Employing the iPad Camera Connection Kit, it’s technically possible to hook an iPad up to a portable USB hard drive… but only if that hard drive falls within the maximum range of the SD card’s storage capacity. That’s only 32GB, which makes the Camera Connection Kit’s ability to read storage off of an external hard drive more a matter of trivia than practicality.
That gruesome device above, though? That’s the Sanho spacious 750GB HyperDrive, designed to circumnavigate the iPad’s restrictions by turning individual file folders into virtual 32GB drives on the fly. It comes with a CompactFlash and SD card slot for slurping up your camera’s photos, as well as a 3.2-inch QVGA color display and the ability to interface directly with your Mac. All yours for just… $600.
*Sputter* That’s a lot of money to drop on a hard drive that, because of iOS limitations, can’t even read music or launch apps. Of course, this isn’t for consumers who need to upgrade their iPad space: it’s clearly aimed at photographers who want to be able to juggle huge archives of RAW files on their iPad’s on the fly. A very niche market indeed, given the relative lack of powerful RAW editors on the App Store, but perhaps that will change in time.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
