External drive for pc and iPad?

theradfords

Hi, 
sorry in advance as  this is probably a silly question.

currently I have all the photos for many years on my windows laptop and backed up on an external drive.

i am considering getting rid of the laptop (so old and slow) and replacing with an iPad.

i like the photos on an external drive rather than on iCloud or Google drive.

my question is , is it possible to keep the photos on an external drive and access them on an iPad (I will be buying a new iPad )
thanks very much 

Neil_Jones

You can probably sort the laptop with a relatively easy upgrade...

Anyway this is documented here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/ipad/ipad75b7b23f/17.0/ipados/17.0

However pay heed to "An external storage device must have only a single data partition, and it must be formatted as APFS, APFS (encrypted), macOS Extended (HFS+), exFAT (FAT64), FAT32, or FAT", because its plausible your drive is NFTS.  Which the iPad won't read.  You can't change the format type without wiping the drive.

Easiest solution is probably set up a small NAS, copy your photos to that and then there's probably an app if its not already installed that will show your videos.

MikeJXE

Use a flash drive pen drive or whatever you want to call it 

EnPointe

MikeJXE said:

Use a flash drive pen drive or whatever you want to call it 

apple being apple of course  doesn;t like NTFS  which most  usb  flash drives are fromatted in   and  also there's the issue of  the fact that many Ipads out in the wild  still use  Lightning  rather than USB-C (just had to purchase  Lightning cables  as  my  new work supplied IT isa lightning equipped IPad  and while  i was issued one  charger and USB-C to lightning cable   i keep those in my  kit bag   so have had to get lightning cables for the car and at home  as i have plenty of PD  or QC2/3  power bricks  for home and  a PD cig plug  adaptor  for the car  ( but  my personal phone and tablet are Samsung 'droid  devices)

cerebus

EnPointe said:

MikeJXE said:

Use a flash drive pen drive or whatever you want to call it 

apple being apple of course  doesn;t like NTFS  which most  usb  flash drives are fromatted in   and  also there's the issue of  the fact that many Ipads out in the wild  still use  Lightning  rather than USB-C (just had to purchase  Lightning cables  as  my  new work supplied IT isa lightning equipped IPad  and while  i was issued one  charger and USB-C to lightning cable   i keep those in my  kit bag   so have had to get lightning cables for the car and at home  as i have plenty of PD  or QC2/3  power bricks  for home and  a PD cig plug  adaptor  for the car  ( but  my personal phone and tablet are Samsung 'droid  devices)

Most flash drives are either fat32 or exfat and fat32 definitely works on both mac and Windows,  probably exfat works too but I can't confirm that 

I've never cone across a ntfs formatted flash drive which has just been bought off the shelf

Edited for clarity for flaneurs_lobster

flaneurs_lobster

cerebus said:

I've never cone across a ntfs formatted flash drive 

Got one here, formatted by me to allow backup of a single 12GB file.

DullGreyGuy

flaneurs_lobster said:

cerebus said:

I've never cone across a ntfs formatted flash drive 

Got one here, formatted by me to allow backup of a single 12GB file.

Then an issue you've created rather than an out the box issue that EnPointe had suggested it was, if you were to want to try and access it on an iPad. 

theradfords said:

my question is , is it possible to keep the photos on an external drive and access them on an iPad (I will be buying a new iPad )
thanks very much 

Yes, though you'll just be browsing them as files rather than using the iPad's capability to index them in Photos to be able to search based on location, who's in the photo, subject matter etc. Imagine thats what you do now so no backward step just not taking the advantage of a photo manager applications capability. 

cerebus

flaneurs_lobster said:

cerebus said:

I've never cone across a ntfs formatted flash drive 

Got one here, formatted by me to allow backup of a single 12GB file.

Yes I think everybody realised I meant off the shelf not deliberately formatted by the purchaser to do a certain job......

For you I'll edit my original post for clarity 

PHK

I would think very carefully about using A hard drive as backup. 

The mean time between failure for a hard drive is much shorter than for cloud storage AND its risky keeping the backup and the iPad in the same place. 
So if you must use a hard drive then you really need two, one kept off site and you need to regularly check that they are okay. 

It's also likely to cost more to store on hard drives. 

Neil_Jones

PHK said:

I would think very carefully about using A hard drive as backup. 

The mean time between failure for a hard drive is much shorter than for cloud storage AND its risky keeping the backup and the iPad in the same place. 
So if you must use a hard drive then you really need two, one kept off site and you need to regularly check that they are okay. 

It's also likely to cost more to store on hard drives. 

A hard drive will continue to be accessible when the internet isn't...

And if you only use the hard drive for backups it'll last a very long  time - if its not plugged in it can't wear out