OLALA iDisk iPhone Flash Drive Review

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Are you regretting not purchasing an iPhone with more storage? The OLALA iDisk iPhone Flash Drive allows you to move over photos and videos from your iPhone so you can free up more space.

PROs

  • Easy setup: Simply plug this flash drive into the Lightning Port (charging port) of your iPhone, and a message will automatically pop-up, linking you to the “iDisk Me” app in the App Store. Download this app and you can begin using the flash drive. Any time you connect the flash drive in the future, a message will automatically pop-up, asking if you want to allow the app to load, which is very convenient!
  • Backup your photos: Once in the iDisk app, you can tap photo icon, switch the top dropdown to “iPhone Album”, give the app permission to access your photos when prompted, then you can begin selecting your photos and copying them to the drive.
  • Playback videos and photos from your computer: You can also connect this flash drive to your computer like a regular flash drive by using the supplied cable. Drag photos and movies onto it, then eject the flash drive and connect it to your iPhone. You can then view the photos and movies you just copied. This is a great way to load up some shows or movies to watch during a long flight, without taking up space on your iPhone. Just remember that videos would need to be in a format that the iPhone can play (DRM-protected movies from iTunes is not supported unfortunately).
  • Document access: You can copy PDF files to the flash drive and view them in the app, which is handy for catching up on your eBooks.
  • USB 3.0: Files transfers are fast when connected to your computer thanks to the USB 3.0 connector.
  • 64GB of storage: This gives you plenty of room for your photos (more than 10,000 photos in many cases).

CONs

  • Video playback size: Oddly, videos will not play full screen. Tapping what looks like the “full screen” icon instead narrows the video with large black borders on the left and right. Hopefully this can be corrected in a future app update.
  • Snug connector: The Lightning connector on this drive is not raised up from the rest of the drive, so this likely won’t work with many cases. The case on my iPhone in the video is one of Amazon Basic’s TPU cases. It is very open on the bottom and can be flexed to allow the Lightning connector to be inserted fully.

One thing to note: you’ll notice the term “In-App Storage” while using the iDisk app.  Due to the way iOS’ sandboxing works, apps have their own storage containers that are separate from the rest of the phone.  So, for example, if you copy over a music file, it will still inside the iDisk app and will not show up in the iPhone’s Music app.  This is not an issue with the OLALA flash drive, it’s just the way the iOS environment works.

Overall, I really like that this devices opens the app (or offers to install it) when you connect it to your iPhone. It’s an easy way to backup and offload your photos and videos from your phone.

Check out the OLALA iPhone Flash Drive on Amazon

— Sample provided for review

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