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You can't stop taking pictures and videos on your iPad Air 2.
It's way to easy to get great looking shots which looks awesome on the iPad Air 2's Retina display. Before you know it though, there is a lot of content to get off the iPad. It would be too slow to try and upload to the cloud or use AirDrop to transfer to your Mac. Trying to connect your iPad to a Windows PC is troublesome or sometimes your USB to Lightning cable goes bad from constant use and you no longer can connect your Mac to your iPad. Sometimes you are traveling somewhere and just don't have access to the Internet.
No matter what the reason, you'll find that at some point a lot of content accumulates on your iPad. Sooner or later, you need to get that content out to free up space if you want to do things like shoot the next couple hours worth of videos.
The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive solves this problem by allowing you to easily move all your photos and videos quickly from your iPad to a flash drive especially designed for the iPhone and iPad.
I purchased the SanDisk iXpand Mobile Drive in Bic Camera Shin Yokohama. The iPhone and iPad have the highest market share in Japan and Japanese stores like Bic Camera have large areas of their store just dedicated to selling iPhone and iPad peripherals.
The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive has a big fancy box but all it contains is the flash drive itself.
The iXpand Flash Drive has a Lightning connector which when plugged into the iPhone or iPad, immediately calls up the SanDisk iXpand Sync App.
This SanDisk App is the only way to actually move your files from your iPhone or iPad into your iXpand Flash Drive. Unlike Windows and Android which has open file systems and file browsers that allow you to move files in and out of any directory including that of your external USB drive, Apple doesn't have general file browser apps and you typically use specific applications like Music or Pages to open and save files.
The iXpand Sync App allows you to easily copy or move your photos and videos from your iPad or iPhone to the iXpand Flash Drive with a click up a button. However, given the restrictions that Apple imposes, you still are not able to copy or move any content from your iXpand Flash Drive into the iPad or iPhone . The best you can do is view and play any photos, videos, or music that is on the iXpand Mobile Drive using the iXpand Sync App. The Sandisk expand Sync App does also create a My Downloads folder on your iPad that you can use to save files but you can only view them using the Sandisk app.
After you get your content into the iXpand Flash Drive, the drive then has a regular USB connector like any other traditional flash drive that you can use to plug into your PC or Mac. From here, the iXpand Flash Drive is like any other flash drive and you can copy, move, play using any file brower or program.
The iXpand Flash Drive has a solid aluminum casing which is big and heavy enough that it's hard to lose. However, given it's width, it can block other ports that you want to use on your PC or Mac.
The iXpand Flash Drive surprisingly enough only supports USB 2.0 speeds when connected to a PC or Mac. This is still faster than using Bluetooth or AirDrop but most PC's and Mac's support the much faster USB 3.0 standard.
When the iXpand Flash Drive is used together with a cover like the Logitech Type+ with the iPad Air 2, the Drive can only easily fit in such a way where the USB connector awkwardly blocks the main iPad button. While not the end of the world, it makes for a less enjoyable experience when you have to fumble to get your finger underneath the iXpand Flash Drive to use the fingerprint sensor to unlock your iPad or simply press the button. It is possible to attach the iXpand Flash Drive from behind the Logitech Type+ cover as in the image above but you really need to stretch and bend the Lightning connector to reach the iPad.
Interestingly enough, the Apple Store doesn't carry this product and chooses to sell other SanDisk wireless storage products instead for the iPad. Go figure.
The iXpand Flash Drive is a good product for quickly moving files from your iPad. Just don't expect it to be able to move files in and out of your iPad like a normal flash drive would on a computer, and you will avoid disappointment.
