• Connecting an external hard drive to the tablet. Increasing memory

    Not so long ago the volume internal storage mobile phones measured in hundreds of megabytes or best case scenario units of gigabytes. It could be expanded if the device supported external cards memory, the size of which was also not much larger. Today, due to the rapid increase in weight of popular games and video files modern smartphones and tablets are equipped with built-in memory up to 256 Gb; micro-SD cards have a similar maximum volume.

    But the price of such devices is still steep. In addition, even the built-in 256 GB of memory will not allow you to carry a good collection of movies with you. high resolution, which “weigh” 25 gigabytes or more each. There are hard drives for this. magnetic disks(hard drives), the volume of which can exceed 10 terabytes. Moreover, you can buy them much cheaper than flash memory. The only problem is how to connect external hard drive to your phone or tablet.

    Winchesters were originally created to work with personal computers, so they have the appropriate interfaces - IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc. However, there are several ways to “make friends” of the HDD with mobile devices. Let us immediately note that all of them, except the last one, are suitable only for devices that support the OTG standard. You can find out this in the instructions or by installing the “USB OTG Checker” utility for Android. We also remember that even a cool smartphone with a powerful battery is not always able to “spin up the HDD pancakes” without additional power.

    Choosing an external hard drive for your phone

    Today in computer stores you can find hard drives with different form factors, volumes and interfaces. Let's consider each of the available options from the point of view of use in conjunction with smartphones and tablets.

    Classic 3.5-inch HDD

    Suppose you have a standard “computer” hard drive, say, 4 TB, from Seagate, Western Digital or another manufacturer. Most likely he will have SATA interface. To connect such a drive to the phone we need three things:


    For phones that support USB standard 3.0, cables should be selected accordingly to ensure maximum speed transfers. You can connect the hard drive not only to a phone or tablet, but also to a laptop, SMART TVs, media players and other devices with USB ports.

    Unfortunately, the only advantage of using a classic 3.5-inch HDD is the minimum cost per 1Gb. There are more disadvantages - bulkiness, connection complexity, noise.

    Laptop 2.5-inch HDD

    Everything here is similar to the previous version, only the hard drive is significantly smaller in size. In addition, it runs quieter and runs cooler. However, compared to full-format drives, laptop models are more expensive per 1Gb and operate slower due to the reduced spindle speed.

    This regular hard drive(most often 2.5-inch), placed in a case, inside of which there is already a SATA To USB adapter and a power converter. You just need to connect it to the OTG cable. However, if the power from the mobile device is not enough, you will have to use OTG cable with external power supply or active usb hub.

    By analogy with the previous case, this is a regular hard drive, the case of which has a built-in wireless controller. You just connect to it via Wi-Fi, and it doesn't matter whether the phone supports OTG or not. The most advanced models also have a built-in battery that is rechargeable from the mains. The only drawback is the high cost of the device.

    In conclusion, a few words about another problem that many users face, judging by the forums in the RU segment of the Internet. Majority hard drives formatted in NTFS, and older versions of Android do not support it. You can, of course, reformat them to FAT32, but a more reasonable solution would be to use file managers for Android that can work with NTFS. The most popular and free - Total Commander with NTFS plugin from Paragon.

    Android OS tablets today are positioned as full-fledged workplaces. It's no joke, they actually already know a lot, including working with numerous USB peripherals. Mice, keyboards, printers, game controllers and many other devices connect to tablets via special cable. But, without a doubt, the most familiar and popular USB device, familiar to everyone, is a regular USB flash drive. In today's article you will learn how to easily “make friends” of your tablet with absolutely any flash drive.

    What is USB-OTG? This technology appeared back in 2001 and was intended for the same thing it is used for now: connecting USB devices to gadgets like mobile phones and wearable media players. Key Feature OTG is that head unit(in our case, a tablet) can work in both “host” and “client” modes.

    In other words, through the same port, our tablet can not only work with a flash drive, but also act as one itself when connected to a PC via the appropriate cable.

    How does this work

    But how exactly does this all work? Surprisingly, the technology has not undergone any significant changes since its invention. In order to switch the tablet to “host” mode, the OTG cable is equipped with a special jumper, which is not included in the regular USB cable included in the kit. Thanks to this jumper, the tablet “understands” that this particular cable is connected and “gives” energy to the flash drive, rather than receiving it, for example, for charging. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

    By the way, on at the moment There are devices that allow tablets to work with OTG and charge at the same time, which is incredibly convenient for several reasons. Instead of a jumper, they use resistance (resistor) and voltage with charger is supplied not only to the tablet itself, but also to the flash drive connected to it. Unfortunately, this function Not all tablets support it yet.

    Possible problems when connecting OTG

    Sometimes it happens that your cable is working properly, but for some reason the tablet stubbornly refuses to “see” external device. We'll look into why this might happen below.

    What to do if OTG does not work

    If you have read the list and know why OTG does not work, let's try to find several solutions to your problem.


    However, it often happens that the capabilities of FAT32 become insufficient. The fact is that this file system has one significant drawback - it does not support working with files larger than 4 GB. This drawback can be very critical for those who like to watch movies on their tablet. high resolution. NTFS does not have such a problem, and this is where the question arises of how to teach our tablet to work with this file system. There are several ways to do this. The simplest is to install programs that allow you to mount NTFS on any device running Android OS. The most common one among them is “Paragon NTFS & HFS+”. It is distributed free of charge and allows you to mount not only NTFS, but also HFS+, which Apple uses in its Macs. The program is very convenient and simple. Its only drawback is that you need ROOT rights to work with it.

    1. As for portable HDDs. As noted above, most of them will not work with tablets due to higher power consumption. How can we deal with this problem?

    The first option is an active USB hub. This is a regular USB hub, but with external power, allowing you to connect more devices without loss of speed. Flaw this method— not all tablets support hubs, plus an additionally occupied outlet.

    Example of an active USB hub

    The second option is HDD with external power supply. It’s not just tablets that lack the “strength” to promote external HDDs. Some laptops also cannot cope with this task, so you can often find HDDs with two USBs on sale. One goes into the tablet, the second goes into the charger.

    But the HDD with external power supply

    Do not forget that almost all HDDs are formatted in NTFS, so before connecting hard drive to the tablet, it’s worth taking care of this too.

    The basics of working with external drives

    So, we connected the flash drive to our tablet, what next? All modern file managers support USB-OTG. The most popular and functional is “ES Explorer”. In order to “get” to the flash drive, you need to select the appropriate item in the main menu. Now you can view files on it, edit them, copy, delete and perform any actions with them, just as you do with a microSD card or the memory of the tablet itself.

    Main menu of the ES Explorer program

    USB drive opened in the program

    If possible to install file manager no, you can find a flash drive connected to the tablet through the manager built into the firmware. Some standard FMs are capable of displaying external flash drives in the main menu, like “ES Explorer”, while others require independent search external drives. You can find a USB flash drive at the following address - root of the tablet memory (root) - storage - usbdisk.

    Tablet memory root

    And here is the flash drive itself

    The read/write speed depends both on the flash drive itself and on the characteristics of your tablet. New devices that support USB 3.0, for example, allow you to work with external drives at speeds that are in no way inferior to internal memory.

    You can test a flash drive for read/write speed on Android, for example, using the “A1 SD Bench” program.

    A1 SD Bench program

    Is it possible to “make friends” between two Android tablets via OTG?

    Surely, this is a question that interested many after reading this article. There are situations when you need to transfer large volume information from one tablet to another. For example, a folder with photos, big game or a movie of a gigabyte or two in size. Of course, even if the tablet has the latter Bluetooth versions, you will have to wait more than one hour. This, of course, is not an option. This begs the question, is it possible to connect two Android tablets or smartphones to each other via OTG? The answer is yes. However, there are some limitations. With the latest Android versions Google is gradually moving away from mounting device memory as USB drives. Now most Android devices are connected using the MTP protocol, that is, as media devices, since this is more secure from a corporate point of view.

    Smartphone connected via MTP

    What does this mean? And the fact that Android does not currently support MTP connection to it. You can get around this by switching your smartphone or tablet to standard storage mode using the corresponding item in the settings. If there are no such settings, you can try to do this using special programs. Unfortunately, these programs are not a panacea and will not work with every tablet.

    If the tablet does not work as a drive

    As a result, if your tablet does not work as a storage device, you have only one outlet for transferring a large amount of information - WiFi. The essence of such a transfer is the following - one device is the host and opens the access point, and the other is the client, which, in fact, connects to this point. Today, many programs allow such transfer, for example, the same “ES Explorer” or the MiDrop function of Xiaomi. But the most convenient program is SHAREit

    Although it was copied from the Transfer application in MIUI (they even connect without problems), it is supported by all Android devices and provides enormous data transfer speeds. There is no comparison with Bluetooth. In addition to this, it looks nice, is very easy to use and allows you to transfer data even to Apple products. In general, this is truly a “must have” for any Android device.

    Articles and Lifehacks

    Sometimes you need to increase the capabilities of your mobile device, but that's just it. how to connect a hard drive to a tablet? There are several methods to solve this issue.

    Connection options hard drive to the tablet

    The easiest way is to use a third-party storage device, which can be a flash card or HDD. Most manufacturers equip devices with slots oriented for memory cards. This is basically a microSD card version. Thanks to the use of this function, you can multiply the memory of the device several times. Some tablets have SSD drives, whose memory varies between 64-120 Gb:

    1. However, over time, even this volume turns out to be insufficient for the majority of users. This is why the question arises about installing hard disk. This can be done via USB.

    2. Using a USB cable, you will need to connect the device to the HDD. A message will appear on the screen indicating that the system is preparing for operation.

    3. You can use an OTG cable supplemented with an adapter. But it is worth considering that not all versions of mobile devices can support this cable.

    Ways to connect to tablet hard disk

    If the owner of the mobile computer device doesn’t know how to connect a hard drive to the tablet, then you can use special application and a simple cable. What you need to do in in this case? The third method involves:

    1. Go to Google Play. Here you need to download the Nexus Media Importer application. It is paid and costs about 3 dollars. This software works perfectly on any equipment. Using this program and an ordinary cable, you can connect a drive of any power to the tablet.

    2. Another option involves using the Stick Mount application. However, it is worth considering that this software will only work if the user has root rights to the tablet. In addition, you will need to use a file manager. An excellent solution is Total Commander.

    3. In this situation, it is necessary to create the necessary access and rights for the program. In progress HDD connections A message will appear indicating that the drive was successfully connected. The address will appear. With its help you can find your own data. All that remains is to use the previously downloaded explorer.

    4. The user needs to enter the root folder and go to the address.

    As you can see, there are several effective methods increasing tablet memory with using hard disk. Using any of them does not present any difficulties.

    In the life of almost every owner tablet computer sooner or later there comes a time when he is faced with the question - how to connect the hard drive to the tablet? Despite the fact that the volume in gadgets increases every year, and the availability of a slot microSD format allows you to expand it even more, situations still occur when you need to connect to the device external media data. For example, you downloaded some movies for your trip, but forgot to load them onto your memory card or tablet memory. Or you urgently need to reset some data from a colleague’s hard drive, but you don’t have a laptop or PC at hand. In such cases, we recommend that you use.

    Following the instructions, you can connect the hard drive to the tablet

    How to choose a drive

    By the way, it’s worth saying a few words about how to choose an external hard drive for a tablet. Of course, it is possible, and cards of various formats through a card reader, but best option- connection of a rigid laptop form factor 2.5″ (HDD standard size will also work in most cases, but often they need extra food, so this kind of solution can hardly be called mobile and portable). You can also assemble your own external storage by purchasing separately a 2.5″ pocket and a hard drive or SSD of the required capacity.

    So, the first thing you should do is find out whether your tablet supports working with peripherals using the OTG protocol. If yes, then all you need is to connect the gadget with external storage the appropriate cable and wait a couple of minutes until the system detects that external storage has been added to it. Majority modern devices can do this “out of the box”, for those whose tablets do not have this useful property, there is also a way out, even several.

    Method 1. OTG adapter

    Will need to buy special OTG cable with a built-in appropriate adapter, which will be responsible for transferring data between the tablet and an external drive. After this, connecting the hard drive to the tablet is as easy as shelling pears - the process is no different from the one described above.

    Method 2. Software

    There are two options here - a budget option and one where you have to spend a little money:

    • Purchase in Google Play applications Nexus Media Importer(cost: three dollars). Despite its name, the utility works not only with Nexus-line products. The application takes on the functions of that same OTG adapter and is usually cheaper. In addition, you can lose the adapter or, for example, forget it, but you can always download the utility to an unlimited number of devices - just under your account.
    • A more budget-friendly option is the app StickMount. It is absolutely free, but will require root rights. So, if you are ready to understand the intricacies for the sake of saving getting root(some manufacturers provide this feature out of the box), then this is . After connecting the drive, a message will appear in the notification shade that the device is mounted and accessible via a specific path, most often /sdcard/usbStorage.

    After this, all that remains is to install any ES Commander, one of the GO products or any other, of which there are a huge number in the Google Play store (with varying degrees of functionality).

    We hope that now the question of connecting the HDD to the tablet will not take you by surprise. Expand the memory of your favorite gadgets and stay with us!

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    What you will need

    • Smartphone or tablet to which we want to connect USB storage
    • Removable USB drive
    • USB OTG cable

    The USB On-The-Go cable is an adapter that connects at one end to micro USB smartphone port, and a standard USB port is plugged into the other end removable disk. Cool DIYers can solder it themselves (maybe they will send us instructions with screenshots, we will be happy to publish them), while the rest can go to the Internet or the nearest specialized store and buy such an adapter there for very ridiculous money. This posting actually opens up a lot of possibilities. With its help, you can connect joysticks, keyboards and other devices with a USB interface, as long as your smartphone or tablet understands them.

    On initial stage that's enough. Now we need to find out if ours wants mobile device be friends with removable media without additional manipulations. Smartphones and tablets from the same manufacturers allow you to connect USB drives out of the box. Let's connect and watch. If you were unable to access the storage, then move on.

    Simple option

    If you don’t want to bother, then go to Google Play Store and buy the Nexus Media Importer application there (it works not only with Nexuses) for $3. That's enough.

    If your device is rooted, you won’t have to pay. Download free application StickMount (works only with root) and, at the same time, any file manager, if you don’t have it installed for one reason or another (we like ES Explorer).

    All that remains is to connect removable disk and allow StickMount root access.

    A corresponding message will appear in the notification area stating that the storage has been successfully connected and has the address /sdcard/usbStorage.

    Go to this folder through the file manager and enjoy.

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