If you don’t know how to connect an HDD to a smartphone, we are going to help you out. In the past, mobile devices did not have wireless connections such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so it was quite complicated to manage all those files we had. However, with the arrival of new smartphones and cloud services, these problems are solved.
However, there is still something that many users are completely unaware of, it is possible to connect an HDD to a smartphone if you ever need it.
USB OTGs are key devices for Android smartphones
With the arrival of the Android 3.1 Honeycomb, the system integrated native support for OTG for the first time. But what is it really? This technology, which is also known as USB On The Go, is basically an extension of USB 2.0 that allows these devices to have more capacity.
Therefore, before connecting our smartphone to this peripheral, we must check if our device is compatible with OTG technology (On The Go).
In addition, this extension will not only allow us to link the smartphone with this external hard drive but also offers us the possibility of connecting a keyboard, mouse, and other devices to the port of our mobile phone.
A few years ago, when all Android phones had the famous MicroUSB it was necessarily mandatory to have an adapter, to attach our terminal to the peripheral. In some cases, even smartphone companies included this accessory in the box of their smartphones.
But, everything changed with the arrival of the USB Type-C, with which we left aside the need for an adapter, thanks to the fact that both smartphones and peripherals can make use of OTG technology.
How to connect an HDD to a smartphone?
After you have verified that your mobile device is fully OTG compatible, you will have to get an adapter that allows you to connect the external memory, it can be either Micro USB or USB Type C.
When looking at the OTG cable you have to make sure that one end has a female connector and the other end has a MicroUSB or USB Type C connector.
Then we simply need to connect our smartphone to the HDD, we can explore all the files it has. Keep in mind that you can copy your files using a file explorer application.