Western Digital recently introduced its new SanDisk-branded backup product for iOS devices, SanDisk iExpand Base, which combines overnight charge with backup to create a simple and intuitive way to protect your data.
Placing the iXpand base on your nightstand, plugging it into the wall, and then plugging your iPhone into the Lightning port at night. It charges the iPhone and allows you to transfer your photos, videos and contacts to the base for back-up purposes
Design
The iXpand base is a palm-sized tapered surface designed to serve as a platform of sorts for your iPhone to rest on while charging at night. The bottom of the base is made of aluminum, while the top is covered in a soft, textured rubber material that keeps the iPhone securely on its surface.
On the back, there’s an SD card slot that houses an SD card where your backups are stored, and a micro USB cable that connects to a plug that powers the base.
At the bottom, there is a place for a Lightning cable to plug into the USB-A side, and you will need to supply your own Lightning cable with this product. Once set up, the Lightning cable plugs into your iPhone and automatically initiates a backup upon connection if the accompanying SanDisk iXpand Base app is installed.
Design-wise, I’m not sure what to say about the iXpand base. It’s just a flat, slightly tapered surface where your iPhone sits. It’s not much to look at and doesn’t add any utility to the iPhone — I would have liked to see a dock-style design for a cleaner look and better nightstand functionality.
It doesn’t take up more space than my iPhone 7 Plus on my bedside table (though it’s wider), but it looks messy with the white Lightning cable attached to the black cord on the back of the device.
Backing up
When you have the SanDisk app installed, as soon as you plug the iXpand base into your iPhone, it will start a backup and start charging the phone at the same time.
The backup feature scans your last backup, adds new photos and videos, and ensures that you have a full resolution copy of your photos, videos, and contacts.
Unfortunately, the iXpand base cannot be used when it is not plugged into a power source. So if you want to take it on the go to use as a portable storage solution without a charging component, that’s not possible because it can’t draw power from the iPhone.
An iPhone will simply connect to the base and start backing up when the base is plugged into the wall, rendering it useless without power.
If you connect a microUSB to USB-A cable to the base’s microUSB port, you can connect it to your computer to view files stored on it and add additional files, but SanDisk doesn’t provide one of these cables. The base does not connect to the iPhone when plugged into a computer. Files are transferred to a computer at USB 2.0 speeds.
Alternatively, you can remove the SD card from the iXpand base and stick it into your computer’s SD card slot if your computer has an SD card. The SD card is difficult to remove from the base, though, and many modern Macs don’t have an SD card slot anyway.
App
The iXpand Base app can back up your iPhone as soon as it’s plugged into the base at night, which is a useful feature. Once it is installed and an initial backup is complete, subsequent backups will occur without any interaction on your part
Just plug it in at night and the app starts the backup process. You’ll see a banner on your iPhone letting you know it’s running.
The app itself is bare bones. You can sync photos, videos, and contacts to your phone using the backup feature, but there’s no option to sync individual files or photos from the iPhone to the base.
The first time I synced my photo library, it took about 20 minutes, but each nightly backup was much faster. Restoring my backed up photo library to another phone was easy to do in the app’s settings section, but transferring files took a while.
In addition to storing your photos, videos and contacts, the iXpand Base app can be used to view, share and manage them, but only when your iPhone is plugged into the base and the base is plugged into power.
At some point during the testing process, the iXpand app duplicated several of my photos. I’m not sure what went wrong, but having duplicates in my backups is a huge hassle because they have to be manually deleted and they take up twice as much storage space.
I have a 128GB iPhone and 128GB iXpand base and it does a full photo/video backup so you should buy a capacity that matches how much data you have on your phone. SanDisk sells them in 32, 64, 128, and 256GB capacities. There is multi-user support, so with greater capacity, multiple iPhones can be backed up.
bottom line
The SanDisk Base is a clever concept, but I felt it could have been implemented in better ways, especially at its $50-$200 price point. Not being able to connect my iPhone to the base to view my files when not plugged in is inconvenient
In terms of design, the flat puck on the base feels like a lazy choice. The base doesn’t offer any convenience for placing the iPhone on a nightstand, and since I have to supply my own Lightning cable, it’s no longer convenient or stylish. I think this idea would have worked better with a dock style stand that allows the iPhone to sit in an upright position, and given the shape of the base, it seems like components could be built into that form factor.
While I like the idea of being able to back up my iPhone automatically without having to think about it, I don’t think it’s a better solution than the smaller iXpand Lightning/USB Flash Drives SanDisk offers or similar products from other companies. They’re more affordable, portable, and offer more functionality because they have both Lightning and USB-A connectors, making it easy to transfer files between devices.
If you want an effortless table top backup solution that nothing else does, iXpand Base will deliver, but you can get more for your money with other backup and file transfer products.
If you like the look and function of the iXpand base, it’s worth noting that it supports swappable SD cards. I’m not sure why anyone would buy anything other than the lowest power version. It’s cheaper to buy a standalone SD card and swap it out than to buy one of the higher capacity models
How to buy
The iXpand base can be purchased from the SanDisk website. The 32GB model costs $49.99, the 64GB model costs $99.99, the 128GB model costs $129.99, and the 256GB model costs $199.99.
Note: SanDisk provided MacRumors with a 128GB iXpand Base for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.
