Customer Ratings & Reviews

Sometimes all you want to do is make sure you have your photos backed up. Sure you can do this manually with your iPhone, or use iCloud, but there’s still something about having physical media with your data on it 100% in your control that makes a great alternative. The Sandisk iXpand base is a device that backs things up quickly and efficiently while you charge your phone. The iXpand is a product that seems so dead simple you wonder why someone hasn’t done this before. And while there are other options, apps, and solution that can be built that are similar, the iXpand is so ridiculously simple that it’s a product I’d have no problem recommending to someone like my dad. The first time I plugged it in, it immediately asked me to install the Sandisk app. Moments later it walked me through a simple process and was backing up my contacts, photos, and videos. It shows active progress in the app, as well as a thumbnail of what it’s copying. From my iPhone 7 Plus, I had over 600 photos. It took about 10 minutes, but once it was done I got a nice notification that said the backup was complete. My photos, contacts and videos took up about 5GB of space, and the app did a good job of showing me how much space was available. It also sums up the space on iPhone. It even gives you a nice big blue button that says “Free Up Space” on your iPhone. This kinda removes the idea of a ‘backup’ since it basically will delete all your photos. I’m not sure about making this button blue, but I suppose for those stuck on 16GB or smaller devices, this is probably a live saver button. Regardless of whether or not you’re cleaning up space, or simply backing up, the iXpand is decidedly a SanDisk product, because on the back of the device you’ll find an SD card slot. Inside you’ll find a higher end SanDisk Ultra Plus SDXC card (at least the 64GB model). The nice thing is you can eject this card and plug it right into your computer and see your backups. Each device you plug in gets it’s own root folder, which is pretty awesome if you live in a family of iOS devices. If you take a peek in each folder, they follow a simple date hierarchy, of year, with subfolders of month number followed by short month description. This keeps the folders in order by name, which is nice. In each folder you’ll find your photos, videos, and contacts named something long and ugly. This is ok, since all but contacts you’ll most likely consume using thumbnail view anyway. The contacts are stored in VCF V-Card format, which is a pretty standard format. The base itself is polished aluminum with laser etching of the model in the bottom. The only other port than the SD card on the back is the Micro USB power. The included adapter is 15w and appears to charge the iPhone at the speed the iPad adapter would. I put my iPhone on at 30% and 1 hours later it was at 75%. The base is covered with an rubberized cover that helps keep the phone on top. It’s angled ever so slightly to allow viewing of your device. The front of the device has an opening that lets you hide your iPhone’s USB cable. Unfortunately this is an instance where you bring your own lightening cable. At this price, it would be nice to see a short 1ft or otherwise cable included. Keep in mind that the contacts, photos, and videos stored on your iXpand base are not encrypted in any way. Not overly surprising, but it might be a concern to some more security minded. All said in done, if you’re looking for an alternative to iCloud for Photos, this is a great way to keep using the free tier while relying on local backup for your photos. Obviously there are other solutions (such as the relatively cheap iCloud storage, Google Photos, or One Drive), but none of them give you a solid state local backup. The iXpand brings piece of mind and a highly accessible local copy of your data.

Easy to use and downloads pictures very fast. I haven’t done anything else yet with this.

This device is really simple to use and great for people that take millions of photos on their iPhone or iPad and have smaller GB capacity space on their phones. Also keep in mind that this device does not wireless charge and it is for iPhone/iPad devices only. Setup is simple, to get started plug in the power plug and your USB Lightning Cable and download the SanDisk iXpand Base app. Once everything is setup, plug up your phone or iPad and open the app and the device starts to scan your phone for new photos, contacts and videos. It saves all of the information to the 64GB SD card that comes with device and already inserted near the micro USB. There is a settings button that allows you to control what information is stored on the SD Card. To see the photos, you can unplug the power source and plug in a Micro USB cord or you can remove the SD Card and insert into your laptop. The app does give you an option to delete the photos off of you iPhone or iPad. In my opinion it is a little time consuming BUT it is another way of not accidentally erasing all of your photos. So I feel like this is a better way of deleting. Also, the device is supposed to have a fast charge with 15W power. I plugged in my iPhone 7+ at 19% battery life and in 1 hour 12 minutes, the charge was at 82%. Would I buy this product again, yes, because I do take a lot of photos and it is a great way of me updating my photo backups daily. I would only recommend to a friend or family member if they take a lot of photos or opted for the smaller GB iPhone or iPad.

Great useful way to take info from your apple products and put directly on a scan disk once you figure out which app to download

Once setup, this was easy to use for multiple phones.

The order came in on time and got it for a great price.

Glad to have this sandisk backup sytem. Just download the app, plug the base and plug your iPhone leave it on top the base and it will automatically back up your contacts, pictures, videos. No monthly fees and just restore anything from the back up with the app back to your phone. Just make sure that you have a fast network for a better speed. It also charge my iPhone fast. This compact back up base came with a 64gb SD card that you can upgrade anytime for a larger back up.

EXCELLENT WAY TO INCREASE YOUR IPHONE AND IPAD WIRELESSLY

Setup of the unit out of the box was super easy. Just download the ixpand base app, connect your charge cable and plug the power cord into the unit. There is no configuration of the app and it automatically starts backing up your contacts and files immediately. A plus is you can clean up all backed up files from your phone with one click. You don't have to worry about accidently deleting something off the phone that is not backed up. The SD card memory is removable so if you fill it up you can easily swap in another card. If it was a wireless charging base, and could transfer files to the base via Bluetooth, I would give it five stars. This would be a cool function to use with the new iPhone 8 and X phones, but it really doesn't matter on older devices. This will be great for traveling and most of the time when I'm not at home it is better to be able to charge the phone while using it. You are not able to use your phone with wireless charging on the base. I changed my mind while typing this review and I'm to give it five stars. It's not fair to remove a star for doing what it's designed to do so well. The unit looks built very well and will hopefully last for a long time. I believe I'm going to be taking my wireless charger to the work office and use this for charging and backing up my phone on a daily basis. If you have a computer with an SD card slot it will be super easy to take photos off your phone and load them on your computer.

Sandisk iXpand Base 64gb - it does what it says it will do. This is an interesting little device. Every time you charge your iPhone (and it works with iOS ONLY - not Android) it automatically backs up your contacts, photos and videos. And that is only what it backs up. With this, you never forget to back-up. Yes, you can use the “cloud” for the small monthly fee or pay for this up-front. But remember what this backs up is limited. You need your own lightning cable which wraps inside to store the extra cord length. For the price, I feel it should have come with a short cord. It has a rubberized top so you can lay your iPhone on it while charging. It is a bit misleading, which I hope isn’t intentional: it looks like a wireless charging pad, but it isn’t. You must plug it into the charger and then use the lightning cable. I hope they are planning to come out with a wireless charging pad with this design for the iPhone 8 and that’s why it has the look. You must download the app for this to work. And the app works great. You can also backup more than one device with the backups remaining separate from each other. The storage space, in this case 64gb, represents the size of the SD card that it comes with. You can get the smallest one and just upgrade the card to a larger one if that is a less expensive option for you. Once you back up, you can put the SD card into your pc to transfer photos or use a micro usb cord (also not included). This is a nifty device. If you’re looking for something to charge your iPhone/iPad and do an automatic backup (of your photos, videos & contacts) at the same time, this is for you.

I think the idea of this product is pretty good because we all intend to backup data and forget. This base allows a user to go through a simple set up process and from then on just plug in your phone for charging and the base will simultaneously back up data. The IXpand base is about the size of a drink coaster so it easily fits on a nightstand or counter. The product feels very sturdy and of good quality materials. It seamlessly backed up photos, contacts and video on our iPhone 8. IXpand can also be used to restore saved data to your IPhone. Features fast charge with 15W of power. The IXpand app seems straight forward and intuitive to use. One can also transfer information from the IXpand base to a computer directly. This is a great, no brainer backup option since one has to charge the iPhone anyway. Even better to avoid the added fees for additional icloud storage. The main improvements I could see for this unit would be to currently include a lighting cable with the base. Also, wireless charging would be a nice enhancement for those with newer iPhones.

Having an Iphone and wanting to make sure you don't lose any photos would require an Icloud backup or using Itunes to backup your phone, until now! I'm so worried about family photos that I would try to remember to do multiple backups (ICloud and ITunes) although I usually failed to do the Itunes backup. This allows you the ability to keep on doing your Icloud backup BUT without even trying, you are backing up your photos and contacts to this device, which has a SD card inside. This is happening simply by plugging in your phone to charge it....I found that even if I close the app, it knows when it has been plugged into this device, scans for new things to backup, and then backs them up. Simply put, this is amazing. You can also use multiple phones with this device, it'll store separate files for each phone connected to it. This is equally amazing. And one more important thing, when the card gets full, you can remove it, put it into your computer, move those files to your computer, put the card back into the unit, and it will continue to backup from where it left off. I would recommend each phone have its own unit, with enough memory to match the phone's memory. (I.E. if you have a 128B phone, you'll want to get the 128GB model). The unit feels solid, has some weight to it to prevent from falling or moving, and has a large rubber pad on top to allow you to feel confident your phone won't slip off the unit. And lastly, it allows you to wrap the cord around the unit so it looks nice and neat. And it does. The box has the unit, and the microUSB charger needed to power the unit and charge your phone with your supplied lightning cable (Iphone). There is nothing more I would have asked for of a unit like this, it will keep your photos and contacts backed up, by doing nothing more than plugging in your phone to charge at night. Well done SanDisk, this is something I never would have thought of but is so necessary and comes with the trust of the SanDisk name.

I primarily got the SanDisk iXpand to charge and backup contacts, documents, and pictures on my work iPhone 5S and iPad Air II. The iPhone charges from 1% to 100% in a little over two hours which is acceptable, but was hoping for something a little faster from 15W. It charged my iPad in about the same amount of time (from 50% to 100% in just over an hour). It automatically backs up everything it’s designed for when plugged in, without having to tell it to; however, it only backs up contacts, pictures, and videos. This was unacceptable as I need to back up work documents as well. I especially use Notes for quick bits of info not otherwise applicable to store elsewhere. I still need to plug into iTunes to backup this data so why would I bother with the iXpand? It is good to note that the iXpand can backup and restore multiple devices. Though, you’ll likely need to upgrade the memory card if you take a lot of photos. The setup was quick and easy as it only required installing the iXpand app from the Apple Store and selecting what you’d like to backup. The app is basic and relatively easy to use, but it would be great (read: useful) if I could store my documents as well. Another downfall is the lack of wireless charging. While I don’t have a device that can take advantage of it, in this technological age, it should be standard on anything charging device. Apple has a huge percentage of the cellular device market and even though they’re behind the curve, their new devices are now wireless. So, why does SanDisk put out a new product that doesn’t support it? As a charger, this works as designed and advertised despite it needing to do more. The devices I use do not support wireless charging, but most people do or will in the near future. The biggest ‘pro’ is the ability to backup without using the cloud that many still distrust. However, I feel it only deserves three stars is due to the limitations on keeping up with technology. I give it three stars because it does what it’s advertised to do, but doesn’t do what the consumer masses (myself included) are likely wanting.

The device is large with no wireless charging of your device, I am holding out hope they will provide an Android app to allow you to use your android phone and devices. I do not have iPhone but several IOS tablets. The 64GB is great but you can use larger SD cards, I used both a 128GB and 256GB. Again wireless charging would be a 5+stars but from my perspective it is a great device to backup or offload files that are taking up space on your device. You will be surprised when you free up space how much faster your device and apps respond. Great to backup without going to your PC, MAC or laptops and just store the SD cards for later retrieval onto your devices or even a large external HD. The software app is pretty powerful and adept at keeping track of where it left off in the backup process. I think I rated mainly a five star because it addresses the cloud safety issues especially give the recent hack of a major credit reporting database. I feel much better to store away from any online services because none can be guaranteed against hacking.

It looks good, it works well, and it addresses a niche in connectedness - needing to have a great phone but not feeling comfortable with relying on the cloud. I like to have local backups of everything and this iXpand does just that. 64GB is fine for me for just the iphone but I wish it came with the lightning cable.

In a nutshell, this device has a charger, and a SD card. There is a standard USB port, where you place your existing cable. Next you install an app on your iPhone and give it permissions, and that is it. Its a neat concept no doubts, the back up is smooth after first setup(Which takes a little time depending on how much media you have), it can run in background when you charge your phone, all good there. And its not an extra step, as you are going to charge your phone daily, so all in all a great utility device. Kudos for Sandisk for bringing such a device. Issue is that apple pause background process after certain time, and your backup will be paused if that happens. Another issue i have is the base is just too big for your night table, and it serves no real purpose. You have to supply your own cable. Come on Sandisk, why not give us a docking port, which will save space and not need an extra cable. And if you are going to go with USB, why not support Android as well? We have both Apple and Google at our home, as of writing this review I do not see an app for iXpand base for android. So either there is an Android app coming, so some one in design team was confused. Getting iPad mini cable is slightly tricky as the space is limited, it would have been great if they would have supplied it with a small soft charging cable at least. The device is big, and unlike chargers, it is gonna take up space on your table (along with the charger space), and surprisingly, most of the space is used for coiling the charging cable. I would still recommend it as an Apple user as I do not want to pay for Cloud storage? But there is just so much potential in this device, I will keep a watch and see where Sandisk take it.

Setting up the iXpand is simple. Download the mobile app for your iPhone, plug the base unit into an outlet and connect the lightning cable to your phone. The wrap around design for the lightning cable is great for a less messier look. Unfortunately the base is not compatible with Android phones currently. The iXpand has a plain no frills appearance to it. A rubberized top allows for your iPhone to placed without worry of accidental shifting. The unit is able to detect what new items are on your iPhone compared to where you last backed up everything. If the base storage capacity gets close to full, simply transfer the SD card to a computer to off load your important files so that the SD card will be clear and free to download future new items. 15W allows for quick iPhone charging too. I always wanted a charger and automatic backup combo for my phones and although it only supports iPhones, it easy for everyone to use and works like a dream. I definitely recommend it. Overall a real solid value.

I have thousands of photos saved from trips taken over the years. I have kept them on my windows desktop until recently when I moved exclusively to Apple. I don’t want to pay for iCloud storage and it takes way too much time to upload all this data on my home network. This device is perfect for my needs. There were very minimal instructions included, so I just plugged in the little device to my power strip and connected my iPad via my lightening cord. My iPad began charging and a message popped up telling me I needed “the app.” I clicked the link and downloaded the app. That was it. It began scanning my contacts, then my photos. The first time took awhile and now each time I put the iPad to charge, the San Disk IExpand immediately checks for new contacts and photos. Easy, peasy. I also used it for my iPhone so now I feel comfortable that my treasured photos are protected by a backup. I like having my items backed up locally.

I personally use paid version of iCloud account to have back-up of my Apple devices. However, SanDisk - iXpand Base is a handy device to take local backup and also charge your phone at the same time. The sturdy design and soft rubber top keeps your phone secure while the wrap around groove keeps your cable tidy and your nightstand or countertop clutter-free. The iXpand Base app makes it easy to restore your backed up files to your iPhone at any time. Whether you restore to your current phone or a new one, simply plug in and tap restore to get your files back. With 15W of power, your iPhone/iPad charges fast — so you can back up and charge and be on your way in a flash. Only downside I can think about is taking back up is not fast as if you take back up on a Mac/PC using iTunes.

You really need to have a special need to love the iXpand Base (64gb), its expensive and has a pretty limited set of features, and it does not come with a lightning cord. First it about the size of a large rubber and metal coaster, it does a good job of supporting a iPhone (I tried a 6S and 8+) both were comfortably supported, and when in position you could still use the phone. After loading the iXpand Base app, once you connect the phone, the app will scan your phone for Photos, Videos and Contacts and back them up to to a SD card with in the iXpand Base (the card is removable, so you could replace/upgrade the card to increase the storage capacity. And it does the backup reasonably well and pretty fast, as it only copies changes since the last time the phone was connected. I did encounter some minor issues where the software backed up some of the same files twice, and a number of times when I connected it I was told the SDcard was not present or that a back up failed, disconnecting, the phone, restarting their software and reconnecting the phone generally solved this problem. So if you don't want to back up your Photos, Videos and Contacts to a computer this is a nice solution (my 90yr old mother would have liked it, she hated computers but appreciated her iPhone). But my biggest issue, besides, it not working completely reliably, is its limited functionality. I'd be l lost, if I lost, all the notes and documents from my phone. I can understand, it not backing up music files, from a copy protection standpoint, but not copying notes & documents would be show stopper for me. I keep a number of files on my phone that I regularly update and then sync to my desktop and share with others. If I lost these files, I'd be disappointed (to say the least). My sister is a chef, she keeps all of her recipes as notes & documents - I'm pretty sure shed feel the same way. The included charger is 15w 3A; it's pretty quick, but I have faster chargers. I would have preferred than SanDisk include a short lightning cable. They require that you use your own cable you have to insert the USB connector into the center of the iXpand Base and wrap the cord around the unit where the rubber "skirt" holds the wound cable neatly under the lip, I'm not sure this is a great idea for the cable, I'd have preferred the base have a (removable) 6" to 12" cable, maybe one that included a indicator showing when charging is completed (picky, yes, but this thing is expensive; I'd I like a way to know it's done without a message to my phone saying it's done; just another ding and a message to find).