How many times have you been in a beautiful place, waiting for that perfect sunset shot? When it finally comes, you lift your iPhone to take a pic and that dreaded message pops up: No More Storage. You frantically scroll through hundreds of photos from your trip, trying to decide between your favorites.
What if I could tell you that I have discovered how to never have this experience again?
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Sandisk iXpand Drive
This little treasure has arrived to solve all your phone-photo problems. The Sandisk iXpand Drive is essentially a USB drive, made with both USB and lightening connectors. That means you can plug the little guy directly into your phone, download the photos from your phone, then delete the photos off your phone and clear up tons of space. Then later when you’re near your computer, you can download them from your iXpand Drive onto your computer.
Let’s talk about all the reasons I freakin’ love this thing.
More memory
The Sandisk iXpand Drive allows you to gain more usable memory for your phone files. It comes in either 16GB, 32GB, 64GB or 128GB. That’s basically like having a whole extra phone of storage! It will take thousands of photos to run out of storage with the iXpand drive.
Easy-to-use app
In order to transfer photos between the Sandisk iXpand Drive and your iPhone, you must download the free app onto your phone. Navigating the app is so easy, it just walks you through the steps of transfering files. It actually won a “Best Designed Mobile App” award in April 2016.
Keep your case on
Sometimes when you get new phone accessories, you find that they won’t even fit with your phone case. But never fear here! Even with my big ‘ole Otterbox case around my phone, the iXpand Drive still fits!
It’s not just for photos
Oh, no no. The Sandisk iXpand Drive can also be used for your music and movie files. You can take all those storage-gobbling music files off your phone. But don’t freak out! With your iXpand drive plugged into your phone, you can still listen to all your favorite tunes!
No wifi required
Okay, why get the Sandisk iXpand Drive when you can just upload your photos to Dropbox for free? I get that. But uploading to dropbox requires wifi. And when you travel, you never really know where and when you’ll have wifi, and if that wifi will be any good. The iXpand Drive does not require any wifi connection in order to transfer files.
Fast speed
The process of transferring files from your phone to your iXpand drive is surprisingly quick! I’ve uploaded hundreds of photos at once and have never had to wait more that 1-2 minutes for the transfer to complete.
Easy deletion from your phone
Now that your photos are transferred onto the Sandisk iXpand Drive, you have to go through and delete them all off your phone. Sounds like a daunting task, huh? Think again! The iXpand Drive allows you to delete all the transferred photos with just one click! And voila, your phone has its space all cleared for more travel pics!
If you’re sitting there thinking “This is just too good to be true” you are wrong. The Sandisk iXpand Drive is worth every dollar I spent. It was so easy to clear space on my phone, and I never had to worry about taking too many photos while traveling. The drive took up hardly any space in my backpack and allowed me to travel without having to bring my laptop for photo back-ups.
Before you take your next trip, add the Sandisk iXpand Drive to your packing list!
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44 Comments
These things really are great, and I love SanDisk! Definitely a must buy if you have a phone that doesn’t have expandable memory.
This is a great investment! I wish I had known about this sooner. I ran out of space in dropbox and my phone and started deleting photos. I recently upgraded to a phone with more storage. I’m still going to look into this!
Wow, this is a great gift idea. Great place to store movies for flights for my mom! I’m going to have to look into this some more with Christmas coming up 🙂 thanks for the suggestion!
That is such a brilliant idea! I can’t believe this the first time I’ve seen it. I hope I can find one in Korea before I leave on my next trip!
You could get one online!
That is such a clever tool. I would love to try one out if they are looking for more testers. I have that problem often because I record a lot of videos. Very cool shape. I like that.
I don’t know if they’re looking for testers. This post is completely unsponsored. I wrote it because I genuinely love traveling with this product and wanted to share it with others.
Oh man this is such a great idea! I just spend soooo much money buying a new phone with extra storage. Now this!!!
I’ve never heard of this before– I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the post!
Man, I SO need this! Thanks for this post.
This is absolutely something I need! The cloud doesn’t always come in handy. This is so great, I am going to order one before my next trip.
Holy crap, that is an awesome find. I’m going to buy one!!
I’ve heard about this!!! Ah, Have to track down where to get one! 🙂
[…] have told you all the reasons why I love my iXpand drive. This little thing takes all the headache out of taking travel photos with your phone. You can […]
Great idea. Wish I’d had this when I was on my honeymoon!
I feel like I’ve been looking for this my whole Iphone life and you have just answered my prayers haha. Thank you!
I had heard about these but didn’t get much detail, thanks for filling in the blanks, this is AWESOME! Adding to my travel accessories shopping list!
I’ve never heard of this, but you can be sure that I will be going and checking one out very soon! This is just what I need!
So cool! I am buying it right now 😀
Let me know how you like it!
Well this is a great idea. Now to wait for something similar for android… or maybe get myself an iphone? hehe.
What where has this been all my life? I need one of these – I had never even heard of it and just spent hours taking 9000 photos of my phone! I love this thank you for sharing!
It happened to me a lot of times that I need to choose which ones to delete. This is just what I need. Thank you for introducing me to this. 🙂
Omg wow you saved my life. Love this post. I didn’t know about this. Thanks for sharing Xx
Thank you for pointing out this wonderful Sandisk iXpand Drive. Usually during my travels, I don’t run out memory but it definitely happened to me before and I can see how this little piece of plastic and metal can be very useful.
Wow, I had no idea such thing exists. With 16gb storage its a pain to always delete pictures. Thanks, I need to get this one asap now 🙂
I have literally never heard of this before!! I am adding it to my list on Amazon right now. This would have been so helpful last year when my phone crashed with no back-up and I lost about 7,000 photos :/
Thanks for sharing – you are a lifesaver.
Definitely need it. I didn’t know something like this existed. But then I am not surprised, discovering such useful gadgets with each passing day
I really got to stop deleting travel photos from my phone and keep backing them up. I am so annoying sometimes. 😀 Great post
I need this!!! I lost hundreds of photos because i moved them from my phone to my computer and, stupidly, thought they would be safe there. My computer crashed and I lost them all. This is such a handy device. Thank you for sharing!
This is amazing. We did not know about this. We are sure to buy one. You are right Dropbox and Photos are great but when your are travelling, most of the times you do not have access to these things and such a thing would come in real handy.
I just loved this device. I have had to delete so many beautiful memories just to capture some new memories and even though I know they are going to stay etched in my mind, it would still be good to show everyone what a beautiful memory is like. I need this!
MAN! I recently bought a super expensive phone because I was so fed up with never having enough space. So bummed for me — yet so happy there’s finally a solution. Now maybe they won’t charge as much for phone’s with extra memory
OH MY GOD! you have changed my life! lol. I have been looking for a thing like this all my trips last 10 years and now I found it ! Thanks alot . just ordered one! Cheers
Sometimes small things make such a difference and this is one such small thing. My phone memory is full most of the time and I need to delete some or other things to click more pictures. So this SanDisk ixpand is going to make difference and help me out. I loved it. Thanks for sharing this.
To be honest, I do delete travel pics from my phone. At times even when I don’t want to. This is the solution that I have been looking for. Thanks for a balanced review. I will try it out.
This seems like a perfect thing for people like me who are always on the go and almost never have a laptop nearby. Is it compatible with all versions of Iphone? I am not heading out to check the ixpand drive out.
I believe it will work with all iphones that use the lightning pin chargers.
This sounds like a great idea. It’s great that it has the connection to the iPhone and the usb connection as well. I don’t think I have ever filled up my phone with photos but if you take video it can fill up really fast so good plan to have this.
Very useful item. I have faced difficulties with less space particularly when I take too many videos. Looks like a good solution to my nightmares.
Interesting solution for sure. I have not had the issue myself yet (except after filling all 5 of my SD-cards to my camera during the same trip). Considering the limited possibilities to extend the storage space in many phones, this would really be great. 🙂
This is a great gadget that I would have loved to had during my trip to South America. I tend to take a lot of photos and my 30GB phone memory is never enough. And it’s a shame because I have such a performance phone with an amazing camera, but not enough space, as each photo is over 7MB.
Quite useful device. Sandisk iXpand Drive can be my best companion on my travels. I need to have it soon. Thanks for sharing the benefits.
What an awesome gadget – that ‘ no more space’ message happens to me all the time and by the time I’ve deleted a few the moment I wanted to shoot has passed! Ugh! Thanks for the tip – will have to purchase one of these!