iPadOS and a USB hub
With version 13, Apple has also opened up the possibilities of connecting external drives to an iPad.
Introduction
This possibility, opened with iPadOS 13, has some pitfalls. Especially with devices like my iPAd Air, which is still equipped with a Lightning connector. But even with the Pro versions with USB-C port, there should still be problems.
Still, the iPad is certainly an alternative for photo and video editing, especially on the go.
Anschluss
With my iPAD Air, you first need a Lightning-USB adapter and take the Apple original here. I have tried others, but they did not work at all.
This adapter by itself is not sufficient to connect just a USB stick, let alone a USB drive. The whole adapter always needs power from the charging cable to run a USB stick or external USB SSD drive. Even as shown here, a card reader needs the extra power so it can read the images from the memory card.
I once recorded the following video for this purpose:
The USB Hub
In the internet I came across a USB-HUB, which is very small and handy and which has besides further USB 3.0 ports also a card reader integrated. With this I can at least read the SD cards of my Lumix cameras and microSD cards, such as those found in drones, are also processed.
With this, you can then also copy photo videos if you want without an additional intermediate step from the SD card to a USB SSD drive for data backup.
To do this, this USB HUB also needs power or the USB adapter must be supplied with power. That I do in the meantime on the road with the Anker Powerbank. However, the small USB HUB has a port for an external power supply.
With the Anker Power Bank, it is then possible to supply both the USB HUB and the USB adapter of the iPad with power. And that is then even enough to connect a connected regular hard drive, e.g. a 2.5 inch drive.
Unrecognized drives
I finally fell for it again and wondered why an SSD drive was not recognized by the iPad. It was formatted with NTFS and Apple doesn’t like that. Formatted the drive with exFat and everything is back in the green.
Conclusion
With the iPadOS, Apple puts many unnecessary hurdles in the way of the user when using USB drives. This concerns both the use only with additional power and the speed, especially with the Lightning port.
Nevertheless, one then has access to especially for the video and photo area important apps such as Lightroom, Photoshop or even LumaFusion.
ciao tuxoche
