SanDisk 256GB iXpand Flash Drive Go for iPhone and iPad - SDIX60N-256G-GN6NE, Black

I needed a flash drive for my iPhone 14 for use during a two week trip. It worked great and I was quite pleased with how easy it connected, transferred my trip photos to the flash drive and enabled me to delete photos from my iPhone to free up storage space. Four months later, it no longer connects to my iPhone. I checked online for solutions and tried everything restarting the phone, deleting and adding the app back, cleaning the connection port, and other recommendations. Nothing works but since the primary purpose of purchasing the flash drive was for backing up all trip photos, it did it's job.Update: I read an article about using a toothpick to remove debris from the connection port. Tried it and was able to remove very fine lint. Connected the flash drive and it immediately copied and transferred. Changing my rating to five stars.

I have been having issues trying to transfer about 6,000 pictures from a recent trip that were taken with an iPhone 12 Pro. I tried iTunes, Windows 10 Photo app, accessing the photos directly with File Explorer and all failed at some point. The only suggestions I found that would work is only copy over a bunch at a time and I did not have the patience to do this for this many pictures.I found a bunch of "Photo Sticks" on Amazon that seemed too good to be true, then I found the SanDisk iXpand. It arrived within a day, and I immediately plugged it in, and it prompted me to get the iXpand app. Quick and easy, it opened right up and went through a brief 4-step tutorial. However, the app is super simple with only two taps to start copying over your data. For smaller numbers of photos, it will take much quicker to copy, however, for me to copy over 6,000 took alittle over 20 minutes. Which after all the wasted time and frustration it was well worth the wait. Once done I plugged in the USB into my computer and all my photos were there! Finally!!I usually never write any reviews and usually also take them with a grain of salt when reading them. This item really worked, was made by a known name brand and was reasonably priced. I would recommend this to anyone even if you have a bunch of files or photos you want to get off your iDevice without paying monthly iCloud or now Google Photos plans or just for a backup this SanDisk would work great! Hopefully this review will help if someone is either on the fence about buying this or is in the same situation with a large number of photos off an iPhone/iPad that actually worked and was painless.

Never disappointed in SanDisk products. Was easily able to transfer a large number of files from my I-phone to PC laptop with no issues. I tried using a cable from my I-phone to PC but transfers were slow, intermittent, and has errors.

Ease of use, a good backup tool, can quickly from the iPhone when traveling.

Ok, this drive didnt work at first but i restarted my phone and wiped the drive clean. Then it worked perfectly

Product delivered as expected and works as advertised. Easy to save photos for emergencies or to improve phone space.

UPDATE: Stopped working after a few uses. The iXpand app kept reporting it could not find the drive. I checked the iXpand app permissions, everything looked fine. Unplugging and plugging back in would have the drive show intermittently, but I still couldn't copy any files to it. Unreliable product, therefore not useful. Returning it. I'm glad I tested this before using it on a real photo project!Original review:I didn't want to buy the 256 GB iPhone 12, so I bought the 128 GB model and this iXpand drive instead. Saved about $50.TL;DR version: it works fine to free up storage on your iPhone without a laptop.Yeah, you have to download that pesky SanDisk iXpand app, but it's not too bad. The way the permissions and photo library access works in iOS means there's really no way to just plug in a USB device without having some type of app manage the transfer for you (it doesn't work at all like Android). So, just live with it. Make sure you OPT OUT of data collection in the iXpand app (yes, you can opt out). I bought this to move videos off the iPhone when I'm shooting so I can clear up space for the next round of videos without needing a laptop. This does that, and I don't need to waste money on super-overpriced Apple flash memory.The best way I've found to use the iXpand drive is to SHARE the videos from your Photos app/Camera Roll app to the iXpand app. Don't bother initiating the transfer from within the iXpand app. I mean, you can do that, but the less time spent in there, the better.The speeds I measured from the iXpand USB disk itself when plugged into a Mac is about 33MB/sec write, 90MB/sec read. I used Blackmagic Speed Disk Test on a USB 3.0 port to do the speed tests. Not exactly great write speed, but it gets the job done.If you're looking to do what I did and save some money by buying the cheapest iPhone with the least storage, buy this thing.