SanDisk iXpand review: Boost your iPhone or iPad's storage space easily

Storage on iPhone and iPad can become a problem if you buy a smaller device than perhaps you need. And let's be honest, most of us might think we can get away with the smallest capacity, only to become frustrated when we end up using it a lot more than we thought we would.

So, enter storage experts SanDisk with a handy solution - particularly if you want to carry more media around with you. Its iXpand device comes in capacities of 16, 32, 64 and 128GB capacities and SanDisk sent us the 32GB version to test.

Compact design

The iXpand is small, but not tiny. There's one reason here that keeps it a certain size - it features a built-in battery. This is necessary to allow file transfers via Lightning port. USB doesn't require it, but when it's plugged into your computer, it's also topping up its battery.

This does, of course, mean that eventually the battery will stop working, and you'll only be able to access your files on a computer. But you should get years of use before this becomes a problem.

One end of the device has a Lightning connector, which connects to an iPhone or iPad. The other end is a standard USB connector, which allows you to connect to either a Mac or PC.

The problem is harder to solve than you might think

There are a couple of things that make adding storage to an Apple device a bit more tricky than with Android. For security reasons, iOS doesn't allow apps to access the file system. This means that it's not actually possible for a device like iXpand to work without an app.

Even with the app though, iOS only allows apps to store data in their own app storage areas. This means that you're not going to be able to copy files from your iPhone (with the exception of photos) - and what's more, if you move any content from a computer, it will only be accessible from within the iXpand app. It's a small but significant point that needs to be made.

Two main features

The iXpand is designed with two main tasks in mind. The first is to allow you to make a backup of your photos easily, and locally. With all of the celebrity image leaks, there must be quite a few people who don't want to use cloud storage any more. So for those people, the iXpand offers a nifty way to keep a backup of images without having to go anywhere near the cloud. Most of us don't really bother syncing via iTunes anymore either - although it can perform the same backup, too.

The second feature of the iXpand is to play media on your Apple device. This might be videos or music, or you can look at photos you've put on the iXpand.

What's quite clever about this is that it means you can dump videos on the device and then use the app to play them back. You do have to use the SanDisk app though, because of the aforementioned iOS restrictions.

It's actually pretty good at this, it supports MP4 - which most internet video uses - and can read it from containers like MKV. It also seems to support AC3 audio, which is important for a lot of files you might find on the internet.

There is an "open with" option within the app, which we took to mean that you could use it to open files in another player. However, when we tried with video, it didn't work at all. You can sync to Dropbox and similar, which might be useful too.

The app

It's important to bear in mind here that the app is crucial to the success of the iXpand. Without it, you can't use the device because the iPhone or iPad has no way of moving files from the drive to its internal storage. You get prompted, though, so the process of getting set up is utterly painless.

Also possible is copying files from the storage to your phone. For those using this as a way to save space, that won't be much use, but if you're more interested in getting video from a PC to your iPhone, then it's quite handy as it means you don't have to leave the device connected all the time, and that is important because it does add a bit of bulk to your phone or tablet.

The option to sync photos is good too. You can either sync everything, or go through and select images you want to move. Once you've done this and made a copy on a PC, for example, then you could clean out your phone and recover some space. Camera downloads are exempt from the iOS restrictions on file transfers, but you do have to grant the software permission to access your images.

Apart from some minor problems, the app is pretty good. If you use it to watch TV shows, it produces decent quality video and the sound works perfectly. Compare that to VLC on iOS and it's actually slightly more flexible for this particular task. Copy-protected content probably won't work, though.

It is also worth mentioning at this point that the device is FAT32 formatted. Because of this, the maximum size of file you can put on the drive is 4GB. That might have an impact on some movies, which can be a lot larger than that. You could always convert files if needed, to get them down to a smaller size.

The verdict

The 32GB version we tested costs £57.95, which is reasonable enough. The 16GB version is £41.99 and the 64GB is £89.99, with the 128GB version listed on Amazon for £129.99.

None of these prices is bargain-basement level, but for the features included, and the bonus of being able to carry loads more stuff with you to use on your Apple device, it's certainly a worthy investment.

Of course, you might not need the iXpand if you buy a larger-capacity Apple product in the first place - but even if you do, having more storage is never a bad thing, and the backup facility is excellent.