Flash Media Storage

The iPad Camera Connection Kit lets you connect your iPad to SD cards and to storage devices that use a USB port, like thumb drives or card readers. While the kit is limited in its functionality, you can use it to transfer photos and videos stored on flash media onto the iPad. After you fill your iPad with transferred files, you have to delete some to make room for more. As such, a thumb drive doesn't truly give your iPad extra storage, but it does let you access extra information in small chunks at a time. In fact, it's a lot like a DVD player -- you can have as many DVDs as you want in your library, but you can only load one in the player at a time. If you want to watch a different one, you have to take one out.

Network-Attached Storage

Network-attached storage devices are external hard drives that connect to a local network instead of connecting directly to a computer. Some NAS drives come with Web servers that let you use an iPad to download data from them through the Web browser. Others even support special apps that let you connect to them. To use NAS drives with your iPad, you usually need a network or Internet connection, though.

Cloud Storage

Although using cloud storage isn't technically the same thing as connecting a hard drive to your iPad, it has the same effect. Cloud storage apps like Google Drive, Dropbox and iCloud all let you connect to an external hard drive stored in a server farm from your iPad. The drive may be virtual, but the additional storage is real.

Content Sharing and Storage

Many sites on the Web either store or provide content for you. Using them lets you reduce the amount of content you need to store on your iPad, saving space for something else. For example, instead of filling your iPad with photos, you could upload them to Flickr, Facebook Photos or Instagram. Spotify and Pandora make good alternatives to loading music, and a subscription to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus can reduce the amount of video you need to store.