Transfer Photos from iPhone to PC – Easy and Automated

iCloud is the default way to store your photos from your Apple device to another location. Once the files are in your iCloud account, you can log in and download those images to your computer.

However, many users do not use iCloud and are looking for an alternative. Here is an option that is easy, automatic, and far less expensive than maintaining an iCloud subscription.

The Qubii Pro is a backup device that works while you charge your phone. There is nothing to configure and no settings to manage. The Qubii Pro holds a microSD card for storage and connects between your iPhone cable and your charging block.

Photo and video transfer from your iPhone to storage happens automatically. Qubii scans your photo and video library and backs up any file not already present on the microSD card. The first backup can take a while because everything must be copied. The total time depends on how many photos and videos you have. On future connections, only new files are backed up.

Since most people charge their phones overnight, the backup process happens without disrupting normal usage.

Apple provides 5GB of free iCloud storage, but that space fills up quickly with high-resolution photos and video. As shown below, iCloud pricing seems inexpensive at first, but the monthly cost increases as storage needs grow.

• Free: 5GB of storage per iCloud account (not per device)
• $0.99/month: 50GB of storage (single user)
• $2.99/month: 200GB of storage (family use)
• $9.99/month: 2TB of storage (family use)
• Apple One Family plan ($22.95/month) includes 200GB of iCloud storage
• Apple One Premier plan ($32.95/month) includes 2TB of iCloud storage

Apple does a very good job of encouraging users to upgrade storage plans, so there is a high likelihood that monthly costs will exceed $20 USD over time (based on pricing in 2023).

There are a few important limitations to understand with Qubii:

• You cannot choose specific photos or videos to back up; everything is included
• If a file is deleted from the microSD card but still exists on your phone, it will be backed up again
• The solution backs up photos and videos only, not contacts or documents
• If you replace the microSD card, the entire backup process starts over

The last point above is important.

Is it worth buying a USB 3.1 USB flash drive?

The tech industry, tech nerds and tech blogs will definitely say that buying a USB 3.1 flash drive is worth it. After all, these blogs need something new to write about and new links to generate for affiliate advertising, but are these blogs reporting back valuable information before someone spends their hard earned cash?

Let us compare the write speed difference between a USB 3.1 flash drive and a USB 3.0 flash drive to see what information we can uncover.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) has different transfer speeds based on the version of technology, we did a write about that earlier. The USB 3.1 specification has a transfer rate which taps out at 1,250 MB/second (Megabytes per second). The USB 3.0 specification has a transfer rate which taps out at 625MB/second. Of course this is the theoretical maximum transfer speed. When anyone says “theoretical transfer speed” they are implicating all conditions are ideal. For example, the host computer has the horsepower and bandwidth to push that much data and the receiving device (in this case, flash drive) has equal throughput to receive that data. But is that the real world – is it worth buying a USB 3.1 USB flash drive?

Below are some images and here is the general order of what you will be reading:

• Screen shots of the USB device type (USB 3.0 and USB 3.1)
• Screen shots of benchmark software testing both USB technologies
• Screen shots of a real-world copy jobs using a Windows computer

From the screen shots below you can see a USB 3.0 flash drive and USB 3.1 flash drive. Both flash drives use an SMI controller for the USB 3.0 and 3.1 technology. These are the same high quality and higher performance controllers seen in iPhones and NAND memory used from Micron Technology. The NAND memory type is MLC (multi-layer cell memory) is slower than SLC NAND memory (single layer cell). Note: USB flash drives do not use SLC memory because the NAND memory price is too expensive and the SLC supply is very small. Flash drives are produced at mass scale and meant to be a low cost data transfer and storage tools – speed is not the #1 priority, despit all the marketing we read online.

Here are benchmark speed tests for both USB devices in discussion today.

The program has two test settings for benchmarking a speed test. One test setting is for the theoretical maximum speed of the device and writes data directly to memory without accounting for operating system and device overhead for were the data is stored. Think of this as a random write test to any available sector on the flash drive.

The second test setting is a write sequence which includes the operating system and device overhead cache for placing files in the file allocation table. This means extra time is spend during the data transfer to log where each sector is written along with the calculation required to write the next bit of data. This second test setting is more like a real-world experience.

Speed benchmark software is designed to provide a relatively quick summary of the device capability. So the first test setting is designed to show the theoretical maximum write speed or “burst” write speed. The second test setting is designed to show a more “sustained” write speed. Any benchmark software is designed to provide a quick and easy snap-shot of what the device can do – but can the device do it?

Readers can download the USB Scrub software for speed benchmarking their flash drives. The software is 100% free, no installation or sign-ups, and includes other cool features like registry cleaning and making image files of flash drives. USB Scrub download link