Review of SanDisk iXPAND FLASH DRIVE 32G

Smart Phone Windshield Mount

Windshield Mount for my iPhone

On my trip to Yosemite and other locations last month, I had got myself a windshield mount for my iPhone from Walmart like the one pictured at left. In a number of my drives over the last year or so (since I started using a cell phone), I've taken photos or even videos while driving. I've done this in a not-so-safe way by holding the phone while driving.

I'd wanted a better and safer way to do this so before heading to Yosemite I picked up this little device for maybe $10 or so. It works really good as long as you mount the phone in the center of the windshield (at least I had to do that in my Explorer). The windshield has too much curvature on the edge near the driver's door.

The only issue I had with using the phone on this device is that you have to reach to the phone to take a picture or start and stop the video capture. But, that takes less effort and is probably less dangerous than also holding the phone while taking a picture or video. I wish I had a voice activation (I wonder if Siri can take a picture?).

Too Many Photos and Videos fill up the iPhone

The other issue I had was that since it was easy to take a video, I found myself taking a lot of videos. I'm sure that none of them are really great but in the heat of the driving moment I found that I wanted to record the entire trip!

Joshua Tree National Park, California

I just have a small capacity iPhone 5 (12G?). I think about 5G is available for images and video. It doesn't take a lot of video to fill up the available disk space. I don't even have many apps installed, nor do I have any music or games, etc. Just a few camera related apps (depth of field calculator, snapseed, etc.) are installed.

I had moved all of the image files off of the iPhone prior to starting my trip. I drove from Phoenix, Arizona to Joshua Tree National Park, California where I spent my first night. The following day I drove to an overlook at Mono Lake near Lee Vining, California. I shot a lot of video of the drive along Highway 395 between Joshua Tree National Park and Mono Lake.

The following day I drove to my campsite at Crane Flat Campground in Yosemite National Park. Again, I shot video and photos along the drive. By the time I got to my campsite in the afternoon I'd basically filled my iPhone. I was already deleting files.

Enter SanDisk iXpand

I have a RavPower device that I can use to transfer files from SD cards to a USB drive. I have used this for my DSLR backup strategy. I thought I'd be able to use it for the iPhone too but it doesn't work. Even though it has a wireless WiFi hub, I don't have any software on the iPhone that will move files to the RavPower. And you can't plug the iPhone in to the RavPower because there is only a single USB connection to the RavPower and that is where the USB drive has to attach. It just won't work. Note: I should have tried to back up the iPhone before leaving home!

SanDisk iXpand

Before leaving on my trip, my wife and I had seen a commercial on television for a device you could plug in to the iPhone which would back up your images. At my campsite I was thinking I should have picked one of those up!

After returning home I decided to get something for that purpose and found out SanDisk has such a device. I ordered the 32G version from Amazon. (As I'm writing this I noticed that the price has gone up from what I paid - I think I paid $39 - my wife actually ordered it with one of her orders - and now it is selling for $41).

If you decide to use one of these you'll want to try it out before getting out of WiFi or internet access because you need to get the associated app from the app store (I assume there's an android version but I've only used the iOS version).

The app is pretty simple but, as with most software these days, a bit cryptic and lacking for instructions. I am not fond of having to poke around software to try to figure out how it works. You can, however, download a PDF user manual (http://downloads.sandisk.com/downloads/um/ixpand-usb3-um.pdf) although I didn't see it listed anywhere in the included brief notes on the packaging, nor in the app itself.

What I think of this device

Once you've installed the app, you plug the iXpand in to the iPhone, and open the app. It does work okay with my iPhone which has a Body Glove Shocksuit case - the device plugs in around the little cover for the Lightning connector.

File names get Changed

You can set the app up to automatically backup your images and videos. When it does the backup, the files are stored in a folder on the thumbdrive especially for backups. The files are copied over and their file names are changed to a cryptic file name such as "6addfec867c382ec-photo.jpeg". You can still see when the images were taken (on Windows 7) so you can still somewhat group them but the iPhone "IMG_XXXX.JPG" file name is gone so you won't be able to sort by file name.

This is irritating to me and I don't see the value. Online they have a lame excuse about iOS using some such name to preserve uniqueness. I have suspected that iOS does some crap behind the scenes before, but even if it does, I wish that SanDisk would use a lookup table or some other way to keep track of the files. I use other software to compare folder contents and it won't work when the file names are different.

Redundant Information in the New File name

Also, what is the purpose of the "-photo" portion of the file name? That is obvious by the extension. And if there are both video and image files in the same folder, they are differentiated by the extension (videos use a "-video" name section along with a ".mov" extension in the SanDisk backup folder).

Copy Function

The app also offers a separate Copy function which allows you to copy files under your control. You can create a new folder and Copy selected image and video files to the thumb drive. When you do this the file names are not mangled. You have the option to select individual files or you can easily select files for an entire day (the day the image or video was shot).

Once the Copy process is finished you are given the opportunity to delete the files from the iPhone.

This is probably how I'll end up using the app and not using the auto backup functionality. The difference is that you could potentially end up with duplicates on the thumb drive because the unique file names aren't used when backing up this way. However, if you do your Copy into a new folder for the selected items and then delete the copied images you shouldn't end up with duplicates anyway and the files will be more organized (at least they will for me).

Missing Auto-delete

I had read somewhere, perhaps on Amazon, that you could also set up the software to automatically delete from the iPhone once a file is copied. This option doesn't appear anywhere in the minimalist app. I think it should be an option. Some folks may only want to back things up but I'm using it to offload images and videos in order to free up space on the iPhone. You can select to do the delete when running the Copy function but not the Backup function.

Bottom Line

I admit to being unimpressed with any iPhone app. I don't like the lack of documentation. I don't like many of the iPhone user controls (I hate the spinner things for selecting a date, for example). I think a lot of software is designed for kids that don't read (either due to lack of ability or patience or desire for information). Okay, I'm part curmudgeon. Probably a large part. But as a software developer and user since about 1980, I expect more professional level documentation and thoughtfulness in design. It's why I'm not a big fan of Google either.

That being said, I also have not been a Western Digital fan for a good number of years. I've tried a number of their hard drives going back to the 1990s and have had a lot of issues with them. For the last 5 years or more I only use Seagate drives because they've never let me down. Western Digital bought SanDisk this year (2016). It makes me question how long I want to keep using SanDisk products. I've used Lexar and SanDisk SD cards - they both get good reviews for quality and dependability - but I may now switch over to Lexar only.

I don't know how much influence the Western Digital people had on the iPhone app and the decisions regarding file renaming, no link to the user manual (why wasn't it included on the thumb drive?), lack of auto delete (with verification prior to deleting). But even if they didn't have anything to do with it I am still not impressed with the software. There was another app on the Apple store that I may look in to regarding using the thumb drive.

The software isn't great but you can offload your images and it does work pretty fast (the interface to the computer is USB 3). For that reason I am satisfied with the purchase. I almost wish I'd gone ahead and got the larger size. I may need to get a second one of these or give this to my wife and get myself the 128G version.

Updates

I did want to mention another option which I may try - you can have your iPhone store image and video files directly on the thumb drive, avoiding the Copy or Backup function altogether. 

October 16, 2016

Angels Window
North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park

I was looking for my iXpand - I hadn't seen it for a couple of days. My wife was doing laundry and there was something banging around in the dryer. I looked and the iXpand was there, nice and toasty. I had left it in a shirt pocket. It had now been through the wash and the dryer.

I had used it on my trip to the Grand Canyon the prior weekend. When I plugged it in to my PC, everything was fine! Here's a shot from the Grand Canyon North Rim that has been washed and dried! I don't think the image looks that washed out.