Wireless Flash Drive

Product Description

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Drive provides an easy way to wirelessly store and stream your favorite high-definition movies, videos, and music on up to 8 tablet and smartphone connections–including 5 different HD movies simultaneously. This pocket-sized device is designed for convenience and portability, allowing you to enjoy the freedom without Internet connections, cables, or connectors; plus, up to 8 continuous streaming hours on a single charge. The Wireless Media Drive is the perfect companion for road warriors or parents who need to keep their kids' movies and videos ready to go. The added SDHC /SDXC slot allows you to store or share more of your content or high-quality photos for instant viewing from your camera's memory card. 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage less. Based on streaming 720p content at 2mbps to one device; actual life and performance may vary depending upon usage and settings; battery not replaceable. HD (1280x720) video support may vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors. SD Card sold separately. See system requirements.

Features

• Wirelessly store, share, stream movies, photos, music, and documents across your smartphones, tablets and computers
• Simultaneously connect & access data stored on up to 8 devices via Wi-Fi
• No internet connection, cables or router required, works on all Wi-Fi enabled devices
• Up to 4 hours of video streaming on a single charge
• Access with free app, compatible with iOS 5.0 or later, Android 2.3 or later and Kindle devices
• Access with internet browser, compatible with all Wi-Fi enabled devices
• Optional Wi-Fi password protection and 128-bit AES encryption
• Charging and accessing with USB 2.0 connection interface or higher

Top Reviews

Great design, but file compression may be an issue for photographers
by John Kupersmith (3 out of 5 stars)
April 15, 2014

I bought this drive for storage of JPG landscape photos on long road trips where cloud storage and computer access would not be available. The plan was first to put the photos on my iPad for editing, then upload them to the drive as a backup.

The Media Drive is a beautifully designed product, and it worked very well with both an iPad Air and iPhone 5C. The companion Sandisk iOS app makes it easy to browse photos on both devices, and uploading photos to the drive via its wireless connection is easy and relatively fast. When connected to my Mac with a USB cable, the drive appears on my desktop, making it easy to transfer and manage files.

There is only one (unchangeable) default destination folder on the drive for uploaded photos, but it also accepts an SD card, with its own default destination folder. The Sandisk app lets you choose whether photos go to the drive or the card. This makes it easy to use it as backup for both myself and my wife, without getting our photos mixed up. I had no problem using a 32GB SD card for this.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, it turns out that the drive automatically reduces each photo to 2048 pixels wide when they are uploaded to it. This may have been intended to maximize the number of photos the drive can store, but it does cause a loss of resolution and image quality. There is no way to turn off this compression.

Sandisk tech support confirms that this is a "known issue" and their development team is "working on it". Let's hope that a future firmware update will let the drive maintain the original file sizes and quality. As it stands, though, photographers should be aware of this issue when considering the product.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Drive failed- Twice!
by E. Manning (1 out of 5 stars)
September 4, 2018

I bought this a few years ago, it worked for a while until the drive failed. I thought the price was good enough to tolerate the mediocre lifespan, and the kids liked it enough to buy a replacement.

The replacement just died on me after only a couple months. We used it maybe 10 times, tops.

Both times: "Cannot Access Media Drive while it is plugged in to USB" even though it is not plugged in.

Both times, it fails to be recognized when I do try to plug it in...

And of course, SanDisk support is "Try X, try Y, try Z... if these fail, the disk is non-functional"

So, now, i've bought two of these, both are non-functional. With no recourse.

Shame on me, I thought I was buying something that wasn't junk. Turns out this is junk.

Here's my caveat to you:

I did get 3 years out of the first one. I guess that's ok.

The second one... 10 weeks. That is not ok.
↭ 🍁 ↭
You pay for return shipping
by ShuQueen (1 out of 5 stars)
January 3, 2019

If this doesn't work out for you, even if the reason for the return is that the product is defective, you have to pay for return shipping and amazon will not help you with it because this is purchased from a 3rd party seller. This product did not work out for use with my iPhone 8. I called San disk tech support and they couldn't help me to get it to work. All steps were followed but this just didn't do what it's supposed to do. I've returned it and unfortunately I had to pay for return shipping.
↭ 🍁 ↭
A Little Wonder
by L. M Young (5 out of 5 stars)
May 12, 2014

This is an initial review of this nifty little flash drive. I have had it for five days and am totally satisfied with its performance. I first charged it up, using a USB-enabled electrical plug rather than attaching it to a computer. As I was charging the Wireless USB, I downloaded the app. I then tested it by transferring one music file to the USB drive via my computer. I pressed the button to turn the wifi on, then connected through the app, and successfully played the music file through the app. I then copied the remainder of my music files to the wireless USB. I also successfully renamed the unit. I have been using it extensively today to play music. At one point I had to leave my desk to deliver a file and did not shut the wireless off. I found I could receive the signal from the wireless USB drive from at least a distance of 52 feet, through several walls! Since my cell phone doesn't do anywhere near as well, I was impressed. :-)

The app is rather simple and a bit clunky (I wish the lettering on the files was smaller so I could see the longer names of some offerings), but it works.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Product Does Not Work With IOS 8
by KEC (1 out of 5 stars)
December 27, 2014

BEWARE! I received this product as a Christmas gift from my wife. I was very excited about the potential of streaming iTunes movies. After loading a movie and trying to watch it on an iPad Air 2, I was totally discouraged. The movie hung up and would not play. After doing a great deal of research into the problem, it appears that the product will work with IOS 6 & 7 but not IOS 8. There is a SanDisk Forum thread that goes back to September of 2014 that identifies the issue and shows that neither SanDisk or Apple seems interested in solving the problem. (See http://forums.sands.com/t5/SanDisk-Connect-Wireless-Media/IOS-8-Problems/td-p/33220) Until Apple and SanDisk resolve this issue you will be wasting you money if your objective is to stream iTunes movies and you are using an Apple device with IOS 8.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Great, does NOT need WIFI to watch movies once setup.
by shanni (5 out of 5 stars)
August 26, 2014

This was a great purchase. I recommend this to all our friends and family. You do not need WIFI to watch the shows/movies etc. You do need to set it up on WIFI, download the content (movies, shows ,music, etc.)you want on WIFI. Once setup this little SanDisk emits a WIFI signal that you connect your device too, apple or android. You will need to download the SanDisk app on your device. Be sure to download the correct one. If your still not sure how this thing works go to YouTube, that is were we got our info.

We have yet to get music on here to play, we have only tried a couple times.

We have had 4 people connected to this device watching 3 different movies, 1 of the movie's 2 people were watching the same movie on different devices with no lag. I am not sure of the signal strength. We used it on a plane and our oldest was at least 10 feet away, with no problems

There are different GB sizes of SanDisk you can buy and different levels of the number of connectable devices ex: 5 devices, 10 devices etc.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Middling good, quirky, requires some patience to use
by David Menefee Jr (3 out of 5 stars)
January 18, 2019

I bought this to offload my extensive library of PDFs and epub books from my (somewhat dated) iPad Pro. My goal was to be able to access the books without tying up my lightning connector (thus, none of the flash drive options work for me). To an extent, this device meets my requirements, but with a number of caveats.

Reliability: when it works, it's great, but so often it ends up in a weird state: the WiFi won't start, or you cannot connect to it, or it gets 'stuck' and requires a hard reset. It seems that the firmware is very 'alpha'; the developers clearly didn't test it thoroughly in the most common usability conditions (coffee shops, multiple WiFi environments, entering/leaving a hot spot zone, multiple states of connectivity, etc). So if you buy one of these, expect to restart it many times before it 'settles' into a functional state.

Usability: as far as storage management is concerned, the supplied app basic but functional. The device itself does not (AFAIK) provide a Webdav service, by the way; it provides a somewhat buggy FTP server, one which gives PDF Expert (one of my favorite PDF readers) conniptions under certain circumstances, but is not problematic for other apps (such as File Browser). However, when I'm at home, I can usually count on it being available for me to read books from my iPad Pro, and when I'm away from home and my iPad has a celluar connection, I can do so there, too.

Expandability: I've plugged in a SanDisk 128GB Ultra UHS-I Class 10 SDXC Memory Card, which gives a combined storage capacity of 160Gb. It's more than enough for my foreseeable needs.

Performance: books load somewhat slowly; I think the WiFi performance of the Media drive is not all that good, but it's adequate for my needs. I do sometimes find myself drumming my fingers waiting for a book to load, so I'm grateful for the caching provided by PDF Expert and File Browser.

Summary: This is probably a middle-of-the-road solution for wireless media in a mobile application. There may be better devices (and the prices are reasonable for some of those), but until this one bites the dust I'm going to keep using it.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Beware this piece of junk
by Buster Florida (1 out of 5 stars)
May 20, 2019

Impossible to configure, never once did I get the third light on. It creates an open network too, if things weren't bad enough, and just how old is this that it has a complicated firmware update that needs to be connected to a computer and copy and pasted to work and to make matters worse the update is from 2013. The Android app is flaky and confusing and drops out. At one point it was able to connect and I saw some videos saying you don't need wifi or internet to use it. Oh yeah well it's so confusing that they don't tell you how to set it up, Do you connect to it's open site on your phone and lose internet? Then you try the app and it tries to connect do you connect it to it's own network or to your network now and does it keep spinning looking for something or are you supposed to connect it yourself and put in your password, I spent hours because I wanted it to work but it's too much of a hassle and too complicated. At one point it did connect to something only to find it was the phone itself and the files already on it, but if you switch to local on the Sandisk it won't find it.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Reliable, useful, works like a charm
by LN (5 out of 5 stars)
April 17, 2018

When I travel, I like using an actual camera, not just my cellphone. I use an iPad to update my blog, with pictures. Getting the pix to the iPad, which doesn't have an SD card slot, is a problem without something like this. I used to use an Airstash, which I loved, but I lost it and they aren't made anymore. So I looked for another solution and found this. It works like a charm. I insert the SD card from my camera into it, turn it on to get the wifi network going, connect the iPad to it via wifi, then view and download the photos I want to use to the iPad.

I know that others would want to use it to store movies and such to view, and based on how easy it was to establish the wifi connection, I would say it would work perfectly for that, or to back up files, or pretty much anything else. It will reside in my travel electronics case so I always have it when I'm on the road.

In addition, it's small and compact, with no bits that stick out to catch on other things, so I think it will last quite awhile with decent care.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Some tips to a great storage sandisk for your Iphone
by Onifer76 (5 out of 5 stars)
August 4, 2015

Sandisk wifi connect is great. I am always filling up my iphones space and this helps give me more storage. To get you started, make sure you read the instructions. I know it sucks but if you start the right way you will not have issues. To give you some help, you first charge the stick.(you should also download the sandisk app so everything works properly). Next is you want to hold the wifi silver button until a blue and an orange light blinks quickly. Then you should see a blue blinking light that blinks every 10 seconds are so. Then go to your iphone and go to wifi and find the scan disk and connect to it. Make sure to open the app and it should show your are connected.(you should also see an option in the app to download an firmware update to fix some problems people were having in the past. Download it.) To send your photos to the sandisk click the icon that looks like a computer mouse. It will then ask you want you want to load to it. Can you delete your photos in your phone after? Yes and it frees up storage. Can I load the photos back to my phone from the sandisk? Yes, just reconnect to it and choose what you want to send back. Just make sure before you delete any photos that they are actually stored in the sandisk. Please rate I was helpful below.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Not Android-Friendly, but Attractive Package if You Want to Invest a LOT of Effort for What Should b
by J. Ryan (1 out of 5 stars)
February 27, 2015

Clever idea in an attractive little package. Unfortunately, this is NOT android-friendly, even with most recent firmware update loaded. From an android device, it is not possible to create folders on the media drive. For example, when copying photos from an android device to the media drive using the sandisk app, it is only possible to copy the photos to the "media drive upload" folder, meaning that all photos are copied into the same generic folder without the possibility to copy them directly into albums, or to create new albums. After several tech support queries using the on-line message system, which is also not user friendly, I received a personalized answer from a technical support agent rather than what appeared to be computer-generated, templated responses. The agent instructed me to open the "photos" icon on the app and look for a "+" icon, which would allow me to choose the album I wanted to use or create new albums. When I replied that there is no "+" on my app, he offered to call for more personalized support, for which I was very grateful. However, none of the solutions he was proposing were available on the app that I had loaded from the Play store. The reason, it turns out, is because this option is ONLY available when copying from an iOS device, not an android device. In other words, iOS users are able to fully customize the locations of copied media, but android users can only pile their photos into a single folder, which means that it will be challenging and time consuming to find any particular photo among thousands of photos in a single file. This is not at all useful to me, and I can't imagine that this could be useful to anyone.

There is a work-around, however, but it is tedious, time-consuming and not at all preferred. This is how it can be done:
1) Choose the sandisk wifi signal on your computer.
2) Open the sandisk media drive on your computer by searching for the drive's URL in a browser window (see documentation for this URL).
3) Open the "Files" folder.
4) Create new folders using whatever names desired here.
5) Disconnect the computer from the media drive WiFi; Connect the android device to the media drive WiFi.
6) Upload desired photos to the media drive, which will be copied by default into the "media drive upload" folder.
7) Open the "media drive upload" folder; Select those pictures that should be moved to a different album.
8) With those pictures selected, open the "share" menu. Scroll to the bottom of the menu and choose "copy."
9) Back out of the "media drive upload" folder, to return to the main media drive menu.
10) Choose the "files" icon on the main media drive menu.
11) Open the newly created folder, which should be empty.
12) Use the options menu which is now visible on the lower right corner (the icon with three dots). Choose the "paste" option. Pictures will be pasted into this folder.
13) Back out of the files menu and back to the main application menu.
14) Choose the Photos icon and choose the generic file, "media drive upload."
15) Select those photos that you have just copied and pasted into the new folder.
16) Select the trash icon at the lower right side of the screen to discard those files, to eliminate picture duplicates.

Thats a lot of work, but it is a hack that does work, if you want to work that hard. I personally don't want to and don't think I should support a company that believes the whole world should own an apple product. The tech support agent said he would convey this limitation to the engineers, suggesting that this capability for android devices may be built into subsequent firmware upgrades. I had mixed reaction from this. On the one hand, it was a nice thing to say. On the other hand: 1) Not likely to happen in the near future, meaning I wouldn't benefit; and 2) He seemed to have already been aware that there were limitations to using the wireless media drive on an android device, so how meaningful was this offer anyway.

I will investigate the Toshiba Toshiba Canvio AeroMobile Wireless SSD (HDTQ112XCWF1) which seems to be a more capable solution, based on the internet pass-though mode and what is described as "broad compatibility" for devices with different OS'.

*If this is not the "Wireless Flash Drive" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link.  Details were last updated on Apr 11, 2024 01:31 +08.