How to connect usb drive, external hard disk to an iPad

Those of you, who are wondering whether you can connect USB Flash Drive or an External Hard Disk to an iPad, for transferring data to and fro from it, then you are Right. It is possible, but it is not straight forward !!

You need to follow the steps below to make it work.

1) First of all you need to Jailbreak you iPad

There are several  Jailbreaking tools such as Absinthe, PwnageTool, RedSn0w, Sn0wBreeze, JailbreakMe, Evasi0n and more.... but the one which I used is Evasi0n . It is a very nifty tool and jailbreaking process is just a breeze. It takes few minutes and you are done.

Reason, behind Jailbreaking the device, is to unlock the full potential of device and to get admin rights on it. You will get full access to the whole file system, which Apple refrains from device owners.

After Jailbreaking, you will get access to Cydia Store. It is similar to Apple store, from where you can download some cool applications.

Please visit http://www.ijailbreak.com/ for latest Jailbreaking tips and news.

I will be creating a separate post for the Jailbreaking method which I have used.

2) You will need an iPad Camera Connection Kit

You can either purchase the original Camera Connection kit from Apple Store or look for 5 in 1 Camera Connection kit from third party vendors who make similar type of devices, from eBay or Tradus. 

Actual use of camera connection kit is to download photos and videos from your digital camera to your iPad and view it directly on the device; that is what Apple designed it for, but it has got some extra hidden features which is not known to common mass. The kit consist of two dongles as shown below. One for reading SD card and the other one with an USB interface. The one which we are interested in, is the left one having USB interface.

Apple Branded Camera Connection Kit

Camera Connection Kit - Alternative

3) iFile application from Cydia store

iFile application is the Swiss army knife for File Management. It has the ability to mount all the external devices connected to iPad via Camera Connection kit and browse, read, edit, delete, copy and move the files within it.

4) A powered USB Hub is also required

 You can easily get a powered USB hub from the market. It comes with an external power adapter. Look for a USB hub having multimedia card reader slot if possible. It will allow you read from your SD card and write to USB drive or vice-verse at the same time. Good for carrying the setup when you are going for some vacation, when you think of moving the photos from card to pen drive to make some space or simply view the photographs taken.  USB 3.0 is more preferable, otherwise 2.0 will be equally fine.

Note: Make sure that you are picking up the powered one. Regular USB hub without power supply will not work.

Just grab a one as per your choice and you are set to go.

I purchased a Circle USB 3.0 power hub for my setup.

Circle USB 3.0 Hub

Accessories Connected

5) Final Setup

Connect camera connection dongle to iPad. Connect one end of USB cable to the USB interface on the dongle and the other end to the USB hub. Now attach the power adapter pin to the hub and hook the adapter to the power socket. That's it. Setup is complete.

Complete Setup

Now you can start using iFile app mentioned previously to manage the files. Just plug in the pen drive or external hard disk to USB Hub and it will be mounted automatically under devices section in the app as shown below. Click the appropriate entry and it will list down all the files available in the mass storage device attached corresponding to that entry.

iFile App In Action

If you see, currently there are two storage devices mounted, and contents of the bottom most Flash Drive is listed. The mount entries goes to /var/mnt folder.

Now go ahead and start managing the files. No more need to carry bulky laptops. Your iPad is capable of doing the work.

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