Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great way to store photos. Perfect for what I needed

Product does not provide the service expected or needed.

I bought one of these and it failed to connect. The reset button did not work, so I returned it and got another. Same problem. Called SanDisk support and they said the second unit was also defective. They wanted to send me another (third). I said no way. I would never trust this device with my photo's that are ever so important. I upped my Google Drive and will return unit number two ASAP. This thing feels cheap, and it sure is. Zero quality control. What a terrible waste of money and time. Do yourself a favor - NEVER trust your important pictures to this device. Buy a backup hard drive or two, maybe use some cloud storage, but avoid this like the plague.

While clever in some ways the ibi seems to lack in many important areas for me. What I was hoping for was a way to consolidate the various sources of photos that me and my family have spread across multiple different accounts, devices, and computers. The ibi kind of does this but is a lot of effort to make them all available to everyone. First let me start with what I like about ibi • Able to access locally stored library remotely through the cloud. • Mobile apps do a very good job of allowing you to get your photos into the library. • Web based interface has look and feel of mobile app along with some additional functionality. This is how you access via a PC or Mac • Easy setup. Small form factor and nice design. • Date based organization is easy to use and makes it quick to navigate • Search can find photos based upon location or words in any descriptions that you added to ibi Areas where I felt ibi did not meet my expectations and had issues • Each person that saves photos to ibi gets their own personal library. Other users on that ibi are not able to see each other’s photos unless they are explicitly shared, added to an album, or posted to the Inner Circle. My desire was to have a central repository where anyone in my family can easily go to find any photo. • I like the fact that you can import from other social and cloud services. I imported from my Facebook account and it did a good job pulling in and organizing my photos. I also imported from my Box account and came across several issues. First it imported everything from Box into a section under Files and Folders. It imported everything, spreadsheets, word docs, pdf files, etc. in addition to my photos. I really don’t see why it would import non photos and waste a bunch of storage space. Isn’t this device for storing photos? So why wouldn’t it be smart enough to just store the photo files? • Another issue that I ran into was with photos from my iPhone. First, I selectively added maybe 50-100 images from my Phone. Then after setting up auto backup with my wife’s phone I decided I wanted to change my ibi app to also auto backup. What that ended up doing was duplicating all of the photos from my phone that had already been added. Then after deleting the duplicates manually some started to re-appear in my photos. What I realized was if I deleted the one from the auto-backup and not the manual add ibi would re-add them again. It was a rather time consuming annoying process to get the duplicates removed. • The desktop app provided (PC and Mac) provides a way to launch the web based version and a way to manually copy files to the ibi. I have tons of photos on computers and network based storage that I would have liked to sync into ibi. It is just far too much work to manually copy them. Would have been nice for it to automatically sync PC photos, at least in common locations such as the PC Pictures library. What ibi seems to be is a cloud-based local storage system that turns your photos into a sort of local closed social media group.

It was good price so I got it but I used less than one month it became defective. I sent manufacturer for warranty replacement that also take more than month to get it. I still not reset up yet.

I’m taking this back. I’m very disappointed, It kept going Offline even though my internet was working. Then after a couple of days it completely stopped altogether. It never downloaded all of my pictures either. Would not recommend

Too cumbersome. Not intuitive at all and takes infinite time to upload photos and sync on a fast wifi network.. If disk fails then all photos are lost.. 1TB is not big enough space. returned

Don't know why I got it. It was better to store the pictures in the cloud vs. this. A re-gift for someone in the future because I missed my return date.

This device is a really cool device. I like that I can just open the app and the photos will just start backing up to the device from my phone. I like that I don't have to connect my phone to a device with a cord and to manually move the pictures over. However their are a few things that I don't really like about the device. I wish it was a little quieter and that there wasn't a fan going non stop when not backing up photos. Another thing that I didn't particularly care for was that it seemed to take a very long time to upload the pictures to the device, I had to make sure that the screen on my phone doesn't shut off while it is backing up the photos because otherwise it pauses the upload and I have to reunlock my phone to continue. Other than those few flaws I really like the product and will continue to use it.

The last review I did on a Sandisk product was not one that ended on a positive note. So, part of me was reluctant to get my hands on the Sandisk ibi…but, an entirely different part was very excited. You see, years ago, I imagined a device that would aggregate all of your cloud “stuff” in one place so you could upload documents, photos, videos, etc. to your heart’s content and still have a backup in one physical place. It was never intended for the “distrustful of the cloud” types (I’m talking about you, John…), rather, just a place that had some semblance of order in a world where every platform we touch (Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, iCloud, etc.) could be seamlessly integrated into one UI that put everything in one place. Now, it was just an idea, and there have been devices to do parts of that job over the last several years…heck, even a NAS on your home network or a Windows Server could be configured to accomplish this to some degree—but I never thought any of those things were really ready for prime time, and those that could do the job (like a home server) takes far more technical knowledge than many would be comfortable learning. And sadly, I don’t think ibi is really ready for prime time either. But it’s not all bad. Setup is very easy: plug it in, download the app, configure wireless, and you’re off to the races. In terms of media backup from your phone (or tablet, depending on what device you used to configure ibi), pictures and videos start uploading immediately to the device. Adding other devices is as simple as inviting the users of those devices as “members,” then having them install the app. Each member gets a special spot of their own based on their login credentials, and there is an “inner circle” area where all members can share items with all other members. Furthermore, you can connect social media and cloud accounts (currently, this includes Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box), after which the media from those locations will also be synced with ibi. So, it performs as advertised, which is great…so what’s wrong with it? Well, the app, for starters. It’s slow, it’s clunky…I don’t necessarily think it’s ENTIRELY the app’s fault, as it does a decent job of organizing content in a simple folder structure—but it doesn’t offer much by way of administrative control (for instance, limiting other members’ storage spaces so there is enough to go around). And, when you do run out of space—then what? My ibi has a 1TB capacity, which sounds like a lot, but if you think about how much stuff gets uploaded to Facebook alone, then think about the content on our phones (most of which automatically backup to some other cloud service like iCloud and Google Drive), 1TB is going to run out pretty quickly once you start having multiple members in your ibi. Ibi looks to be upgradeable if you know a thing or two about hard drives, as it appears to just be a 2.5” hard drive mounted to a circuit board, but most people aren’t going to want to pull this thing open to swap out for a larger hard drive. Oh, and the hard drive…why isn’t it an SSD? It’s 2019. The design of the ibi is sleek and simple, but could be so much cooler looking if they had a smaller disk drive that didn’t require as much airflow. The firmware seems to be holding it back as well, as the hard drive was constantly spinning from the moment it was powered on; I feel a ‘smarter’ firmware could help increase the life of that spinning hard drive by safely shutting it down periodically…let’s be honest, speed can’t be that much of a concern for ibi’s creators if they didn’t use a solid state drive. There are other small glitches, for instance, it pulling in documents from my Google Drive, or uploads not being immediately available in the app, all of which can be fixed by software updates…but they are nonetheless glitches that I think should have been sussed out prior to release. So at the end of the day, who really needs ibi? Well, it does what it does well enough to provide a single local backup of all your various accounts (although, there really should be additional social and cloud source options in addition to the handful listed above), as well as a cloud backup of those sources so they can be viewed anywhere. And at the one-time price of $129 for 1TB of storage with no accompanying subscription fees, that’s not a bad bargain. But, it could be so much more: upgradeable, modular (imagine additional smaller “disks” that could be stacked below the device that could add on additional storage), with solid state storage and some nice administrator options for managing members…and that’s just what I can think of; there are far smarter people out there than I am. I would recommend it, but only to a limited number and type of user. If you’re willing to invest a little time, brain power and a little more capital, you really can build your own. In that sense, this isn’t a great product for any of my techie friends…but for my parents, or even for someone like my wife (sans my involvement) who doesn’t want to maintain anything complicated and just likes things to do their jobs, it’s a pretty decent fit. But remember, no expandable storage, and the storage it has is the slow kind (not sure what speed that spinning hard drive is), so you’ll inevitably hit a limit with ibi.

I still can’t find a way to figure this thing out. It won’t start I’ve downloaded the app and nothing - keeps telling me nothing is connected

Had high hopes on this device. My Brother in law got one and liked it. It arrived defective; can't join it to the network or connect to the device at all. Made multiple attempts to contact support. They not only responded with just the troubleshooting guide, but multiple days apart as well. I am at the point where I need to return it for a refund. I really wanted it to work out, but I guess Sandisk support doesn't really care.

I spent weeks putting pictures on this device and now it's dead. Tried calling customer service, the number is faulty. Tried chatting, no one responds. It's just an old school mechanical hard rive in a millennial container. What made me think this would last?

It's convenient for a small amount of pics. Does not looks reliable. I wish it has face recognition. It's not easy upgradable/scalable.

Not a very good product. Was hoping for an easy solution to store and organize my photos and this was definitely not it. Product was retured.

never used but returned because the warranty states they will send you a refurbished as a replacement, not for me

After a month of using this device, I was in the middle of viewing my photos on the device and suddenly it went offline. Well after trying to unplug it and plug it back in it appears it’s no longer getting any power to it. The device is dead. I read some other reviews similar to my experience, I should of never bought this!

Good idea but not easy to setup and use. It looks easy to utilize but not to find photos.

To be perfectly honest, I could never get this to work with my Mac. Maybe it would be better with a PC. A few months later, I get an email from ibi, stating that if I don't get it registered soon, it will be disabled. It's not a total loss...I'll use the case for a Raspberry Pi project!

Item did not work right out from the box. During the initial set up the app prompted an error with the device. Unable the fix the problem. Will return it when I have a chance. Willing to give it another chance if Bestbuy is willing to exchange; but based on past experienced Bestbuy will just do the refund.