How to Connect any Hard Drive or SSD to an iPad Pro - 2021

How to connect any hard drive or SSD to an iPad in 2021.

## Time Stamps
0:00 - Intro
00:56 - Which iPads This Will Work With
01:32 - Which Drive Should You Use?
02:31 - Adapters
03:58 - Using the Magic Keyboard
04:34 - Connecting a Hard Drive
05:10 - Accessing the Contents
06:48 - Moving and Copying
08:56 - Connecting a Dongle
10:08 - Final Thoughts

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⚠️⚠️ Disclaimer:
The content of this video is intended for viewers ages 13+.

[jsan]

You are the *only person* who actually explained that an iPad doesn’t have enough output to power a disk drive, THANK YOU!!

[aerofly]

What would have been useful is if you had touched on the ways of formatting drives where you may want to share files between iOS and Windows

[PetersonBlanc]

great video, though I don't believe at any point in the video did you suggest what format the hard drive should be in, so that the iPad recognizes the drive when connected; mind answering the question? thanks

[allenhametta]

Very helpful. My Mac is at Apple Store Service dept and now I can continue to do things on the Mac using my Mac backup drive remotely and temporarily.

[keystonedaytrip]

Just bought iPad Pro 12.9” WiFi 1TB yesterday 👍🏼
I’ll use it for hobby / casual video editing on Lumafusion
I’m looking to purchase an SSD . This video comes at a good time !

[GaryR]

A couple of things: first, the iPads that have Lightning ports can certainly work with USB-C devices, if you use a USB-C to Lightning cable I have a couple of these. Secondly, the real issue here isn't connectivity, but rather, the compatibility of the operating system. I have two Seagate external drives (1TB and 2TB) and they work fine with Windows, but won't work at all with an iPad, even if I'm using the right cable to connect them with, which, in this case, would be USB-A, which "should" work with an Apple USB adapter (the type that has a USB-A port and Lightning port for power).

[style.life]

Thanks for this video. It helped me decide to buy 1TB ssd instead of upgrading ipad to 256GB in the same price.

[hemanthsonu]

Wow!! thanks for the detailed guide. I was wondering how to copy the files from SDD to ipad

[rocastyle]

Can the ssd work directly with the iPad or iPhone with out extra power

[JeffDaytonMusic]

Great info, thanks! I'm going to recycle my AirMac 2013 and old iPad Air and combine them into one travel solution at 3 pounds less bag weight. I appreciate this video!

[RabidCycler]

You should’ve demonstrated how to safely eject or disconnect an external drive from the iPad.

[scottchace]

So how do you transfer data from a pen drive to an iPad with a lighting port?

[rorywalters]

Just avoid using spinning hard drives with the iPad. There’s no way of properly ejecting leads to no proper way of stopping the drive from spinning on an iPad.

[richardmalone]

What happens when the iPad doesn’t recognize or bring up the external hard drive?

[donmooney]

Disregard...didn't know where to look. It works great!

[sansin]

How to format the external SSD so as to be able to store 4K video files and edit them in LumaFusion on the iPad?

[maryhausner]

I have an external DVD plugged into my Mac. Can I connect this to my c drive of my iPad Pro?

[JeffBourke]

oh Thank you Apple for letting me use MY iPad with My harddrive. Such generosity.

[richtruesdell]

Jered, I have an iPad Pro 12.9 4th Gen running IOS17.4.1. It was a gift from a friend who wasn’t using it.

Yesterday my main HP i9 laptop failed as it won’t charge. I know it’s not the battery and I suspect it’s something in the charging circuit that will need to be serviced. I removed the 500GB SSD from the HP and put it into a USB-C enclosure and plugged into the iPad. I do not see it in the iPad’s Files tab. The iPad does not recognize it.

Since I have a multi-port dongle, I plugged the SSD into the dongle then plugged it into the iPad.Still nothing even though I know the SSD enclosure is getting power as I see the light on the enclosure and the wireless USB transmitter for my wireless mouse is working. Plus the USB-C cord from my phone charger plugged into the dongle is charging my iPad (but the same cord plugged into the port on my Magic Keyboard does not charge the iPad… very strange).

I really need to be able to at least access my files on the iPad Pro so I can work while I get my HP laptop serviced. I know my Apple friends use their iPad Pros with the Magic Keyboard as a laptop substitute which is what I want to be able to do but can’t.

Based on what I’ve described and your greater Apple experience than mine, what should I be doing? I can’t believe that I’m the only person experiencing this.


Is my problem related to a power issue? Is that what I am missing, why the SSD in the enclosure not being recognized?

[janmcneill]

Do you have videos about Lightroom for IPad? Your video was best one for showing attaching two external HD. Now need to find out how to use LR on IPad with them!