub - or a hub that supports USB PD (Power Delivery).
The iPad User Guide provides information about connecting external storage to your iPad:
Connect external storage devices to iPad - Apple Support
To be recognised by iPadOS, the attached USB storage device must be formatted to FAT, FAT32, exFAT - or for large volumes, APFS or HFS+ with a single partition are also supported. Microsoft NTFS and other proprietary device formatting are not supported by Apple devices.
Firstly, apologies for not replying sooner. Many thanks to LotusPilot and MichelPM for your help and in depth explanations. Upon further investigation using the advice given by the 2 aforemantioned members, It is my understanding that the Sandisk iXpand Luxe Flashdrive isn't compatible with the 10th Generation iPad as the USB-c port is an older generation one. Hope this helps other people. Once again many thanks for your help.
Ipad 10th Generation
