Will the thunderbolt allow us to save items to an external hard drive?
My 2018 iPad Pro only allows downloading from external drive, not uploading any photos or digital art etc. null

Question

Will the thunderbolt allow us to save items to an external hard drive?
My 2018 iPad Pro only allows downloading from external drive, not uploading any photos or digital art etc. null

caltain · Accepted Answer

I’m looking at this same situation as a possibility for myself, but haven’t received my new iPad Pro yet. I am going to throw out this as a possible workaround that may wor for Procreate users. When Procreate opens a file, it tries to create an editable file in the same location as the source file, and this is likely where the problem lies. Procreate may not be allowed to work with the external SSD freely because of security limitations in iPadOS. You can likely save or export the file to the external SSD, but you will almost certainly need to import the file back to the internal storage to work with it. This is almost certainly down to the sandboxing elements of iPadOS, which are much more extreme than MacOS. The actual hardware is fully capable of laptop/desktop style use and support of Thunderbolt compliant SSDs. Apple locks out higher level access to external devices because the iPad is an ultraportable and concealable device: i.e. an incredibly big security risk, as both a target and a tool. It’s gonna take some time for them to develop secure workarounds for external devices. 

In the meantime, as a workaround, try importing the file from the external SSD in Procreate. If that fails, try using the Files app to copy the file from the external SSD to somewhere on the internal storage, then import from that file back into Procreate. Either method should reduce the external access to a file read, which shouldn’t be a problem.

DFir · Answer

I’m answering my own question. 
I tried out hooking up an external ssd drive Samsung T5, and yes it kinda works storing files off a new m1 iPad Pro 12.9” 256gb, but for some reason after I transferred a procreate painting stored with all layers / saved in procreate format, it saved fine to the drive but reloading it back into procreate fails, saying that I don’t have enough something, or what ever, for it to reopen the file from the ssd drive. Don’t know why this is? I’ll have to test this more.
Doug

MandyB · Answer

Yes you can. I save files and folders and upload as well as down load back and forth ftom school

Wayne · Answer

Yes

DrVader · Answer

Yes you can

iciego · Answer

Yes! I used the hyper adapter to connect the USB c Drive to the iPad

Imac · Answer

Yes

greatipadpro · Answer

yes

“Will the thunderbolt allow us to save items to an external hard drive? My 2018 iPad Pro only allows downloading from external drive, not uploading any photos or digital art etc.”

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